The RegenNarration

Next up is the late Professor Frank Fisher, pioneering systems thinker and Australia’s Inaugural Environmental Educator of the Year. This interview gives a sense of what made Frank such a highly respected figure. There's a grounded humanity and possibility in how he talks, and how he lived. The title of his anthology, ‘Response Ability’, conveys this message succinctly - that the changes we need are within our reach.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Dr Michelle Maloney is the national convenor and co-founder of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance, and the developing New Economy Network Australia. Both are strongly connected with fast-growing global movements, and a burgeoning mix of initiatives on the ground. All this has inspired a rapidly growing convergence on the 2nd New Economy conference coming up in Brisbane in September, to formalise the network and its strategies for regenerating the systems and stories we live by. Hear Michelle talk about who's involved, what it's aiming to achieve, how you can get involved, and why it matters. It’s no secret that there is mass disenchantment with our economic and governance systems. And there is an extraordinary range and number of people and organisations around the world working to harness this towards positive change. Michelle explains that Australia is no exception. “At its nub, what [we’re] talking about is shifting the underpinning structures that support industrial society away from destruction, and towards sustaining, nurturing and restoring life.”Thousands of people and groups are working at the new economy in one form or another in Australia. But unlike a lot of other places around the world, there has been no over-arching means of connecting and developing the movement. There have been pockets of work on the new economy everywhere, but nothing to stitch them together. “We’ve got all the pockets, we’ve got pockets galore. And we want to grow that, and amplify that …. But at the macro level, the systems change … perhaps [that’s where] this network will have an opportunity to really break some new ground…. [To shift] not just pockets of activity in a local area but the systems that connect them.”Michelle emphasises that this isn’t just for people working in this space already. This is for anyone who wants to be part of the network’s important work. And the music she chooses for us to end this podcast will leave you in no doubt that when she describes the upcoming conference as a ‘grass roots economics fiesta’, she means it!MIchelle joins Anthony online from her home in Brisbane.Production by Ben Moore & Anthony James.Music:Let Them Know, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.43, by Owls of the Swamp.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:The New Economy Network Australia .The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA).On Dr Michelle Maloney.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Next up is Dr Michelle Maloney, national convenor of the New Economy Network Australia & the Australian Earth Laws Alliance. Hear about these fast-growing networks, the upcoming 'new economy fiesta' (aka the Building a New Economy for Australia Conference, 1-3 September), and the potential in all this for helping us transition to a just, sustainable & flourishing society.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Kate Raworth is one of the world's most brilliant and needed systems thinkers. Her new book 'Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist' is already a best-seller and has been described by George Monbiot as 'brilliant, thrilling and revolutionary'. Tim Jackson, the author of Prosperity Without Growth, says it ‘reclaims economics from the dust of academia.’ Indeed, Kate initially walked away from economics due to the disconnect between how it was being taught, and today’s ‘real world’ concerns. This book is the synthesis of her work since she felt compelled to return to the field, having recognised it as the ‘mother tongue’ of modern society. Kate's experience mirrors that of an increasing number of people in this regard, including myself. So it was great to have an opportunity to speak with her about how her doughnut – yes, of all things - can help us rethink and recreate our economic system for today’s world – to leave no one languishing in the hole, while keeping planetary boundaries safely intact. This isn’t just for economists. It’s for all of us. It’s about how we live and organise ourselves – and ultimately how we get to the heart of creating the world we’d rather see. And Kate’s art is not just how to think about this stuff, it’s how to communicate it. In literally re-drawing economics for the 21st century, Kate is asking us to engage with how people make sense of things, and by extension how we can make new sense of things. “I realised, when it comes to mindset, how powerful pictures are…. Far more than we give them credit for, they shape the way we think.”All this gets to the heart of system change - shifting the mindset and the very goals of the system. Though in this case, we’re not so much charged with shifting goals as, tellingly, creating one – to go beyond growth and GDP as proxies for society’s progress, to tracking what’s actually important to us. “We have an economy that needs to grow, whether or not it makes us thrive. We need an economy that makes us thrive, whether or not it grows.”So if the doughnut is the goal, how do we get there? Kate offers a kind of map. And hearing about her interactions with mainstream institutions, and the many ways people of all walks can and are driving this change, feeds a sense of something significant happening here. Production by Ben Moore & Anthony James.Music:Let Them Know, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra43, by Owls of the Swamp Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Kate’s website (including how to buy her book).Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Here's a preview of our next guest, Kate Raworth. She is one of the world's most brilliant and needed systems thinkers. Her new book 'Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist' is already a best-seller and has been described by George Monbiot as 'brilliant, thrilling and revolutionary'.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Trevor Meier is an award-winning documentary film-maker, photographer, and story-teller. His latest film, ‘A New Economy’, has been a popular feature on the global festival circuit, including nationally in Australia as part of the Transitions Film Festival. It’s a terrific documentary - much-needed, beautifully produced, and featuring a range of insightful people and projects to fire our imaginations, open our view of the world, and sure up our courage to experiment with new ways of doing things. As Trevor explains, this isn’t a movie about the economic crisis we’re in – it’s about going beyond the crisis. It’s about what comes next, or perhaps better said, what is currently coming next. Our first guest on this podcast, Capital Institute founder John Fullerton, features in the film.  And like John, Trevor has observed hundreds of projects happening on the ground to build a new economy – they considered 600 for this film alone!Speaking with Trevor affirms a sense of possibility in the world, one grounded in the reality we might not commonly see unfolding on daily media. He also talks tellingly about his biggest regret of the film, and the liberating nature of the work he does, connecting with the best of what makes us human – notwithstanding, or even because of, the challenges involved. Production by Ben Moore & Anthony James.Music:Let Them Know, by the Public Opinion Afro OrchestraEverything Always Moving, by AU4Find more:Trevor’s website.A New Economy film website.A New Economy most recently opened the Adelaide Transitions Film Festival on Friday 19 May 2017.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Welcome to our first episode, featuring an extensive, personal and inspiring conversation between host Anthony James and John Fullerton, the former Wall Street executive who became the founding President of The Capital Institute, a non-profit organisation working to change our 'broken' economic and financial systems. John’s a former Managing Director of 'the old' JP Morgan, as he puts it, and now founding President of the Capital Institute, a non-profit organisation in the US dedicated to bringing about new, regenerative economic and financial systems. Given these systems are fundamental to the civilisational crisis we find ourselves in, and therefore how we need to deal with it, this is vital work, and a revealing conversation. John’s work draws deeply on systems thinking, a broad range of other contemporary and ancient schools of thought, and a range of ‘real world’ case studies, impact investing and other experiments on the ground. All this features in his extensive speaking and writing, including in his white paper, Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy.Production by Ben Moore & Anthony James. Pre-production with Mati Edwards.Music:Let Them Know, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra43, by Owls of the SwampDue to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Capital Institute.John's White Paper, 'Regenerative Capitalism: How universal principles and patterns will shape our new economy'.The film 'A New Economy', featuring John Fullerton, opens the Adelaide Transitions Film Festival on Friday 19 May 2017.Note: Bendigo Bank CEO, Mike Hirst, tells us the $40m John makes mention of in this podcast, that the bank has returned to communities, is actually $165m (at the time of this program), not including shareholder returns and the spend of branches on wages and so on.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!