The Swedish Sustainable Economy Foundation

Established in 1995, the Foundation’s purpose  is to offer systemic approaches and solutions to the challenge of developing society in a sustainable way. The Foundation develops and supports the development of these solutions mainly in the areas of ecology, economy and work.

The Foundation was invited to participate in a workshop initiated by the Nordic Council of Ministers on flexible emissions fees at the Royal College of Technology, Stockholm the 15th September, 2011. The work to develop the fee system comes from the Foundation’s urgent reaction to the understanding that, as Professor Tim Jackson points out, the [...]

The economic system we have is incapable of delivering the transition to a zero or negative carbon system we need, says professor Tim Jackson.
The system pulls economic resources through the system.  If we not buy the system crashes, but if it continues we are in debt with a degraded environment. This is about  people being [...]

There are plenty of resources around. And there is much we can do to use them to handle the current crisis. But the strategy of saving is actually a strategy of waste. Stopping spending, having people unemployed and not investing is a waste of the real resources we have.
We await the new”Story of”  film with [...]

The debate is hotting up in England,  as resistance to wind power is growing, amidst the coalition’s aim “to be the greenest government ever”. At the same time, the percentage of people’s spending on energy is rising. Some one in six are now “energy poor”, spending more than 10% of their budget on energy.
If green energy investment [...]

We are facing a dilemma: on the one hand we need to continue to ensure that our economy is sound, preferably with continued growth in the economy and increase in prosperity. On the other hand we need to transition our economic activities into a mode that halts climate system disruption, ensures precious elements like nitrogen [...]

In the UK newspaper, the Guardian, Damian Carrington writes:
…a perfect storm of water, food and energy crises and has arrived two decades sooner than even the most sober analysts expected. And while the Middle East is the first region to feel the wrath of that storm, across the world warning signs are flashing – from the sinking [...]

How can a system that drives depletion of our seas be good for us? Surely a good economic system ensures we do not remove all fish from our seas? What has gone wrong? Why is the so-called market creating a perception of value that drives  a voracious market for fishing or worse….. waste of fish?
Read [...]

A well-written article in the Guardian echos the Foundation’s views: waste is a resource and it is a crying shame that the present system encourages accumulation of waste and not recycling.
Read more in the article.
Read more about how systemic changes in the economic system can encourage total recycling and re-use in our WHITE PAPER.

The Foundation has been invited by the Nordic Council of Ministers to present the flexible emissions fee mechanism and take part in discussion of what could drive and what could hinder successful implementation of the mechanism.
The Nordic Council of Ministers has initiated and financed a literature review within the concept of “Flexible emission fees and transfer mechanisms as driver [...]