Green money?

Credit and banking are a big deal: the way that most aspects of life are turned into financial instruments is of course very, very dangerous. The Yangtse Dolphins are becoming extinct because of your pension! Pensions are based largely on shares and other financial instruments, thus if share values grow, we have cash in old age. This means that environmental and social considerations come second or fourth compared to the growth of financial value. We obviously need an economy that disarms finance and halts financialisation - it's all gambling. You may lose your shirt, gain a suit or kill the planet.



Banking is a big issue. Currency cranks point correctly to the fact that banks create money but simply printing lots of money at the level of the ‘community’ might not act as an alternative, it might fuel inflation because money creation is about confidence.

Green Party policies are aimed at promoting small scale community banks, and building societies, credit unions and mutual non profit providers of cash. Here's an extract from the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society:

Monetary Policy

EC660 In a Green society the informal sector will eventually gain in significance so that formal transactions and money generally will have a lesser role than at present. There is however no reason why a financial system cannot be made to work in the interests of the community. Practical decentralisation of banking and monetary policy will therefore be linked with a programme of political devolution.

EC661 The emphasis in monetary policy will be to control and redirect the creation of money towards socially and environmentally sound areas of the economy, and away from unsustainable and consumption-driven areas.

EC662 The current banking system enables commercial banks and financial institutions to exert an unacceptably large influence on the economy as a whole. These commercial banking institutions work to a purely commercial agenda in which the desirability of making loans is assessed only in terms of its financial viability to the lenders.

EC663 The banking system should be largely brought under democratic control, preferably at a local level. This will allow the process to work in the best interests of the community as a whole, rather than principally in the interests of commercial banks and their shareholders.

EC664 The Bank of England will continue to be the institution for the regulation of the national currency and the setting of base interest rates. However, it will not focus on narrow economic indicators such as the rate of inflation, but instead will take a broader view on the impact of its decisions on the economy as a whole. Final decisions on the setting of base interest rates will be made by a democratically accountable committee made up of representatives selected from the different regions of the country.

EC665 In order to help bring about the democratisation of the banking system, and in pursuit of our policies to support the growth of local economies, a network of local Community Banks will be established. These will be democratically accountable non-profit-making trusts, which will be able to provide low-cost finance both at district and regional levels. Any operating surplus arising from these Community Banks will be reinvested in their local communities. Community Banks will be empowered to create credit in the same way that commercial banks currently do, and will be given favourable conditions for doing so by the central bank. They will also be able to create their own local currencies, to operate alongside the national currency, where this is supported by the local community.

EC666 In order to bring about a more socially equitable society, it is important that poorer citizens have access to affordable credit, which can give them an opportunity to increase their basic living standards. Alongside Community Banks, measures to help facilitate this will include the promotion and support of credit unions and micro-credit schemes in which small groups of people cooperate to provide guaranteed small loans to each other.

I bank with Smile, the internet arm of the Cooperative Bank (part of the socialist cooperative formed by the Rochdale pioneers in the 1830s) but it still operates within the market and while more ethical than the nasty high street banks, still invests in things which are environmentally damaging and socially unjust. The Ecology Building Society and Tridos bank are green banking alternatives.

An Open Source banking alternative is ZOPA, which puts lenders and borrowers together and cuts out the profit bank element.



Zopa is a peer to peer financial institution, a kind of Napster bank, although it does not give out free money. It would be interesting to see whether it grows; I guess it has the potential to be very big. In the US zopa is know as 'Prosper'.