The 300 scenes, movements, frameworks, and approaches creating the new economy now
Last updated: 21st July 2026
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Most people have heard of maybe five.
There’s a reason for that. These movements grew up in different places, at different times, calling the same ideas by different words. They’ve never had a shared name, a central HQ, or a unified communications budget. Most of them don’t know each other exist.
They all speak different languages and exist in different silos.
I call this The Tower of Babel Problem.
That and The Visibility Gap (they’re not being shared on the news so no one knows they are a diverse ecosystem of solutions all working on our shared problems, and they don’t know how to take action — but you do if you’ve heard Antidote’s new podcast or joined our monthly How to Start workshop).
This list is the start of making them visible to everyone.
A quick note before you scroll. Almost everything here is a movement, not a single organisation. Each one has anywhere from a handful of groups to thousands of organisations operating under its umbrella worldwide. You couldn’t list them all here. Search any of these terms and you’ll find a whole ecosystem of people already doing it, already building it, already proving it works.
In Network Weaving, a vital tool for bringing all these scenes and movements together that we’ll be learning about soon at Connectioning, we see that everything, the economy, is made up of networks of people. And there are two types of networks:
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
Those Close by Form a Tie
We have already started mapping the local networks, those close by each other forming ties, and you can see the efforts to start mapping these networks here:
The Wellbeing Economy Directory
Many attempts are being made to map the rapid advance of a new economy around the world. Here are our favourite directories and networks.
This article attempts to map something that is, frankly, very hard to map: Birds of a Feather Flock Together.
People uniting globally over shared interests and passions.
Just like people unite locally over sports, traditions, crafts or other interests.
We’re working on a proper evaluation framework to show exactly how much traction each of these movements has, how fast it’s growing, and what it would take to bring it fully mainstream. Some of these are still embedded in the old systems and are at least partially extractive as keen minds will observe. After all, how can conscious capitalism and ecosocialism possibly exist in the same ecosystem?
Stay tuned for that! Evaluation frameworks coming which address this.
For now this is a rough text-only “map”, ordered from the most proven and accessible down to the movements still mostly living in the ideas layer.
A note on that “last” category. The thought layer matters. We needed the thinking. But we have enough theory now to move forward and scale the creation of this economy.
The shift that’s needed at this point in history is from theorising to building and implementing both ideas, and the solutions that we’ve found that work, spreading them globally until we achieve an economy that supports all life.
Special Notice
If there were three things I would want everyone to understand for how to coordinate these movements to all work together to bring about a new economy together, one would be Network Weaving (which I will feature more in upcoming articles), one would be leverage points (from systems theory, you can read Donella Meadows’ work here or listen to Naval Ravikant’s podcast to get the big business perspective), and three would be Alignment Beyond Agreement.
That last one is so critical. Yasuhiko Genku Kimura described in just 16 pages how diversity in thinking is a good thing, actually, and the mainstream would have you believing that we have to agree on one thing to work together toward a better future.
We don’t. A diverse ecosystem of approaches is needed actually. Kimura’s writing is dense, but I’ll be coming out with a more accessible version soon, so stay tuned!
A special acknowledgement to Guy Dauncey, author of The Economics of Kindness, whose 146 Names for a New Economy (February 2026) contributed additional frameworks and helped surface important aliases across many of these movements. You can find his full list here:
And the Dictionary of Radical Alternatives which includes many of the Global South movements and movements worldwide beyond this English-centric list!
https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Main_Page
The 300+ List
(Links coming soon, this is a work in progress and some parts may be inaccurate until we do a full curation, which takes a lot of time and work, so thanks for bearing with us!)
Or join for any amount via Open Collective.
Cooperatives — Businesses owned and democratically controlled by the workers, customers, or communities they serve. Over 3 million worldwide employing 280 million people. The most proven alternative economic model in existence.
Links: International Cooperative Alliance, Cooperatives UK, Project Equity, Start.coop Resources, Cooperation Works! Network, US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Wellbeing Economy — Redefining national success around people and planet instead of GDP growth. Already policy in Scotland, New Zealand, Iceland, Wales, Finland, and Canada.
Links: WEAll.org, Wellbeing Economy Course
Community Wealth Building — City and regional strategies that anchor spending, employment, and ownership locally rather than letting wealth leak out. Pioneered in Cleveland and Preston, now spreading globally.
Links: The Democracy Collaborative, CLES UK, Guide to Advancing Community Wealth Building in the US
Credit Unions — Member-owned financial institutions that return profits to members rather than shareholders. Already in most towns. Easier to join than a bank and genuinely better for you.
Social Entrepreneurship — Businesses where solving a social or environmental problem is the core model, not an add-on. Thousands of entry points for founders who want their work to matter.
Links: Social Enterprise UK,
Mutual Aid — Communities meeting each other’s needs directly, without waiting for governments or markets to catch up. Exploded during COVID and never stopped.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) — Pay a local farm upfront at the start of the season and receive fresh produce throughout. Keeps money local and farmers viable. Apps like Red Hen are starting to make this kidn of thing scalable and accessible.
Fair Trade — Products certified to guarantee fair wages and conditions for the people who made them. In most supermarkets now.
B Corps — Businesses certified for meeting high standards of social and environmental performance. Over 9,000 certified globally across 90+ countries. Part of the broader social enterprise movement.
Benefit Corporations — A legal business structure that requires directors to consider workers, community, and environment alongside profit. Different from B Corp certification, this is the law itself changing. Part of the broader social enterprise movement.
Transition Towns — Community-led resilience projects building local food, energy, and economic systems. Started in Totnes, UK. Over 1,000 communities in 50+ countries now.
Community Land Trusts — Land held in permanent community ownership, removing it from the speculative market forever. Growing fast in the UK and US.
Housing Cooperatives — Resident-owned housing that permanently removes homes from the speculative market and keeps them affordable.
Community Gardens — Shared growing spaces building food access, social connection, and local resilience at the same time.
Community Fridges — Community-run spaces where surplus food is shared freely. Simple, effective, spreading.
Repair Cafés — Community spaces where people fix things together, reducing waste and building skills and genuine connection.
Tool Libraries — Shared tool collections so communities share resources instead of everyone buying their own.
Circular Economy — Designing products and systems so materials stay in use rather than becoming waste. Now mainstream in both business strategy and national policy.
Timebanking — Exchange skills and time without money. One hour equals one credit, whatever the service, whoever you are.
Community Banks — Locally owned, relationship-based banking that keeps financial resources in communities rather than funnelling them to shareholders.
Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) — Community-issued currencies and skill exchanges that keep economic value circulating locally.
Open Source — Software, hardware, and knowledge built collaboratively and shared freely. Already runs most of the internet.
Permaculture — Designing systems that work with natural patterns rather than against them. Practical, global community, genuinely accessible.
Sharing Economy — Access over ownership. Libraries of things, car shares, skill swaps. Making the most of what already exists.
Platform Cooperativism — Worker-owned digital platforms where drivers, delivery workers, and freelancers own the platform they work on rather than being exploited by it.
Solidarity Economy — An ecosystem of cooperatives, mutual aid, community enterprises, and social businesses working in coordination. The connective tissue between movements.
Doughnut Economics — Kate Raworth’s framework for an economy that meets everyone’s needs within planetary limits. Guiding city policy in Amsterdam, Brussels, and beyond.
New Economy — The broad movement building economic alternatives. Umbrella term for hundreds of organisations already operating worldwide.
Regenerative Economy — Economic systems designed to restore and regenerate natural and social systems rather than deplete them.
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) — Community-controlled lenders directing finance toward underserved communities and places mainstream banks ignore.
Ethical Banking — Banking that avoids harm and actively directs money toward positive social and environmental outcomes.
Social Economy — The sector of cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, foundations, and social enterprises that puts people before profit. Hundreds of millions of participants worldwide.
Cooperative Economy — The interconnected ecosystem of cooperative enterprises across every sector operating as a genuine alternative economic layer, expanding beyond just coops to all cooperative endeavors.
Shop Local — Prioritising local businesses and keeping spending circulating within communities. The most immediately accessible entry point for most people.
Solarpunk — A cultural movement imagining futures that are both ecological and joyful. Growing fast, especially with younger generations.
Degrowth — Movement arguing that wealthy economies need to deliberately scale down consumption and redistribution, and build community wealth and cooperative enterprise in their place. The name leads with the problem. The movement is building real economic alternatives, including cooperatives, community land, and local economic infrastructure. Major intellectual and organising reach, particularly in Europe.
Post Growth — Framework advocating for economies measured by wellbeing rather than growth. Real policy momentum in the EU and increasingly in municipal governments. Strong overlap with the degrowth infrastructure.
Access Economy — Access over ownership. Shifting from buying things to sharing them, from car clubs to libraries of things to tool shares. Already embedded in daily life for millions of people who don’t know there’s a name for it.
Impact Investing — Directing investment capital toward measurable social and environmental outcomes alongside financial returns. Moving from niche to mainstream in global finance.
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) — Corporate standards for accounting for social and environmental impact. Imperfect and heavily contested, but shifting enormous amounts of capital.
Building fast. Worth joining now.
Solid infrastructure and serious momentum, even if they haven’t fully broken through yet.
15-Minute Cities — Urban planning that puts essential services within a 15-minute walk or cycle for every resident. Real implementation underway in cities worldwide.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) — Building from what communities already have rather than what they lack. Changing how local development actually gets done.
Bioregional Weaving — Connecting organisations and people across a natural region to build coordinated local economic and ecological resilience.
Business for the Common Good — Business models explicitly oriented toward serving the common good rather than maximising private returns.
Car-Free Cities — Cities redesigning streets for people rather than private cars. Real results already in Oslo, Amsterdam, Ghent, and dozens of others.
Care Economy — Making visible and fairly valuing the unpaid and underpaid care work that holds all other economic activity together.
Circle Economy — Practical application of circular principles in business, finance, and city planning with strong institutional reach.
Civic Tech — Technology built specifically to strengthen democratic participation and public good. Thousands of projects globally.
Coliving — Shared housing models combining private space with shared resources and genuine community, as a practical response to the housing crisis.
Collaborative Economy — Shared use and ownership of resources across communities, organisations, and sectors.
Commoning — The active practice of governing shared resources collectively, from urban land to local food systems to digital infrastructure.
Commons Economy — An economic model based on community-managed commons rather than private property or centralised state ownership.
Community Arts — Art created with and for communities as a tool of social transformation and local identity.
Community Care Networks — Locally organised systems of mutual support for neighbours, elders, and people with health or care needs.
Community Currencies — Locally issued currencies that keep economic value circulating within a community rather than being extracted outward. STRO (Social Trade Organisation) in the Netherlands has built Cyclos, open-source payment software that makes community and complementary currencies technically viable at scale. (See: Network Weaving - The Two Types of Networks. “Community” can be locally rooted or globally rooted by interest)
Community Economy — Recognising and actively strengthening the diverse economy that already exists beyond the formal market and state.
Community Wealth Funds — Pooled community investment vehicles that build lasting local asset ownership rather than individual wealth accumulation.
Complete Streets — Road design that serves pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport users, not just private cars.
Creative Placemaking — Using arts and cultural activity to strengthen local places and the economies within them.
Democratic Economy — Building economic institutions that include workers, communities, and stakeholders in genuine governance.
Democratising Work — Transforming workplaces through worker ownership, cooperative governance, and shared decision-making.
Digital Commons — Shared digital resources, infrastructure, and knowledge owned and governed collectively rather than by platforms or states.
DIY Culture — Making, fixing, and creating as acts of economic independence, skill-building, and community connection.
Economy for the Common Good — Christian Felber’s model measuring business success through social and ecological contribution rather than profit alone.
Ecovillages — Intentional communities building ecological and social resilience at neighbourhood scale. Over 1,000 worldwide.
Ethical Business — Business practices that prioritise fairness, sustainability, and social responsibility as core operating principles.
Ethical Marketing — Marketing practices that refuse manipulation, respect audiences, and serve genuine human needs rather than manufactured ones.
Ethical Supply Chains — Tracing and transforming supply chains to ensure fair wages, safe conditions, and ecological responsibility throughout.
Food Not Bombs — Decentralised mutual aid network serving free food globally. Decades of operation, hundreds of chapters.
Food Sovereignty — Communities and nations reclaiming control over their own food systems, seeds, and agricultural practices.
Free Stores & Really Really Free Markets — Community spaces where everything is free, building gift culture and genuine connection.
Gift Economy — Economic exchange based on giving without immediate expectation of return, building trust, reciprocity, and community bonds.
Intentional Communities — People deliberately choosing to live and build community together, sharing resources, responsibilities, and daily life.
Localism — Prioritising local decision-making, production, and exchange over globalised systems that extract wealth from communities.
Localized Economy — The practical application of localism: local production, local ownership, local exchange.
Maker Economy — Building economic independence and community resilience through making, manufacturing, and skilled production.
Maker Spaces — Shared workshops and studios with tools and equipment for community members to design, make, and build.
Neighborhood Economy — Economic systems and practices that circulate wealth within a neighbourhood rather than extracting it outward.
Next Economy — The practical transition to economies that operate within ecological limits and distribute wealth more fairly.
One Small Town — Community model where residents collectively launch enterprises and share the income across all participants.
Open Access Economy — Making knowledge, research, and resources freely accessible to everyone rather than locked behind paywalls and licences.
Open Education Resources — Educational materials that are free, openly licensed, and accessible to anyone anywhere.
Ownership Economy — Economic models that give workers, users, and communities genuine ownership stakes in the organisations and platforms they use.
P2P (Peer-to-Peer) — Direct economic exchange between individuals without centralised intermediaries extracting value.
Participatory Budgeting — Communities directly deciding how public money gets spent. Originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Now in thousands of cities worldwide.
Peer Economy — Economic exchange built on peer relationships and mutual recognition rather than hierarchical market transactions.
Place-based Organising — Community organising rooted in specific places, building power and solidarity from the neighbourhood up.
Placemaking — Creating and activating public spaces that build community belonging and local economic vitality.
Public Banking — State or municipal banks directing credit toward public good rather than private profit.
Purpose Economy — Organisations and economic activity oriented around a clear social or ecological purpose.
Purpose-Driven Economy — The broader shift toward businesses and institutions measuring success through their purpose, not just their profit.
Radical Neighboring — Intentionally building real connection and mutual support with immediate neighbours as a social and economic act.
Regenerative Capitalism — Businesses adopting regenerative principles within market structures, bridging toward deeper transformation.
Seed Libraries — Community-owned seed collections for freely sharing, preserving, and building food sovereignty.
Slow Food / Slow Money — Prioritising quality, locality, and ecological soundness in food systems and local investment.
Social Enterprise — Organisations that trade goods or services to achieve a social mission. The category is bigger than most people realise. It includes charities that generate income through trading, hybrid legal structures like Community Interest Companies (CICs) in the UK, Social Purpose Corporations (SPCs) in the US, and Low-profit Limited Liability Companies (L3Cs), as well as Socially Trading Organisations (STOs) and a growing range of models that don't fit neatly into "business" or "charity" but are building real economic infrastructure anyway. Deeply established in the UK and EU, growing globally.
Solutions Journalism — Rigorous journalism that reports on responses to social problems, not just the problems themselves.
Stakeholder Economy — Economic governance that formally includes workers, communities, and ecological considerations alongside shareholders.
The Commons — Resources and systems owned and managed collectively, from land to software to knowledge to water.
Triple Bottom Line — Measuring business success through people, planet, and profit simultaneously.
Workers’ Self-Management — Workers governing and managing their own enterprises collectively without external owners.
Zero Waste Economy — Economic systems designed so nothing is wasted and every material becomes a resource for something else.
Slow Medicine — Healthcare practices that prioritise patient-centred, holistic, and community-based approaches over industrial medical models.
Seed Libraries — Community-owned collections of open-pollinated seeds shared freely to build food sovereignty.
Homeschooling / Unschooling / Free Schools / Democratic Schools — Community-based and self-directed alternatives to industrial education, building agency and genuine learning from childhood.
Tactical Urbanism — Low-cost, community-led urban interventions that test and demonstrate better ways of using city spaces.
Serious experiments. Less visible.
Real economic experiments and infrastructure doing important work. Most people outside the movement have never heard of them.
Afrofuturism — Cultural movement imagining and building futures through the lens of African diasporic experience, with growing community economic dimensions.
Agri-DAOs — Decentralised autonomous organisations applied to agricultural land and food systems. Early stage and genuinely novel.
Alternative Media Networks — Cooperatively owned and independently operated media building public knowledge outside corporate ownership.
Appropriate Technology — Tools and technologies matched to human scale and community capacity, rooted in E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful.”
Barter Networks — Direct exchange of goods and services without money. Simple, resilient, and active in economic downturns.
Beautiful Trouble — A creative toolbox for campaigners and activists distilling decades of social movement wisdom into practical techniques.
Beloved Community — Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a community of justice and love where poverty, hunger, and hatred have been eliminated. Now an active community building framework.
Bioeconomy — Economic systems based on renewable biological resources rather than fossil fuels.
BioFi (Biological Finance) — Financial instruments designed to fund and value biological systems and ecosystem services, treating nature as economic infrastructure.
Biomimicry — Designing economic and technological systems by mimicking patterns found in living systems.
Biophilic Design — Architecture and urban design incorporating natural elements for human health and ecological connection.
Bioregionalism — Organising economic and social life around natural ecological regions rather than political and administrative boundaries.
Blue Economy — Economic development based on sustainable and regenerative use of ocean resources.
Buen Vivir / Sumak Kawsay — Indigenous Andean philosophy and practice of living well in harmony with community and nature. National policy in Ecuador and Bolivia.
Center for Story-based Strategy — Organisation building narrative and strategic framing capacity within social movements.
Citizen Science — Communities and non-specialists contributing to and co-producing scientific knowledge, changing who gets to know and decide.
Circular Living Economy — Applying circular economy principles to the full texture of everyday life, not just industrial production.
Community Capitalism — Localised forms of market activity governed primarily for community benefit rather than private return.
Community Cellular Networks — Community-owned mobile phone networks providing connectivity in underserved areas.
Community Healing Practices — Locally grounded approaches to community wellbeing drawing on cultural traditions and collective wisdom.
Community Health Workers — Community members trained to provide health support within their own communities, making healthcare genuinely local.
Community Internet — Community-owned internet infrastructure providing affordable connectivity outside corporate monopolies.
Community Mental Health Approaches — Community-based and peer-led alternatives to clinical mental health services.
Community Rights Movement — Legal and political movement establishing rights for communities and natural systems, including rights of nature.
Community Science — Communities producing and owning scientific knowledge about their own local environments and conditions.
Community-owned Internet — Broadband infrastructure owned and operated by communities for communities.
Contemplative Sciences — Integrating contemplative practices into scientific and economic frameworks for human and social wellbeing.
Cosmopolitan Localism — Local economy and ecological grounding combined with global awareness and solidarity. Thinking globally while building locally.
Cross-Movement Messaging Coordination — Building shared language and narrative across social movements to amplify collective impact.
Cultural Heritage Preservation — Protecting and building from cultural traditions, knowledge, and practices as economic and social assets.
Cultural Organizing — Using cultural expression and identity as tools for building community power and economic alternatives.
DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) — Internet-native organisations governed by their members through code and consensus, without centralised hierarchy.
Data Commons — Data treated as a shared community asset rather than corporate property.
Decentralisation — Distributing power, decision-making, and economic activity away from central nodes toward communities.
Decentralised Economy — Economic systems organised through distributed networks rather than centralised control.
Decolonising Philanthropy — Challenging and transforming philanthropic practices that replicate colonial power dynamics.
Decolonize Wealth Network — Movement and organisation challenging racial wealth gaps and transforming who controls philanthropic resources.
DeFi (Decentralised Finance) — Financial services built on blockchain infrastructure without banks or brokers as intermediaries.
Demurrage Currencies — Currencies that lose value over time if hoarded, incentivising circulation rather than accumulation.
Digital Democracy Media — Media organisations and platforms building informed democratic participation and civic engagement.
Digital Justice — Ensuring fair and equitable access to digital infrastructure, tools, and the economic and political power that comes with them.
Disability Justice — Movement centring disabled people in economic and social transformation, recognising interdependence as a strength rather than a deficit.
Distributed Economy — Economic systems spread across many nodes and communities rather than concentrated in corporations or cities.
Distributed Ledger Technologies — Shared, decentralised record-keeping systems enabling new forms of economic coordination without intermediaries.
Energy Economy — Community ownership and democratic control of energy systems, from solar cooperatives to community grids.
Fediverse — Decentralised social media infrastructure owned and operated by communities rather than corporations.
Federated Learning — Privacy-preserving machine learning that keeps data local, enabling collective intelligence without corporate surveillance.
Feminist Economics — Economic analysis and practice that centres gender, care, and social reproduction alongside traditional economic metrics.
Food forests — Perennial food systems designed to mimic woodland ecology, producing food across multiple layers from canopy to ground cover. Permanent, self-sustaining once established, and actively rebuilding soil and biodiversity over time. Already hundreds of established examples across the UK, US, and beyond. The step up from community gardens: less maintenance, more abundance, deeper roots in every sense. Some of the most successful ones are collectively managed, sitting at the intersection of community land, food sovereignty, and regenerative land use all at once.
Food Justice — Addressing racial and economic inequities in food access, production, and ownership.
FrameWorks Institute — Research organisation developing evidence-based communication and framing strategies for social change movements.
Free Culture Movement — Building shared cultural and knowledge commons outside copyright restriction and corporate ownership.
Global Commons — Governance frameworks for shared global resources including oceans, atmosphere, and digital infrastructure.
Health Commons — Treating healthcare knowledge and infrastructure as community assets rather than private commodities.
Holochain — Distributed computing infrastructure for peer-to-peer applications and alternative internet architecture.
Holacracy — Self-management system distributing organisational authority across teams rather than hierarchy.
Hope-based Communication — Communication frameworks and practices that motivate constructive action rather than paralysis or despair.
Inclusive Economy — Economies deliberately designed to include and work for people currently excluded from economic participation.
Independent Media Alliances — Coalitions of independently owned media organisations building shared audience and resources.
Indigenous Economy — Economic models rooted in Indigenous knowledge, governance, and relationships with land and community.
Indigenous Futurisms — Imagining and building futures grounded in Indigenous knowledge and governance, including economic futures.
Indigenous Knowledge Systems — Bodies of knowledge developed by Indigenous communities over generations, increasingly recognised as economic and ecological assets.
Just Transition — Ensuring the shift to sustainable economies is fair and actively supports workers and communities currently dependent on extractive industries.
Land Back — Movement for the return of Indigenous lands and sovereignty as the foundation of Indigenous economic self-determination.
Media Democracy Movements — Campaigns and organisations building more democratic and diverse media ownership and production.
Media Justice Organisations — Groups working to ensure communities have the media infrastructure they need to tell their own stories.
Mesh Networks — Locally owned internet infrastructure where devices connect directly to each other, building resilient community connectivity.
Metrics Beyond GDP — Developing and adopting economic measures that capture wellbeing, ecological health, and social outcomes alongside financial output.
Modern Monetary Theory — Economic theory that reframes how sovereign currency systems work, with significant implications for public investment and social spending.
Movement Communications Platforms — Digital infrastructure built specifically for social movements to organise, coordinate, and communicate.
Movement Ecology — Framework for understanding how different movements, organisations, and individuals relate and coordinate within broader social change.
Movement Journalism — Journalism produced within and accountable to social movements rather than corporate or state power.
Narrative Change Organisations — Organisations specifically focused on shifting the stories and cultural frames that shape public understanding and behaviour.
Nature Connection Practices — Practices that rebuild people’s relationship with natural systems as a foundation for ecological economics.
Nature-Based Solutions — Economic and social problems solved through restoring and working with natural systems rather than replacing them.
New Power — How power operates in networked, participatory models versus traditional hierarchical institutions. Growing body of research and practice.
People’s Assemblies — Community governance structures where ordinary people participate directly in economic and political decision-making.
Popular Education — Education that builds critical consciousness and collective power from the ground up, rooted in Paulo Freire’s work.
Public Interest Communications — Communication practice explicitly in service of public good rather than private or political interests.
Public Narrative Development — Building compelling stories that move communities from passive observers to active participants in change.
Reciprocity Economy — Economic systems based on reciprocal relationships and mutual obligation rather than market exchange or charity.
Reconomy — Practical movement relocating production, ownership, and economic activity back into communities.
Regenerative Economic Zones — Defined geographic areas applying regenerative economic principles to create model economies.
Regenerative Living Economy — Applying regenerative design to all aspects of economic life, from food to finance to housing.
Resource Generation — Organisation mobilising young people with inherited wealth to support movements for economic justice.
Restorative Economics — Economic models and practices that restore ecological and social systems alongside economic activity.
Restorative Justice — Community-based conflict resolution processes that repair harm rather than only punishing offenders.
Rewilding — Restoring natural processes and species as the foundation for ecological and economic resilience.
Rights of Nature — Legal frameworks recognising natural systems as having rights, changing their status in economic law and governance.
Sociocracy — Consent-based governance systems for organisations and communities, distributing power and decision-making.
Solidarity Finance — Financial systems and instruments built around solidarity and mutual support rather than profit maximisation.
Steward Economy — Economic model where assets are held in stewardship for future generations rather than owned for private extraction.
Strategic Framing — The practice of choosing language, images, and stories that shift public understanding and behaviour toward desired change.
Strategic Framing Initiatives — Organisations and coalitions coordinating strategic framing across movements.
Tech Stewardship — Ensuring technology serves communities and public good rather than extracting from them.
The Octopus Movement — Networked movement exploring new forms of governance, economy, and community grounded in complexity and emergence.
The Solutions Project — Organisation connecting clean energy solutions with frontline communities through storytelling and advocacy.
Thrutopia — Imagining and building societies that navigate through current crises to genuinely better futures, beyond both utopia and dystopia.
Time-Based Economy — Economic systems using time as a unit of exchange rather than money, building relationship and mutual support.
Token Economy — Economic systems using digital tokens to coordinate contributions, rewards, and governance in communities and organisations.
Transformative Justice — Community-based approaches to addressing harm that transform the conditions creating harm rather than just responding to it.
Transmedia Organising — Building social movements through coordinated storytelling across multiple media platforms and formats.
Trauma-Informed Practices — Approaches to community building and economic development that account for and work with collective and individual trauma.
Ubuntu Philosophy — African philosophical framework of shared humanity and interdependence, informing cooperative and community economic models.
Village Economy — Economic models rooted in village-scale community, mutual support, and ecological relationship.
Web3 — Internet infrastructure based on decentralised ownership and governance, enabling new forms of community economic coordination.
Important ideas. Real infrastructure.
These movements have something real and worth paying attention to. Several are primarily problem-focused, with less emphasis on building alternatives. Most have economic infrastructure worth knowing about. The resistance framing is real and sometimes necessary as an entry point. The critical work is what comes next.
Anticapitalism — Broad political movement challenging the foundations of capitalist economics. Significant cultural presence, and importantly, thousands of organisations doing real cooperative and community economic building under this banner.
Beyond Growth — Movement challenging the assumption that economic growth is inherently desirable or necessary. Real policy traction, particularly in the EU.
Climate Justice — Movement connecting climate change to economic and racial inequality, demanding just transitions rather than techno-fixes.
Climate Action — The broad ecosystem of organisations driving transition away from fossil fuels. Enormous infrastructure, increasingly focused on economic alternatives as well as policy.
Community Rights Movement — Legal and political movement establishing the right of communities to govern themselves and their local ecosystems.
Compassionate Capitalism — Market approaches incorporating compassion and social responsibility as explicit values. More mainstream entry point for businesses not ready to go further yet.
Conscious Capitalism — Business philosophy prioritising stakeholder wellbeing and higher purpose alongside profit. Mainstream entry point with growing infrastructure.
Conservation Biology — Science and practice protecting biodiversity as the foundation of economic and social systems. Increasingly connected to community economics.
Deep Adaptation — Framework for communities preparing for serious ecological and social disruption. Problem-focused, but generating real community infrastructure.
Democratic Socialism — Political movement for democratic control of economic institutions. Significant organising infrastructure and real policy wins in multiple countries.
Distributism — Economic philosophy based on widespread distribution of productive assets and property. More thought layer than movement, but growing again.
Dual Power — Strategy of building alternative economic institutions alongside engaging existing systems, rather than choosing one or the other.
Eco-socialism / Ecosocialism — Political movement combining ecological and socialist analysis. Real community and economic infrastructure despite primarily ideological framing.
Ecological Economy — Economic analysis and policy rooted in ecological limits and natural systems science. More academic than activist, but driving real policy change.
Economic Justice — Broad movement for fair distribution of economic resources and power. Real global organising infrastructure.
Emotional Intelligence Development — Practices building the relational and emotional capacities needed for cooperative economic life. More personal development than movement, but important for building what comes next.
Environmental Justice — Movement addressing the disproportionate environmental harm experienced by marginalised communities, with real economic dimensions.
Equitable Economy — Economic models and policies designed to reduce inequality and distribute opportunity fairly.
Extinction Rebellion — Direct action movement demanding government response to ecological crisis. Problem-focused by design, but the community infrastructure it has built includes real economic experiments. Important entry point for many people who find their way to building from here.
Feminine Economy — Economic analysis and practice centring feminine values and relational approaches. Emerging rather than established.
Georgism — Economic philosophy proposing land value taxation as the primary reform. Real academic and policy traction, undergoing a revival.
Green New Deal — Policy framework for simultaneous ecological transition and social investment. Major mobilising infrastructure across multiple countries.
Healing Economy — Economies explicitly oriented toward healing communities, ecologies, and relationships. More emerging than established.
Housing Justice — Movement for affordable, stable, community-controlled housing. Real organising infrastructure globally.
Human-Centered Capitalism — Business and policy approaches centring human wellbeing rather than financial metrics. More mainstream entry point than most on this list.
Human Economy — Economic frameworks that start from human needs, relationships, and wellbeing rather than abstract market mechanics.
Integrative Health Approaches — Healthcare models combining conventional medicine with community, environmental, and relational dimensions.
Just Transition — (Noted above and worth emphasising here.) Ensuring the move to ecological economies doesn’t leave workers and communities behind. One of the most important policy frameworks in the space.
Keystone Species Preservation — Protecting ecologically critical species as the economic infrastructure for healthy ecosystems.
Libertarian Municipalism — Political philosophy advocating for free cities and localities as sites of direct democratic economic governance.
Liminal Web — Loose network of organisations and initiatives exploring integral and metamodern approaches to cultural transformation. More emerging than established.
Living Economy — Economies modelled on living systems, emphasising resilience, diversity, and self-organisation.
Municipalism — Building power and economic alternatives at city and municipal scale through democratic governance.
Natural Economy — Economic systems modelled on natural processes of circulation, regeneration, and balance.
Participatory Economics (Parecon) — Detailed alternative economic model based on participatory planning and equitable compensation. Intellectually developed, limited real-world uptake so far.
Philanthrocapitalism — Using market mechanisms and business models within philanthropy to address social problems. Contested and imperfect, but scaling.
Pluriverse — The concept of a world with many worlds, where diverse economic and social models coexist rather than a single global monoculture.
Post-Carbon Economy — The economic transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable and circular systems.
Postcapitalism — Analytical and political framework exploring what economic systems might emerge beyond capitalism. More theory than practice currently.
Radical Municipalism — Transforming cities into sites of direct democracy and community economic control.
Reproductive Justice — Movement ensuring all people have the economic and social conditions needed to raise children with dignity.
Resilience Economy — Economic systems designed for resilience and adaptation rather than efficiency and growth.
Right to the City — Movement asserting that urban residents should have democratic control over the cities they live in, including their economic systems.
Sacred Economy — Charles Eisenstein’s vision of an economy of gifts, mutual aid, and ecological relationship.
Second Renaissance — Cultural movement anticipating and building toward a new flourishing after the collapse of current systems.
Social Ecology — Murray Bookchin’s framework for ecological and social transformation through decentralised community governance.
Steady State Economics — Economic theory advocating for stable economies that don’t require perpetual growth to function.
Sufficiency Economy — Thailand’s national development philosophy based on enough, balance, and resilience rather than maximisation.
Systems Awareness Training — Building capacity to see and navigate complex interconnected systems, essential for economic transition.
Wisdom Economy — Economies that value and reward wisdom, relationship, and long-term thinking rather than extraction and short-term gain.
The thought layer.
Primarily living in the ideas space. The thinking is important. In many cases it’s excellent. What’s needed most now is for people to take these ideas and build something real with them.
We have plenty of thought. We need more building.
Abundance Economy — The vision of economic systems based on genuine abundance rather than artificial scarcity. Mostly theoretical, with no major movement infrastructure.
Adaptive Leadership — Leadership theory for navigating complex adaptive challenges. Important toolbox, more consultancy practice than movement.
Anarcho Syndicalism — Political philosophy of worker control through radical union organising. Long history and real infrastructure in specific contexts, but primarily ideological in most.
Attention Economy — Analysis of how attention has been commodified and what that means for democracy and culture. Mostly critique, not yet a movement with economic alternatives.
Body-Based Awareness Work — Somatic practices for building self and collective awareness. Important for transformation, not yet an economic movement.
Cognitive Flexibility Training — Building mental adaptability for complex change. Personal development end of the spectrum.
Collective Trauma Resolution — Community approaches to healing collective wounds. Important foundation for transformation, not yet an economic movement.
Communism — Revolutionary political philosophy advocating collective ownership of production. Built real economic infrastructure in certain historical contexts. In practice in the 21st century, mostly ideological.
Conscious Cocreators / Cocreator Movement — Movement building conscious participation in social and economic transformation. Emerging and primarily spiritual framing.
Decision-Making Enhancement — Practices and tools for improving collective and individual decision-making. Toolbox rather than movement.
Earth Economy — Conceptual framework treating economies as embedded within Earth systems. Mostly theoretical at this stage.
Ecosystem Economy — Economic frameworks recognising and accounting for ecosystem services and limits. Academic rather than movement.
Evidence-Based Mindfulness — Applying contemplative practices through scientific validation. Personal development end of the spectrum.
Flow State Economy — Economic systems designed to facilitate human peak experience and flow. Interesting idea, not yet a movement.
Free State Economy — Vision of economic freedom and self-sufficiency. Mostly theoretical.
Geotribalism — Concept of organising society around tribal identification with place. Interesting framing, minimal infrastructure.
Health Psychology Applications — Applying psychological science to health and community wellbeing. More academic than movement.
Integral Parallel Economy — Ken Wilber-adjacent framework for building economies at all levels of human development simultaneously. Very niche.
Knowledge Economy — The mainstreaming of knowledge as economic capital. Already a dominant narrative, still needs a community wealth building layer.
Leadership Development — Building leaders for social and economic transformation. Critical work, more training discipline than movement.
Life Economy — Economic philosophy placing life itself as the central economic value. Mostly conceptual.
Matriarchy — Political and economic philosophy based on matriarchal governance and values. More academic than movement in most contexts.
Nature-Inspired Economy — Economic design inspired by natural systems. Largely conceptual, overlapping with biomimicry and regenerative economy.
Network Economy — Economic analysis of networks as the primary organising structure. Descriptive framework more than movement.
Panarchy — Theoretical ecological framework describing how systems cycle through growth, consolidation, collapse, and renewal. Applied to social systems in theory more than practice.
Peaceful Economy — Economic systems designed to create conditions for peace. Mostly aspirational framing.
Performance Optimization — Individual and organisational performance improvement. Personal development framing, not an economic movement.
Post Scarcity — Vision of economies beyond scarcity through technology and cooperation. Mostly theoretical.
Relational Intelligence Building — Building relational capacity for community and cooperation. More practice toolkit than movement.
Resilience Training — Individual and community resilience practices. Important but personal development end of the spectrum.
Resource Based Economy / Resource-Based Economy — Vision of economies based on resource accounting rather than money. Interesting concept, minimal real-world implementation.
Simbiosis — Networked approach to social and economic transformation through symbiotic relationships. More emerging than established.
Socialism — Political philosophy of collective ownership of means of production. Broad term covering enormous range. Has real economic infrastructure. More political ideology than economic movement in most current practice.
Stress Management & Regulation — Personal practices for managing stress. Individual rather than systemic.
Symbiotic Economy — Economic systems modelled on biological symbiosis. Mostly conceptual.
TPOT (That Part of Twitter) — Loose cultural network exploring metamodern and post-rational ideas online. Very online, very emerging, minimal economic infrastructure.
The Venus Project — Jacque Fresco’s vision of a resource-based economy governed by technology and science. Visionary and mostly theoretical.
The Zeitgeist Movement — Movement associated with Fresco’s ideas and critique of monetary systems. More critique than construction.
Underthrow — Concept of building alternatives that gradually make existing systems irrelevant. Good idea in need of operationalising.
Values-Based Communication — Communication practice aligning messaging with deeply held values. Important toolkit, more consultancy than movement.
Values-Based Messaging Coalitions — Coalitions coordinating around shared values-based language across movements.
Watershed Economy — Economic organisation around watersheds as ecological units. Interesting concept, emerging infrastructure.
And that’s just the beginning.
What you just scrolled through is a map of something enormous.
Each of these is a door. Behind each door are thousands of organisations, practitioners, researchers, builders, and communities who have spent years, sometimes decades, doing the work.
The evaluation framework we’re developing will show you exactly where the traction is, how these movements connect, and where you can plug in. That’s coming. (Along with links)
For now: pick one. Search it. Find who’s building it near you.
Use our Wellbeing Economy Finder Prompt to search locally, or one of the map tools we have.
Don’t see your movement? Please comment below so we can add it! Or tell us what part of the movement of movements you’re in!
Know of any maps like Second Renaissance (a whole scene of movements are mapped here)? We’d love to add more maps, please let us know where we can find them!
The problem was never the ideas. It was that nobody could see they were connected. We have all the solutions we need to create better lives and a better world for everyone. We just need to connect and implement them.
You have some maps and now you’re a part of this.
What will you build or join?
Connectioning is a coordination layer for the wellbeing economy, making hundreds of movements worldwide visible to themselves and everyone else so we can join solutions and grow an economy that supports all life. Follow along to see what’s coming next. And please consider supporting our work with a free or paid subscription.
Did you know?
150,000 people follow this work across the internet.
A tiny fraction pay for it.
We need 400 paid members to make this sustainable so we can make the WEconomy the new normal.
That’s 1 in 14 of you reading this right now.
Ready to join in and make this happen?
Become a member today for as little as $25 monthly or $200 annually.
Or for any amount via Open Collective.
For more detailed information about this project, see our website connectioning.io.
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Thank you for this! I have a relationship with this ecosystem that I'm still finding language for, and this list is both clarifying and overwhelming at the same time. I'm building a business model that is rooted in these ideas, and seeing it mapped like this makes me feel less alone in it. I'd love to connect with others who are doing similar things.
Monumental, Jess! I’ve dreamed about and longed for this connection of like-minded folks for some time. Now that you’re actually putting it together, I’m flabbergasted at how many there are. Very comforting and exciting. Even though I’m feeling a bit like an ant standing at the base of Mount Tahoma (Mt. Rainier).