Ecology of Money
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. – Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen An ‘ecology of money’ seeks the careful management of the conventional monetary system in a sustainable way both by mimicking natural ecosystems’ structure and by adding new currencies through tailor-made discursive and textual practices: new agreements formulated in natural language and new ways to deal with transactions’ management by... Read More
Natural Savings
Natural Savings are the complementary answer to the narrowed functionality of modern bank money with regards to the micro-financial sector. By virtue of the latter, borrowers automatically face the hurdles of monetary inflation and currency devaluation, whereas micro-finance institutions operate under the constraints of banking regulation and central banking practices, which often contrast the unfolding of financial inclusion or, in other words, the decrease of the ‘financial... Read More
NU Spaarpas – The Netherlands
Another exemplification of the possible complementarity between conventional money (i.e. the Euro) and other types of currencies comes from the domain of ‘green currencies‘. For instance, according to Peter North, in Rotterdam the NU Spaarpas was a ‘green loyalty point’ currency that was piloted from May 2002 to September 2003. ‘Green points’ were earned when residents separated their waste for recycling, used public transport, or used locally owned shops. Residents... Read More