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Green Economy Toolkit

miriaml's picture
Submitted by miriaml on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 13:40
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What's this idea about?
In less than 100 words, what is your idea?: 
The Sustainable Economy Ideas Index (see an early mock-up at http://sustainableeconomy.ideascale.com/) will provide an online forum where people can share and promote ideas on what Australian governments can do to support a sustainable economy. This project will harness the power of crowdsourcing to bring together the best policy ideas for solving the challenges Australia faces in transitioning to an economy that operates within environmental limits. The Sustainable Economy Ideas Index will allow students, academics, policy analysts, forward-looking businesses and other concerned citizens to work together to capture policy ideas from Australia and around the world and collaborate on making those ideas as compelling and easy to understand as possible.
What is the social need or challenge your idea could address?: 
We need a central repository for all the ideas - whether implemented elsewhere or not - that will help inform the debates and decisions made to transition our economy to one that is more socially and environmentally sustainable. The Sustainable Economy Ideas Index will be the place to go to learn about other ideas and contribute knowledge, experience and research. What kinds of ideas will be in the index? The index will focus on policy ideas which could be implemented by federal or state governments in Australia - while we recognise that actions by individuals, civil society and business are also important, ideas for changing government policy are often more complex and harder to find. The index will mainly be a platform for collecting ideas that have already been proposed or implemented elsewhere - although there's room for original ideas where clear gaps in existing proposals can be identified.
What’s really new about your idea?: 
Currenty, many great ideas are buried in the recommendation sections of long reports, or can be found in papers in academic journals, on many other websites and submissions to government inquiries. As yet, there is no project that brings together, translates and synthesises the existing research and ideas in a way that is accessible, usable and interactive. The Sustainable Economy Ideas Index proposes to create the research tool that will do this and bring together in the one space bright and creative researchers to be part of this project: forward-looking thinkers who want to find solutions to the environment crisis, not simply criticise and lament current policies.
Stage of development
What inspired you to come up with your idea in the first place?: 
There is an urgent need to inject credible, creative and viable ideas into the debates taking place about how we respond to the looming 'triple crunch': the burst debt bubble, the looming decline of cheap fossil fuels and an economy coming up against its environmental limits. An effective response will require more than a repudiation of the neo-liberal ideas that landed us in this mess. With the Sustainable Economy Ideas Index, an intelligent and purposeful exchange of ideas can take place that can inform the debate that will affect policy decisions that affect the environment, our society and the economy.
From 1-5, what stage of development would you say your idea is in? - Explain further: 
3
What can we do for you?
Select which are the one or two most important things that you need to help the development of your idea: 
Developer - to help you create your software
Funder - to give you some initial cash
If Social Innovation Camp is able to help push your idea forward, do you have the time or desire to take ownership of it?: 
Yes
Anything else you want to tell us?: 
I am passionate about finding solutions to get us of the mess we are in. That is why I work at the Centre for Policy Development (http://cpd.org.au) that is launching the Sustainable Economy Ideas Index. The project is part of the Sustainable Economy Research Program. The Sustainable Economy Program will develop and highlight options for Australia to make a rapid transition to an economy that is environmentally and socially sustainable. The Program is underpinned by the recognition that the current economic downturn and the looming climate crisis both have their roots in the systemic failure of both the public and private sector to manage risk over the long term and to value public goods which are hard to measure or monetise. About the Centre for Policy Development The Centre for Policy Development is a public interest think tank dedicated to seeking out creative, viable ideas and innovative research to inject into Australia's policy debates. We give a diverse community of thinkers space to imagine solutions to Australia's most urgent challenges, and we connect their ideas with policy-makers, media and concerned citizens.
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whymandesign's picture

Re: Sustainable Economy Ideas Index

Submitted by whymandesign on Fri, 01/29/2010 - 01:42.

Great

Please open source this and use the Traidmark.org business structure:)

www.traidmark.org
Should trade profit everyone? Yes.
Traidmark represents a new business structure that was created as a way
for profits to be used to fund innovation and progress for the benefit
of humanity. This is done by donating Net profit to innovative
charitable/research organisations and stating the percentage donated
clearly for consumer clarity.

www.mustart.org
We put on interactive events that include everyone. Why not come to the
next event or make your own.

Regards

Ed Whyman

Creative Producer

www.whymandesign.com

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Ozziemedes's picture

Re: Sustainable Economy Ideas Index

Submitted by Ozziemedes on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 19:44.

I have a deep background in data management, data modelling and data integration. Let me know if I can help you with data capture or data presentation/mining for this.

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venkatpulla's picture

Re: Sustainable Economy Ideas Index

Submitted by venkatpulla on Sat, 11/14/2009 - 06:59.

Sounds great idea. I am completely new to this site first. Once I am able to amble I will come back to you read further and where possible put in my humbe worth.
Dr Venkat Pulla
www.strengthsbasedpractice.com.au

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miriaml's picture

Re: Sustainable Economy Ideas Index

Submitted by miriaml on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 14:29.

Oops! This idea was accidentally posted as anonymous. Should add that it's a start-up project hosted by the Centre for Policy Development (http://cpd.org.au | @centrepolicydev)

One of the main problems that I think this project could solve is the 'google invisibility effect' in policy debates: if an idea doesn't come up on the first page of google search results it may as well not exist for the majority of the interested public. This effect is compounded by the fact that many government websites lack long-lived urls, so old policies disappear after a change of government or departmental reshuffle - I've heard stories of ministers and departmental secretaries not being aware of old policies that were still technically in effect! Many of the ideascale & user-voice type of tools have the ability to 'graduate' an idea when it has been implemented (e.g. if a company has decided to adopt a product idea) - it would be fantastic if we could adapt this for the ideas index so that it can track ideas that are adopted as policy.

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