Supporters

Professor Robert Cummins

Professor of Psychology, Deakin University, Victoria Australia 

Professor Cummins is Convenor of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life , a Research Centre of Deakin University, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Happiness Studies and Project Director of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index . Australian Unity, in partnership with the Australian Centre on Quality of Life at Deakin University, regularly measure how satisfied Australians are with their lives and life in Australia. 

Interested in your own well-being?  Take the  Personal Well-being Index 

Recent News:

• April 2009 
  A special report from the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index that looked at the effect of the recent fires and floods on wellbeing
  Fires and floods strengthen sense of community  
  Bonding through disaster (The Age)
  Job losses hit NSW hardest (The Sydney Morning Herald) 

Dr Edward De Bono

Supreme Lateral Thinker

This is an innovative idea and tackles some of the problems of globalisation.
Read more about his ideas on local currencies here.

Dr de Bono is a world-renown public speaker and author of some 82 books. His name is inextricably linked with the concept of Lateral Thinking and methods for the direct teaching of thinking including  CoRT and Six Thinking Hats. Ranked as one of the world’s Top 50 Thinkers by the Times newspaper, his most recent work  is Six Frames: For Thinking about Information.  Across the world several organisations have been founded to promote his work on thinking including the Edward de Bono Foundation  and the de Bono Insitiute in Australia. He has recently established a forum and social networking site for like-minded thinkers called The De Bono Society.

Professor Dr. Margrit Kennedy 

Complementary Currency Consultant, Ecological Architect and Author

 Professory Kennedy is a consultant in complementary currencies, ecological architect and author of the book  Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium That Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth

She has published in the areas of community school planning and building, women and architecture, urban ecology, permaculture, money, land and tax systems. She has also practised architecture and urban planning in Brazil, Nigeria, Scotland, the USA and Germany and has worked as a professor for Ecological Building Technologies at the Department of Architecture, University of Hanover.

She has recently helped develop community currencies in Argentina, Columbia, Germany and New Zealand f and for the planned international city of Aurovillle, India.

 She has published books, articles and reports on community school planning and building, women and architecture, urban ecology, permaculture, money, land and tax systems. She has also practised architecture and urban planning in Brazil, Nigeria, Scotland, the USA and Germany and has worked as a professor for Ecological Building Technologies at the Department of Architecture, University of Hanover.

Dr Gil Seyfang

Environmental Social Scientist and Research Academic on Low-Carbon Lifestyles, University of East Anglia, UK

 Complementary currencies are one of the ’seeds of change’ I investigate in my new book (see link below), and my research strongly suggests that for CC growth and scaling up to happen, there needs to be institutions such as learning networks and intermediaries such as AICC, to allow practitioners to share experiences, to consolidate best practice and to liaise with other social actors such as public and private organisations, to help CC ideas to be carried into more mainstream settings.

Dr Seyfang is a  RCUK Academic Fellow researching sustainable consumption and low-carbon lifestyles, at the interface of sustainability policy agendas, ‘new economics’ theories, and innovative community-led practice.  She has a strong interest in sustainable currencies and sustainable consumption which challenge mainstream materialist culture and put forward alternative options for lifestyles and community building. She has conducted research on LETS, time banks and NU ‘green points’.

She is a Senior Research Associate at The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), University of East Anglia, UK, working on sustainable consumption as part of the ESRC-funded Programme for Environmental Decision Making and Editor of the International Journal of Community Currencies.  Dr Seyfang is also author of the book The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption.

Professor Colin C Williams

Professor of Public Policy, Management School, University of Sheffield, UK

The Australian Institute for Community Currencies (AICC) will enable a coordinated response to the growing need for self-reliance, local sourcing and sustainable development. It is organisations such as AICC which are at the forefront of the drive to create a financially and environmentally sustainable world.

Professor Williams’ research interests are in re-theorising the nature of economic development and investigating the implications for public policy. He has focussed on alternative economies, including evaluations of Local Energy Transfer Schemes (LETS). “Spatially, my interests range across the full spectrum from local and regional economic development in the UK through to the restructuring of western economies”

He has written widely on the topic of local economic development and informal economic activity and is currently the editor of  The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy  and the  International Journal of Community Currency Research.

His recent books include Rethinking the Future of Work, The Hidden Enterprise Culture: entrepreneurship in the underground economy, Cash-in-Hand Work and A Commodified World? mapping the limits of capitalism.

Stephen Burke

President, Board of Directors, Ithaca Hours

In Ithaca, New York, we started a local currency system, Ithaca Hours, in 1991. It has done a lot for us economically and civically.
A local currency system provides an entirely new revenue stream, which makes money available for entrepreneurs and moonlighters to turn ideas, skills, and time into cash -  cash which stays in the community, and is spent in the community with a pronounced “multiplier effect” far exceeding the national currency, which can go anywhere.
Local currency provides a competitive advantage for small, local businesses against chains which don’t accept it. This helps not only the local economy, but also local character and independence.
As cash becomes ever scarcer, and credit dries up in the banking debacles, local currencies are becoming less alternative and more mainstream.  
All these benefits are remarkably easy to achieve. Ithaca Hours was started by about a dozen people with no particular expertise – just dedication.
We recommend local currencies to any community and we are certain that with cooperation and persistence, you will achieve success as we have. We certainly stand ready to provide any advice or help we can. We wish you luck!”