Movement Profile
Green House is a green think tank operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. We were formed in 2011, just after the 2010 General Election. Two of the prime movers were Andrew Dobson, Professor of Politics at Keele University, and myself, Brian Heatley, a recent England and Wales Green Party Policy Coordinator and former civil servant. We had together written the 2010 Green Party General Election manifesto. Andy in particular felt that there were many green-leaning academics who had important things to say which they could not express through normal academic channels. The other two prime movers were Molly Scott Cato, now Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the University of Roehampton, and Rupert Read, Reader in Philosophy at Norwich University. Both had been prominent in green policy circles for many years and were conscious that, unlike in most other countries in the EU, there was no generalist policy think tank or foundation with a green orientation operating in the UK.
However, while the founding group has come from the Green Party of England and Wales, there has been a very deliberate attempt to ensure that Green House is independent of the Green Party, and it has sought links with and participation from people across the political spectrum. Thus at a major conference on “The Future of Green Politics” run by Green House in 2012, apart from Andy Dobson the main speakers were the conservative writer on green politics Roger Scruton and Michael Jacobs, former special advisor to Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Moreover the Green House Advisory Board is quite diverse; it includes for example the former Labour Environment Minister Michael Meacher MP, and the prominent feminist, Bea Campbell. We have also tried to operate throughout the British Islands; a prominent participant in the Green Politics event and member of Green House is John Barry, Professor of Politics at Queens University Belfast, and a one time Co-Chair of the Green Party of Northern Ireland.
We are fundamentally a policy think tank, and our main activity is publishing political and economic reports, and running occasional events. We mainly disseminate our work through our website and run occasional events to publicise and discuss our work. We also publish shorter, more informal pieces and occasionally respond to government or parliamentary consultations. Our most recent reports have been in a series called “the Post-Growth Project”, which argues that the era of significant economic growth in industrial countries both should (from the point of view of avoiding climate change) and has (because we are beginning actually to hit significant resource constraints) come to an end, and explores the ways that our social, political and economic policies need to adapt to this situation.
Papers in this series have included significant pieces on economics, including “The Paradox of a Green Stimulus” by Molly Scott Cato and my own “Joined up Economics: The Political Economy of Sustainability, Financial Crises, Wages, Equality and Welfare”. We have also written on the issues that will constrain public services in a post-growth world in the report “Smaller but Better? Post-growth Public Services”, which I co-authored with Andrew Pearmain. This latter report was launched at a well attended event in the new Library of Birmingham in November 2013. We hope to publish soon an innovative piece by Jonathan Essex, a Surrey County Councillor, on the little-explored area between physical development in buildings and infrastructure and growth and carbon emissions.
One of our aims has been to have green political issues discussed both more and in a more informed way in the media. In practice we have found making an impact very difficult; most newspapers and broadcast outlets are much more interested in reporting upon issues that fall within existing paradigms rather than discussing groundbreaking ideas. Thus in the UK economic issues are almost always discussed against an underlying assumption that the basic issue is the question of what policies will restore economic growth. Getting any acknowledgement that there are people who think that this is not the main issue, and that more important questions are about building a genuinely ecologically sustainable economy within a society where all can flourish, is an uphill struggle.
We have had some successes with achieving media coverage, usually because one of us has some contact with particular journalists. Thus Rupert Reid’s report, “Guardians for Future Generations”, attracted quite a lot of interest. The paper proposed that there should be a quasi-parliamentary institution, selected like jury by lot, which would have a veto over proposals if, in their judgement, the proposals would adversely affect the interests of future generations.
Green House has published on many other matters. Of particular interest to Open Citizenship readers might be a very recent report by Alex Warleigh-Lack, Professor of EU Politics at the University of Surrey, on greening the European Union. Alex argues that corporate dominance of EU policies could be successfully resisted, and that the EU in particular could be important in the transition to a sustainable economy. And Andrew Dobson will shortly be publishing an important new piece on post-growth politics, which argues in particular for the crucial importance within those politics of the defence of “the public”, the assets, places and institutions which citizens hold in common. More information about Green House, as well as access to our reports (all of which are or will be online), can be found here.
Tags: Movement Profile