Centre for Thriving Places secures Triodos support to showcase businesses working with communities

The Centre for Thriving Places, a Bristol-based organisation founded in 201 to shine a light on the too- often overlooked positives in local economies, has announced a new project with support from Triodos Bank UK and independent charity Carnegie UK to amplify and celebrate the progress being made to embed wellbeing economics in local communities.

The Centre for Thriving Places aims to "move the economic compass from pointing to consumption and growth toward wellbeing economics for people, place and planet".

Across the UK, local government, business and community groups are increasingly taking steps to drive positive and sustained social and environmental action. 

The ‘Wellbeing Economy in Action’ project will air stories of business and community groups working together to achieve sustained, positive social and environmental change.

Liz Zeidler, chief executive, Centre for Thriving Places, said: “It’s easy to feel hopeless in the face of a brutal 24-hour news cycle. Bad news may sell, but there’s a growing appetite for stories of the real shifts that are happening that nourish us and, more importantly, spread a different way of doing things.

"Across the UK, local groups and organisations are collectively working to shift the long-embedded, exhausted systems that rely on consumerism and profit to define our future. With this new project, the repositioning of local economies towards a much more meaningful and positive future can be given the platform they deserve.”

The current economic model, measured by GDP growth, puts society and the environment in service to profit. The Centre for Thriving Places says this exacerbates unhappiness, inequality and climate breakdown. But in a wellbeing economy, success is measured instead by how well the system serves and supports social, health, cultural and environmental outcomes. Essentially, if a wellbeing economy is thriving, so is the wellbeing of the local people and environment. 

Bevis Watts, chief executive at Bristol-based Triodos Bank UK, said: “Interest in wellbeing economics has grown exponentially and this is a really good news story. Through our sponsorship of this project, we hope to spotlight what is happening on the ground, where local communities are taking back control of their own economies. At Triodos we have always been steadfast in our belief that people and the planet need not be sacrificed for a healthy economy and that, in fact, by prioritising positive societal and environmental impact we can all thrive.”

Sarah Davidson, chief executive, Carnegie UK, added: “These stories show that local communities across the UK are building systems which improve people’s lives without undermining the environment. At Carnegie UK, we believe that collective wellbeing should be our top priority. We’re proud to support this project as it shows that wellbeing public policy is already taking root up and down the UK.”

Centre for Thriving Places works in partnership with local authorities, organisations and individuals to provide practical pathways to improve wellbeing.