Full Programme | Social | Economic | Ecological | Worldview
Programme Overview
Type: e-Learning
Start Date: 26 May 2025
Study Time: 10 hours/ week
Facilitation: With Facilitators
Level: Intermediate
Registrations: until 2 June 2025
Developed by:
Regenerative & Cooperative Economic Systems Design
Economic Design for Sustainability and Regeneration
Cultivate the understanding, tools and inspiration to contribute to the global just transition to an economics for people and the planet!
"The “Economy” Is Ultimately Our Material Relationship with Each Other and with the Rest of the Living World. We Have to Decide Whether We Want That Relationship to Be Based on Extraction and Exploitation, or on Reciprocity and Care."
~ Jason Hickel
Get ready to:
- Unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics
- Realize the deeper root causes of inequality, injustice and climate change
- Dive into core texts and leading ideas about regenerative and cooperative economics
- Learn from indigenous peoples, women, people of color and global south communities about decolonizing economics and creating systems based on solidarity and liberation
- Align your work, life and money with your values
- Locate your unique contribution to economic systems change
"In this time when the economies have grown so large and impersonal that they extinguish rather than nurture community well-being, perhaps we should consider other ways to organize the exchange of goods and services which constitute an economy."
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
You may have sought out this course because you feel that mainstream economics isn’t working like it should. Perhaps you have experience of the inequalities, injustices and oppression that current mainstream economics perpetuates and want to explore how the economy can be fairer and just whilst also being sustainable and regenerative.
The good news – a growing number of people and movements around the world are acknowledging that our current economic system is no longer sustainable and are developing the knowledge, support and guidance to contribute to a more cooperative and regenerative economic future. This course aims to share that knowledge and those practices and experiences from across the world to support you in your own exploration of cooperative and regenerative economics.
"We must all understand that empowering citizens to speak authoritatively about the economy is a prerequisite for democracy and a precondition for the good society. "
~ Yanis Varoufakis
This is not a traditional economics course. The course has been designed to be participatory, interactive and collaborative and uses a variety of different mediums to facilitate your engagement with the course content. We invite you to be curious and ask questions, to be authentic and vulnerable, to embrace the shared responsibility of learning with and from each other with compassion and care and to offer your presence and engagement so that we can each find ways to contribute to cooperative and regenerative economic design wherever we are in the world.
This course covers:
- Simple and down-to-earth ways to communicate what regenerative economics is
- The assumptions underlying mainstream economic thinking and why they are problematic
- Leading economic models and examples that are cooperative and regenerative by design
- A deeper understanding of the operating principles of capitalism and real viable alternatives
- Pathways to economic systems change
- How to build local economic resilience
- Practical ways you can contribute effectively to regenerative and cooperative economics wherever you are in the world
Each of the five modules offers a theme, an introduction, materials in a variety of formats (including leading essays, videos, podcast documentaries, etc), bring-it-to-life exercises and a live session to make sense of the material in your own life. This course is not coming from a place of certainty or expertise but of inquiry. Feel encouraged to ask questions, respectfully disagree, offer your own views, insights and experiences and add other perspectives, resources and examples.
In addition to the five modules, you will have the opportunity to develop a final project that empowers you to become an imagination activist. After you are invited to create a vision for a more regenerative and cooperative economy, you will be supported in crafting a strategy to achieve that vision and finding your own contribution towards it.
Get support from:
- An active learning community of people like you around the world
- The experienced facilitation, time and attention of two leading Renegade Economists - Della Z Duncan, co-host of the Upstream Podcast and Emma Woods, founder of Flourish Economics
- A learning culture that is open to questions and debate. Your experiences and insights are welcome here!
- Interactive live sessions catered to your time zone to make sense of the course material in your own life
- An engaging learning platform designed for multiple learning styles and areas of interest
- Core texts and teachings as well as leading edge ideas, reflective questions, case studies and steps for practical application
Course Facilitators
Della Z Duncan guides journeys upstream to the deeper causes of the challenges of our time empowering us to realize and remember who we are, why we are here and how we can contribute to regenerative and cooperative systems change. This will be her third year facilitating the Economic Dimension course. Della is a Renegade Economist, a Right Livelihood Coach, a work that reconnects facilitator, a post capitalist consultant, a co-host of the Upstream Podcast, a co-founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition and a senior fellow at the London School of Economics. She is on the faculty of Gaia Education, the California Institute of Integral Studies, Vital Cycles Permaculture and Santa Cruz Permaculture. Della is also the co-creator and co-facilitator of our Cultivating Regenerative Livelihoods course. She holds an MA in Economics for Transition with Distinction from Schumacher College, a BA in International Relations and Sociology with highest honors from the University of California, Davis, a graduate certificate in Authentic Leadership from Naropa University, and has completed Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects Intensive Program.
Emma Woods is dedicated to democratizing economic thinking and empowering others to have their say on the economics that shapes their lives. Tired of peddling economic growth and conforming to a neoliberal neuronormative career path, Emma left a career as a successful senior economist in the UK public sector to set up Flourish Economics which offers alternative economics education, imaginative workshops and radical thought leadership. Emma has critiqued and challenged the role of economic thinking and capitalism in pregnancy, birth and parenting by embracing alternative parenting and encouraging others to reconnect with their innate knowledge and instincts. Emma is actively building her livelihood garden and building community locally supporting families with babywearing, reusable nappies and running a local Nature Club.
Certificate of Completion
Upon certification you will have the background and confidence to take an active role in designing for sustainability, resilience and regeneration, both professionally and personally, working for small and large- scale community projects, eco-social enterprises or transition initiatives in civil society, the public sector or business.
You will feel ready to offer your contribution and facilitate others to contribute to the collaborative transformation of our existing communities, institutions and neighbourhoods towards more sustainable and regenerative patterns of being and doing in the world.
What is more, you will be able to support yourself and others in leading healthier, more joyful and more meaningful lives.
To receive a Certificate of Completion students need to engage in all four dimensions plus the Design Studio over a 14-month period. However, the dimensions do not need to be completed within the same year. For those who require more time it is also possible to complete within 36 months, once registered in the full programme. At the end of their participation students will have successfully completed the minimum required activities for each dimension and a satisfactory team-design project.
Registration
- The Economic Design course will run every year and runs for 8 weeks (including an orientation period).
- We suggest you dedicate a minimum of 10 hours a week to receive maximum benefit from this programme.
- If you register early, you are able to get a discount. The full price of this programme is £350 GBP.
- For further information about scholarship please fill out the form or email: yan@gaiaeducation.org or ivan.barnie@gaiaeducation.org
The Economic dimension can be taken as a stand-alone programme or as the starting point for our 10-month online Design for Sustainability certificate course.
