As in past times of crises, disparate groups have come together to propose a new solution to an epochal challenge. The Green New Deal Group drew inspiration from the ambition of President Roosevelt’s comprehensive response to the Great Depression to propose a modernised version, a ‘Green New Deal’ in 2008. It was designed to kick start a rapid transition to a new economy shaped to prevent a climate breakdown and transform a failed financial system. The Green New Deal will power a renewables revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs across the economy and rein in the distorting and socially-destructive power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities.

Meeting since early 2007, the membership of the Green New Deal Group is drawn to reflect a wide range of expertise relating politics and economics, and the climate, nature and inequality crises. The views and recommendations of the Green New Deal series of reports, are those of the group writing in their individual capacities.

The Green New Deal Group is, in alphabetical order:

Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of the Guardian, Colin Hines, Co-Director of Finance for the Future, former head of Greenpeace International’s Economics Unit, Jeremy Leggett, founder and Chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, Clive Lewis, Labour MP, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, Richard Murphy, Professor of Practice, City University, Director Tax Research LLP, Ann Pettifor, Director, Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), Charles Secrett, Advisor on Sustainable Development, former Director of Friends of the Earth, Andrew Simms, Co-Director, New Weather Institute, Coordinator, The Rapid Transition Alliance, Assistant Director, Scientists for Global Responsibility. Geoff Tily Senior Economist, TUC.

LARRY ELLIOTT is Economics Editor of the Guardian. He has been with the Guardian since 1998, and the paper’s economics editor for more than a decade. He is also the co-author, with Dan Atkinson, of The Age of Insecurity (1998), Fantasy Island: Waking up to the Incredible Economic Political and Social Illusions of the Blair Legacy (2007) and The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future (2008), and co-author of “In or Out: Labour and the Euro” with Andrew Gamble and Janet Bush . Larry studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and has been a regular broadcaster on television and radio, as well as a journalist for the Press Association. He is on the board of the Scott Trust, a council member of the Overseas Development Institute and an adviser to the Catalyst think tank and Red Pepper magazine.

COLIN HINES is a co founder and helps convene the Green New Deal group and is a Co-Director of Finance for the Future and is an occasional advisor to Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas. He worked at Greenpeace International for ten years, where he campaigned against nuclear power and was Co-ordinator of its International Economics Unit. Colin helped to form the grassroots NGO, Localise West Midlands, and is author of Localisation: A global manifesto (2000) and Progressive Protectionism (2017).

JEREMY LEGGETT is a social entrepreneur and writer. He is founder and a director of Solarcentury, one of the world’s most respected solar energy companies, winner of  a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation. He is also founder and chair of SolarAid, a charity set up with Solarcentury profits, winner of a BITC Unilever Global Development Award. An Entrepreneur of the Year at the New Energy Awards, he was the first Hillary Laureate for International Leadership in Climate Change.  www.jeremyleggett.net.

CLIVE LEWIS was elected the Labour MP for Norwich South in May 2015.  Before entering Parliament Clive was Vice President of the National Union of Students, a BBC TV political reporter as well as Army reservist infantry officer, serving a combat tour of Afghanistan in 2009.  He has been Shadow Minister for Climate & Energy Change, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence and Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He is currently Shadow Minister for the Treasury, with a focus on Environmental Economics and Sustainable Finance. In March 2019 he tabled the Green New Deal Bill, formally known as the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill, with Green MP Caroline Lucas, the first attempt to legislate for a Green New Deal in the UK.

CAROLINE LUCAS is the Green Party’s first MP, representing Brighton Pavilion. She served as an MEP from 1999 until 2010 and as an Oxfordshire councillor previously. She has also served both as the Party Leader and as its Co-Leader, with Jonathan Bartley. She is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change, Co-Chair of the group on Fuel Poverty, Vice Chair of the Animal Welfare, Public and Commercial Services and Sustainable Housing All Party Parliamentary Groups, as well as Chair of Parliamentary CND. She is also a member of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee and a co-chair of the cross party Environmental Justice Commission. Caroline continues to be an active campaigner on a range of issues and has consistently been voted the UK’s most ethical politician. She has won awards for her work on tackling social exclusion, wildlife protection, women’s rights and is in the Environment Agency’s Top 100 Eco-Heroes of all time. In March 2019 she tabled the Green New Deal Bill, formally known as the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill, with Labour MP Clive Lewis, the first attempt to legislate for a Green New Deal in the UK.

RICHARD MURPHY is a UK based chartered accountant. He has been Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City, University of London since 2015. Richard previously co-founded the Tax Justice Network, and was then director of Tax Research LLP. He co-founded the  Green New Deal Group and the Fair Tax Mark. His summary CV is available here. Having worked and campaigned on tax, environmental and political economic issues for almost two decades Richard is returning to his first love of accountancy to direct the Corporate Accountability Network from November 2019. He worked as an accountant for the first two decades of his career, much of it as senior partner of a firm of chartered accountants, but also as a director of a number of entrepreneurial companies. He still holds a practicing certificate from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

ANN PETTIFOR is best known for her prediction of the Great Financial Crisis in The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave 2006). In 2003 she edited the New Economics Foundation’s Real World Economic Outlook (Palgrave) and in 2008 co-authored The Green New Deal published by NEF. In 2017 Verso published The Production of Money on the nature of money, debt and the finance sector. In 2018 the Heinrich Boll Foundation and the City of Bremen awarded Pettifor the Hannah Ahrendt Prize. She is a Council member of the Progressive Economy Forum and director of PRIME economics – a network of Keynesian macroeconomists. In 2015 the Rt.Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP appointed her to the Labour Party’s Economic Advisory Committee. She has an honorary doctorate from the University of Newcastle for her work leading an international movement for the cancellation of $150bn of debt owed by 35 low income countries, Jubilee 2000.

CHARLES SECRETT is an independent advisor on climate, economics and sustainability.  He currently works as a policy advisor on sustainable economics for Clive Lewis, MP, Shadow Treasury Minister.  Previously, he has been a member of Shell Global’s External Review Committee, Chair of the Board of Triodos Renewables, Special Advisor for The Mayor of London, and a Board Member of the London Development Agency.  Charles was a member of the UK Government’s Roundtable (then Commission) on Sustainable Development for 10 years, and Director of Friends of the Earth between 1993 and 2003.

ANDREW SIMMS is an author, political economist and campaigner. He is co-director of the NewWeather Institute, coordinator of the Rapid Transition Alliance, assistant director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, a research associate at the University of Sussex, and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation. Andrew devised ‘Earth Overshoot Day,’ marking when in the year we start living beyond our ecological means, and coined the term ‘Clone Towns’ describing the homogenisation of high streets caused by chain stores. New Scientist magazine called him a ‘master at joined up progressive thinking’. His books include Cancel the Apocalypse, Tescopoly, Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?, The New Economics and Ecological Debt. Economics: A Crash Course, the first beginners guide to the subject written from a new economics’ perspective, and co-authored with David Boyle, is published in July 2019. He tweets from @andrewsimms_uk

GEOFF TILY joined the TUC as Senior Economist in August 2014. This follows 25 years as a member of the government statistical and then economic services, most recently as a macroeconomic adviser in HM Treasury. His book Keynes Betrayed is regarded as an important contribution to the literature.