Exploring Europe's New Economy Landscape
Mapping and analysing the ecosystem of organisations working to transform Europe's economic system
Across Europe, the cracks in our economic system are increasingly clear: rising inequality, surging costs-of-living, ecological breakdown, and declining trust in institutions. At the same time, new ideas and practices are sprouting up everywhere — from community energy initiatives and housing cooperatives to research institutes and advocacy groups advancing post-growth economics.
Fertile Ground is the most comprehensive mapping and analysis of this diverse and growing field to date. Commissioned by Partners for a New Economy (P4NE) and authored by Metabolic, the study documents 735 organisations across 35 countries that are actively working to transform our economic system to meet the needs of people and planet.
- Client: Partners for a New Economy (P4NE)
- Date: October 2025
The report serves as a follow-up to Turning the Tide (Demos Helsinki, 2022), responding to a need to understand: Who is doing this work? Where are the gaps? And how can funders, practitioners, and policymakers strengthen the field?
The study set out with the objectives to:
- Conduct an updated mapping of organisations within Europe working on the shared objective of economic systems change
- Identify and synthesise shared challenges, needs, and structural gaps across the ecosystem
- Develop a practical typology framework to support navigation and understanding of the field
- Surface key trends, shifts, and emergent dynamics over the past 5 years
- Identify where points of cohesion, traction, and progress can be further supported
- Offer recommendations to funders and the field itself on how to strengthen the field and support its objectives
The study highlights both the promise and the challenges of Europe’s new economy ecosystem:
- Momentum is building: Half of the mapped organisations were founded in the last decade, showing a surge of activity in response to crises like the 2008 financial crash, the acceleration of the climate crisis, Covid-19, and today’s cost-of-living crisis.
- Crises are catalysts: Transformation rarely happens gradually. Future ruptures — from climate shocks to AI-driven unemployment — are likely to accelerate shifts. The field needs further infrastructure to seize these moments.
- Funding is a binding constraint: Compared to past paradigm shifts like neoliberalism, today’s new economy efforts are operating at a fraction of the funding. Long-term, flexible, and patient capital is essential.
- Fragmentation persists: Diversity is a strength, but without stronger connective tissue — especially between Western and Eastern Europe — the field risks diluting its impact.
- Bridging everyday life and macroeconomics: The field must ground its work in tangible alternatives (housing, food, energy, utilities) while also investing in credible macroeconomic models that policymakers can act upon.
Economic systems change is one of the highest-leverage bets we can make. Without transforming the rules of finance, ownership, and distribution, progress on climate, housing, and justice will remain fragile. By mapping the field, Fertile Ground makes visible a growing ecosystem of actors, highlights urgent needs, and identifies opportunities for funders and practitioners to work together more strategically.
The actors mapped and the typology developed in this report will serve as the backbone for an online directory of new economy actors across Europe, launching in beta alongside the report to enable testing and feedback, with an updated version planned for January 2026. This tool will support collaboration, visibility, and field-building — helping diverse actors find each other and work together towards economic systems change.
