Outlook 2025
Outlook for 2025 and Beyond

Outlook 2024 – 2030 and beyond
When we try to work forward with the Sustainable Development Goals we can reach those goals before 2030. Working towards freedom AND responsibility! From 2030 and further we will have all the time of the world to work on innovations instead of solving problems alone.
Annual Report 2024
Quantity Price – Guarantee – Payment Delivery
Consumption.
Studio
Consumer360Experience
Activities
WorldWideWeb360 as Outlook
Annual Report 2023 & Outlook
Dialogue toward Sustainable Development
01/02/03 Religion, Art and Science more and more in ethical perspective
04/05/06 Education, Health and real Food and the bees as our guides
07/08/09 Housing, Money and Travel/Transport are connecting the world
10/11/12 Communication, Politics and Associations and the future we want
Annual Report 2022
Consumers Citizens Co-Creators – People in Progress …..
Looking to ourselves as citizens of one world living towards the future(s) we want, we can recognise the big picture, the development of all the 220 countries, all kinds of organizations, and all 8.000.000.001 – ourselves as consumers.
Beyond all differences there are more and more things in common! The worldwide web as the basis of all information, English (and Spanish and Chinese) as languages most used to express ourselves, Dollars Euros Crypto’s or even Bancors (Keynes) or gold again as medium for worldwide payments in a worldwide economy?
But also the EU and UN as worldwide platforms for dialogue, and Consumers International or Education International are there to talk with each other.
Only religion, art and science are still highly divided, but that is essential in its own because we want to be free about what we think about the development of the world, the cosmos and the spiritual development of ourselves of course!
Growth – From Quantity to Quality
But when we look better to agriculture, to the plants and to nature as a greater process of development we can learn to see the big picture and the connection of all the details better and better! Goethe already described the basic plant as a principal living process (Ur Pflanze) and Linneaus all the many different families of plants. Theodor Kranich in the end explains the exact relationship of plants and planets in seven different families as the connection between the many plants (LInnaeus) and the only one basical process (Goethe).
Nature as a school for higher insights in the end can give us the tools to understand the spiritual world behind the well-known natural world as we can see it. And so there is also a road to understand all kinds of art and also religions as the different steps in the development of humankind towards the 21st century and beyond …..
Looking Back to 2022
Humanity made big steps toward more conciousness about knowledge, politics and economy and nature. But it should go a “little bit” faster! We ourselves decided to upgrade 42 years of research, communication and education toward a simple (and complex) toolkit for everyone. In one slogan we could explain what it is all about when we talk about human development in general. It is about conciousness, dialogue and responsibilty. And the best way to do so is to follow the money what we spend, safe/invest or subsidize. Which impact our money has on the past (products), on today (banking) or on tomorrow (financing science and education). So let’s “follow our money”!
In 2022 we produced our first youtube/video about the worldwideweb as the picture of the twelve necessities of daily life. The Club of Rome became 50 years and so did our study on management and governance at Nyenrode 1972. We wrote the “Big Picture” of consumer history as basis for the consumer looking from here to the horizons to come.
The year 2022 was also the publication on citizens’ councils by Eva Rovers. The start of Caring Farmers was the broadest impact organization towards the future of efficient-biologic-dynamic food and farming. Rethinking Economics groups all around the world were presented by the publication Economy Studies written by Sam de Muijnck and Joris Tieleman.
Last but not least we saw the second conjunction of the planets Mercurius Mars Jupiter and Saturnus in a lifetime this year! So all signals this year were pointing to the best possible propositions for consumer governance in the years to come.
Looking forward into 2023 and beyond …
Based on the slogan “follow your money” all the material on our website is more than enough for everyone interested in the world of economy and his/her personal impact. The basic elements of twelve and seven aspects are enough to find our way every day of the week of questions and answers.
Consumer360Academy
Our project will become a year of updating and upgrading the website. Folowing the news in the world and translate it on the basis of 12×7 aspects to see the big picture for our consumer governance decisions every day.
Peter Daub
Chairman
20221207
Annual Report 2021
WorldWideWeb360 – Consumer Governance is Becoming Mainstream.
Now we have passed the 21st year in the 21st century we might call ourselves adults at last! After 3×7 years of upgrading our consumer knowledge, struggling with all kinds of arguments, and last but not least trying out all kinds of organizing new ways of sustainable and responsible lifestyles. And where awareness is the basis of it all and by definition irreversible, education is still life(s)long learning, and action always trial and error. The WorldWideWeb360 of cultural social and economical organizations is based on the 12 necessities of life and the 7 aspects of dialogue between consumers and production / services / advisors. It gives us the “overview” and shows the big picture.
Looking back
Most important what happened this year was the international conference in Berlin organized by UNESCO and Education International where finally was decided that sustainable and responsible lifestyles will be integrated in every curriculum of every school worldwide! Like a follow up the COP 26 Conference in Glasgow resulted in the first steps of implementing the answers on the questions of the next generation. Talking in the language of Greta Thunberg: from bla bla bla to do do do!
The road ahead will not be easy but it feels very professional now!
Looking forward
The year 2022 will hopefully bring many new initiatives and many breakthroughs in all kinds of organizations. Climate cannot wait anymore and so the case of inequality worldwide. Sustainability in nature, but also healthier and more tasteful food are the best options to work for. Because healthy food is the basis for healthy thinking to build a healthy future. And so the tendencies toward true prices and true incomes. Maturity means think, argue and act in a healthy way.
Real interest, real empathy, and real vigor are the tools!
What about us?
From 2021 to 2024 the Partnership for Education and Research on Responsible Living PERL again received the UNESCO Unitwin Chair to promote research and education worldwide on sustainable and responsible consumption. Since 2009 we are one of the 140 partner institutions in this network now called CCL Centre for Collaborative Learning of the INN University Hamar Norway. After the conferences every year now most communication goes via webinars and online meetings. We assisted in organizing the conferences in Istanbul, Berlin and in the Netherlands at Nyenrode Business University *).
As a member of the International Federation for Home Economics IFHE we joined three conferences. Our poster presentation of the WorldWideWeb360 of consumption was in 2015 in Malta. Our presentation of the MoneyManager in 2018 was held in Osnabruck. In 2022 the next conference will be in Atlanta USA for which we are only reviewing part of the abstracts.
Our other front-office activities were again lots of emails for networking, information exchange, congratulations for pro-active organizations (Chapeau!). And of course all different ways of advising, lobbying and writing small articles or columns. All kinds of activities on catalyzing change! Including workshops of course.
Back-office we are now active to organize our archive to be more accessible for research. Although our news since 1980 is a great overview of consumer emancipation in the last 40 years, the papers, magazines, books and dossiers from wich we took all our knowledge are still interesting to read a bit more about.
The complete Consumer360Academy as a project is presented by our website. The history of consumer emancipation as a timeline on the newspage, also arranged according to the twelve seperate necessities of life. All basic information for consumers is written in the text of the 12 necessities of life and the 7 aspects of consumer-producer dialogue. E-book, MoneyManager and Toolkit (game for 12 consumers) make the project complete. A massive open online course (MOOC) is still in the making to translate the whole website into an official course for study in schools or universities.
20220101 Peter Daub, Chairman
*) The study at Nyenrode in 1972 was also the basis for all the knowledge about management which we used to develop Consumer360Academy, the basic information for the upcoming “consumer governance” in dialogue with corporate governance and government governance. It was in those years that more and more consumers started working together in new forms of dialogue, platforms and organizations in all different areas of the 12 necessities of life.
Annual report 2020
Consumer360Academy is still a very small organization but working as a catalyst towards many greater organizations working on consumer education one way or another. Although an advisor or catalyzer never knows what his impact is, he can become enthousiast every time when an organization goes in a more positive direction. Especially when that organization survived a crisis in which the adviser was asked for assistance by co-thinking.
Consumer360Academy has its roots in 1980 when its founder Peter Daub (then working at Triodos Bank) started his research on what a consumer would need for making decisions about to buy or not to buy. Which information, which arguments are needed to make the best possible decisions in everyday shopping and financial decisions? The answer is as simple as it is. All decisions are based on 12x7x3 aspects, 12 necessities of life x 7 aspects of trade x 3 directions in development (past present future). This organizational structure is not only basis for consumers but also for all other organizations in production, trade, banking, politics, ngo’s and society as a whole as well. So daily planners and moneymanagent agenda’s can be one piece of paper! The rest of the website is information for lifelong learning.
The book Consumer Freedom and Responsibility written in 1998 was the result of this research and the start of the Free Consumers Association in 2001, later given the english name Consumer360Academy in 2004 with the start of the website. Last September now also connected to Economists4Future and Fridays4Future, the worldwide initiative of Nobel Prize winner Greta Thunberg. The (sub)title Consumers4Future is meant to give a name to every consumer worldwide who chooses for a sustainable and responsible lifestyle to help build the best possible future for him/herself and for the next generation!
November 11 the Library and Archive will start to be accessible for researchers on consumer history. The newspage of the website in itself is already a comprehensive archive of the last 40 years of history about consumer information, consumer initiatives and organizations, and consumer education. It is THE most simple Toolkit for every consumer to organize his/her daily life including all financial data in the MoneyManager360.
Consumer360Academy has worked together with many organizations worldwide and will continue to do so. Most important organizations for consumer education are the International Federation for Home Economics IFHE, the Partnership for Education and Research on Responsible Lifestyles PERL, and the UN SDG Partnership Exchange.
2020 Worldnews in a Nutshell
- January COP25 Climate Conference Madrid / Greta Thunberg
- February World Economic Forum / Stakeholders engagement
- March Global Money Week / Financial Literacy
- April Christiana Figueres / The Future WE Choose
- May Consumers International / Change Network
- June TIME Magazine: Rutger Bregman / The Moment to Change the World
- July Rudolf Steiner / Rethinking Economics
- August United Nations / Stakeholder Engagement (MOOC)
- September United Nations 75 Years / SDG’s
- October Triodos Bank for Responsible Banking 40 Years
- November Consumer360Academy 40 Years (That’s Us!) / Catalyzing Change
- December Ralph Nader TED Social Change 50 Years
2020 Our Activities
- January Preparing Housing, Library and Archive for November Celebration Consumer360Academy
- February Annual Meeting (3 days) International Federation for Home Economics IFHE, Bonn Germany
- March Introduction MoneyManager360, Toolkit for Financial Literacy and Household Bookkeeping
- April Global Money Week (Proposal) GMW is postponed to 2021
- May ISEAL Webinars (3) on Living Income for Farmers
- June Triodos Bank Annual Shareholders Meeting (online)
- July World Social Forum (online)
- August Cusanus Hochschule for Shaping Society and Rethinking Economics Bernkastel-Kues Germany
- September Sustainable Tuesday (2 posters) The Hague Netherlands
- October Celebration Triodos Bank 40 Years (online)
- November Consumer360Academy 40 Years Celebration and Opening Archive for Researchers
- December PERL/CCL Celebration 25 Years (online) INN University Hamar Norway
2021 Our Plans – What are we going to do next year(s)?
- Consumer360Academy, Dissemmination of Information, Advising and Catalysing Change
- Supply Chain Associations – Promoting Consumers-Trade-Producers
- Threefolding of Consumer-Citizen-Creator Information for Organizations and Society
- MoneyManager360 – Promoting For Basic Financial Literacy and Household Bookkeeping
- Consumer360Experience – A Poster Presentation
- Archive360 – About 40 Years Consumer Emancipation
- Website and Book – Upgrade and New Edition
Annual report 2019
Overview
In 40 years of researching, networking and catalysing change, we helped many consumers and consumer-organizations to find their way into the 21st century. It was highly interesting to see this change at seminars and international conferences, especially gaining momentum in the first few years of the 21st century! People were much more interested in the world around them, asking more questions than ever before, and were more eager to take action and responsibility for the future. Individually, with others in initiatives and organizations, and as global citizens, entering much more “professionally” into dialogue with all stakeholders instead of protesting alone! Today we can see that the human Individual is really “incarnated” into maturity!
We were created to be creators. We can now experience ourselves as co-creators in the universe! But it is a beginning only. The process of lifelong learning will guide us in the centuries ahead! The Dutch financial newspaper FD of January 2020 spent four full pages on the question, why schoolchildren have to learn so much about history but almost nothing about the future? The article was especially meant as a wake-up call to introduce futurology in school curricula!
On the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland now ALL stakeholders including consumer organizations will join the dialogue about the future of the world economy. The WEF is celebrating its 50th anniversary also!
Looking back
As we mentioned in our news articles, this year many organizations were looking for new strategies (may/june), new trade routes (jan/feb) and new ways of government (nov/dec). It was especially interesting to be at the conference where the successful Global Money Week was handed over to the OECD, at the Dutch Central Bank in Amsterdam. The OECD will continue the Global Money Week in the OECD/INFE project (International Network on Financial Education), a school program on financial literacy. We were also at the conference on 100 years of Threefolding of social issues in Stuttgart, where Rudolf Steiner introduced it in 1919.
Furthermore we joined the celebration of 70 years of the Social Economic Research and Advisory Institute for the Dutch government (SER). The IFHE asked us to help review abstracts for their conference in Atlanta USA next year. The International Federation for Home Economics is more than 100 years old and is the worldwide organization of school teachers on home economics.
Other activities were connected to Dutch Sustainable Tuesday, a review on the newest book of best-selling writer Niko Roorda on sustainability and management, a dialogue with the Volksbank about clients in financial problems and financial literacy for prevention. Also at the 7-years celebration of the Budgetcircles, a highly effective concept for solving financial problems by working together in groups. Jeanine Schreurs developed this program to help people get grip on their money, sustainability and quality of life!
As member of the UN Partnership Exchange we submitted our thoughts for the review on the 4-year evaluation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (which we joined in New York 2016). So there was never a dull moment! And, o yes, we almost forget to mention that we launched the extra domain name and special webpage for our cashmanager/planner moneymanager360.money.
Looking forward
Most important will be the ongoing development of consumer participation in all 12 areas of economic activity (necessities of life) and dialogue about the 7 aspects of trade. Working towards better insights, dialogue and sustainable and responsible lifestyles. And giving our economic questions a realistic basis by prepaying, subscription or co-financing.
For us, the most important day in 2020 will be November 11, when our initiative celebrates 40 years of working especially for the individual consumer: on information and arguments, decisionmaking and longlife learning!. In 1980 we wrote our letter of intent to Lex Bos at Triodos Bank (one of the first banks for sustainable and responsible banking), which was just founded two months before. We presented our plans to start an Advisory Bureau for Consumers/Organizations, to research all the management information consumers would need to manage their own life and their relation to the world around them. Including consumer-producer dialogue and cashflows as mirrors of the exchange of products and services. In fact we wanted to translate our management education and experience for the consumer. From corporate governance to consumer governance. In practice an extension of home economics including dialogue with producers, trade and finance. From an economy of supply and demand towards an economy of question and answer!
November 11 we will also present our Consumer360Archive: 200 meters of books, magazines, daily paper articles, notes, project reports and personal diaries and logbooks of those fourty years, arranged according to the 12 necessities of life and the 7 aspects of dialogue and trade. The archive will be open for students to research the many sources. The library will be open to the public and lectures and seminars on consumer governance in general can be arranged.. As in previous years, we can give workshops and courses on consumer issues. On consumer governance, financial literacy, consumer-producer dialogue or on society in its structures and possibilities for the future we want. And of course our book, website and moneymanager can help to see the big picture!
In 2020 we will again join the Global Money Week, the annual meeting of the IFHE, and the conference on 40 years of Triodosbank. We also hope to join discussions on the future of the worldeconomy at Forum3 in Stuttgart. And to be present in Barcelona at the World Social Forum.
Annual report 2018
To buy or not to buy
In 2018 we decided on the future of our activities and on how to respond to questions in the years to come. Society as a whole and individual people (read: consumers) are changing fast forward in getting information, searching arguments, and taking decisions concerning “to buy or not to buy”. So we as Consumer360Academy have to change fast forward too!
Products
That was exactly the reason for concentrating on the promotion of the easy-to-go household booklet which we now gave its new name: MoneyManager360. We introduced it during our workshop presentation at the conference of the International Federation for Home Economics IFHE in Osnabruck Germany August 30.
On January 1 next year a new set of webpages will be added to our website, plus an extra domain-name: www.moneymanager360.money. To invite readers to use it we added the following promotional text:
MoneyManager360 is based on the 12 necessities of life.
That’s WHY it is the simplest household booklet
and gives you the best tool to find all information you need.
Drawn in a circle of 360 degrees it presents the whole world in a nutshell.
So you can better understand HOW everything is (inter)connected.
And find the most relevant arguments to buy or not to buy.
To registrate your daily expenses it is most practical to use a horizontal or vertical excel sheet.
That’s WHAT works best! So that you can take the best possible decisions.
For the sustainable and responsible future you want, for the quality of life
DOWNLOAD NOW FOR FREE AND START THE FUTURE YOU WANT!
It can be downloaded for free so that all 7.000.000.001 consumers can use it when they want to. (And editors can copy it for free to integrate it in books, agenda’s/managers, websites or apps).
Promotion
Because of the central role of the money manager as “mirror” of our daily expenses our promotion activities will focus more towards education on financial literacy. But we will also continue on the road of consumer education for sustainable and responsible consumption and production such as IFHE, PERL, ConsumerClassroom and Consumers International.
To promote our academy we also joined many other initiatives this year: Lidl consumer panel, Archive Day, Sustainability Day, Alternative Finance Festival.
Price
Financing the website, ict and communication, papers, magazines and books, travelling and the many seminars and conferences were again made possible by many donations. The financial report will be published on the webpage ifrs/anbi.
Place
The “place to be” is of course the desk or ipad of the consumer. Other channels for communication will also be explored such as Wikipedia, the press and conferences.
Outlook
In the year 2019 we will concentrate our promotion on all levels of globalization and the dialogue between production trade and consumption. In 2020 we will present ourselves as Consumer360Archive highlighting the emancipation of the consumer 1980-2020. A library with 80 meters books and 120 boxes full of articles we have quite a story to tell.
Annual report 2017, History and Outlook
History / Highlights 1980-2020
Every Revolution Starts With Stupid Questions (Joseph Beuys)
Introduction
The years 1980-2020 are the years before and after the turning point of the beginning of the 21st century. In fact THE most esssential period in the history of mankind when refering to the turning point in one’s own life becoming mature. But nothing happens in one year! The forty years bridging the two centuries give us a clear view on the proces. And that was revolutionary!
1968 Consumer organizations in-the-making
Worldwide students revolted asking for a better world. For myself as founder of this tiny organization it was at that same time the turning point to change from ship-engineer / mechanical engineer towards a study economy and management and focusing on the “why how what” about a better world. 1968 was also the start of the Club of Rome. The years following the uproar also was the start of many initiatives and organizations of consumers. In education, healthcare, food and agriculture, travelling, etc etc.
1980 Consumer governance: why-how-what?
Joining the group of founders of the Triodos Bank who were one of the first initiatives for financing innovative sustainable and social projects. Now partner of the Global Alliance for Banking in Values GABV a group of more than thirty banks worldwide also talking and discussing with all the banks worldwide about the why how and what of banking into the 21st century. Because of revolutionary developments of consumer actions in the sixties and the new consumer initiatives and organizations in the seventies a new (revolutionairy) way of thinking about economics money and finance became urgent to create the best possible mirrors for the new reality.
1989 Consumer freedom and responsibility towards the 21st century
Publishing of the results of my seven years research about the role of the consumer and the consumer organization in the economy. In 1998 writing a small but comprehensive book of sixty pages about the principles of consumer information and consumer governance: Consumer Freedom and Responsibility – Towards the 21st Century (Konsument vrijheid en verantwoordelijkheid / Peter Daub 1998 ISBN 90-76206-01-5 / Most content to be found on our website www.consumer360.org ). Including a financial agenda for daily and monthly expenses for all necessities of life. But 1989 was also the fall of the Berlin Wall and that was really revolutionary! Thanks to Michael Gorbatsov but especially also to all citizens in all the countries who gave the wake-up call for change!
2001 Free Consumers Association founded
Free Consumers Association founded July 14 as a platform for exchange of insights and experiences about consumer governance, for individual consumers and for consumer organizations as well. It was three weeks after 9/11 when we were at our training for writing press releases at ANP in The Hague that we realised that the “clash of civilizations” had begun. That globalization came into a current also for a worldwide understanding among consumers and citizens. Not only about war and piece but more and more about the basics of economy money and income, about true pricing and true inome, about quality of life for everyone! 2001 was also the start of the World Social Forum still organized every year.
2004 Consumer360Academy website
Worldwatch Institute published their State of the World focusing on the Consumer. For us it was the year that the first interviews and articles about our initiative started because of questions towards us what we were doing and planning to do. We started the english website Consumer360Academy which is online since then, regulary visited by all kinds of relevant organizations.
2006/2017 Consumer-education worldwide
Free Consumer Association with english website Consumer360Academy joined the worldwide network of educators and trainers in home economics who were developing new ways of educating towards sustainable and responsible lifestyles now the UN/UNITWIN chair of the Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living PERL at the Norway University in Hamar. Also working together with the International Federation of Home Economics IFHE, ConsumerCLassroom for educators worldwide, and the United Nations PartnershipExchange about the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Including visiting many of the conferences and even helping organizing some of them.
2010/2017 Lifelong Learning and rethinking economics
Arab Spring / 2011 Occupy / 2013 Piketty writes the bestseller book about (in)equality Capital in the 21st century. 2015 United Nations conference about Sustainable Development Goals 2030. And later the same year the Climate Agreement of Paris. 2016 Bernie Sanders goes for president in the US and writes his bestselling book Our Revolution which is now a big movement in civil society. 2017 Donut Economics the bestseller book about re-thinking economics published by Kate Raworth professor at Oxford University and member of the Club of Rome.
Annual Report 2017 / Consumer360Academy
Promotion
Consumer360Academy presentation March 24 for the conference at the University of Sligo in Ireland of the International Federation for Home Economics IFHE. April 29 conference listening to Frank Trentmann about his bestselling book Empire of Things about 500 years history of the consumer since the start of worldtrade and bookkeeping in Venice in the 15th century. In June presentations of Consumer360 on invitation of Anthroposophical Society and Christian Community (Christengemeinschaft) the two organizations who helped us finding deeper insights in the living principles of the world and mankind towards freedom and responsibility.
Product
Making a new business plan for the next few years. Focussing on our website and links to all directions to find and to be found. Planning of updates and upgrades. Membership of the International Council on Archives ICA to save all knowledge of Consumer360Academy for the future. Our website is already saved by the Internet Archive in San Francisco USA and the Royal Library in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Price
Financing these activities is still possible by own means. Website, books and magazines, following webinars and visiting one conference every year are the only expenses to be made for continuing every year this project since 1980 and will not change very much in the years to come. It is about 5000 euro per year made possible by donations (financial report available).
Place
Our plan to reach the consumer worldwide is as easy as every other initiative nowadays thanks to internet: links links links and wikipedia as the place to be for all information for everybody who is interested! As a catalyzing force for change the best people to help us are the teachers in the world of education. That is why we are connected to PERL, IFHE, UN and ConsumerClassroom and sending all interesting news we see forward to many websites of the press and otherwise.
Outlook 2018-2020 / Consumer360Archive
Consumer360Academy starts stepping into the bigger world via articles, MOOC’S (Massive Open Online Courses) and last but not least Wikipedia and Wikiversity. Also through more links in our website towards more special information, experts or specialized organizations. For educators and 7.000.000.001 consumers as well. Consumer360Archive is planned to be open for public telling about the period 1980-2020 when consumers became decisionmakers in consumer governance! How Freedom and responsibility became a day-to-day reality in looking for information and insights, finding arguments, decision making, and our household finances as the mirror of our lifestyle. Website, book and financial manager will be upgraded.
Annual report 2016
Education in the 21st Century – Consumer Freedom and Responsibility
The year 2016 was full of activities and conferences about education, THE most important Global Goal for making the future we want. Especially the education of the next generations in schools and universities for finding their ways to cope with all the worldwide problems now and in the future. But also of course for the adults of today, and for all organizations in business, government and non-governmental organizations.
On January 10 this year even President Obama gave us in his Farewell Speech the urgent wake-up call to become more and more active citizens to make democracy work! Freedom and responsibility are the two sides of the same coin!
United Nations Partnership Exchange
July 18 we visited the United Nations Partnership Exchange conference in New York for the first year evaluation of the Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030 and for looking forward for the year(s) to come. About three hundred participants representing partner organizations from around the world reported about their activities and about the plans for the future. Looking toward the little green park outside the building we saw the great bronze statue of the archangel Saint Michael on his horse with a long spear fighting the dragon of evil. This could give us an image of hope that the Global Goals will be reached even if everything looks to be too difficult sometimes.
International Conference on Consumer Research
September 26 we were in Bonn Germany at the International Conference on Consumer Research ICCR for the latest results of researchers from around the world. Bonn is also the residence of the International Federation for Home Economics IFHE the worldwide organization for teachers and researchers in home economics.since 1912, Especially interesting was the closing keynote speech of Frank Trentmann author of the book just launched one month earlier about the complete history of THE consumer. His book The Empire of Things is already a bestseller from day 1 and a masterpiece for reading not only for researchers but for every consumer as well!
International Conference on Financial Education
October 13 the International Conference on Financial Education was held in Auckland New Zealand organized by the OECD / INFE. Especially for research about financial literacy teached in schools. This time a little bit too expensive for us to go but we hope to join a conference in the future. It also triggered us to renew our contacts with editors for an upgraded reprint of our own financial agenda the Consumer360Manager.
TEDxAmsterdamED
At TedxAmsterdmED in March and TEDxNyenrodeUniversity in October we learned a lot about the latest developments in education worldwide not only related to schools and universities but also in lifelong learning and even in learning how to win the Olympic Games by accepting yourself and not only thinking about the top you want to reach!
Club of Rome
And last but not least we were invited for the two day seminar at Nyenrode University organized by the Club of Rome in the Netherlands. A highly inspiring seminar about how we can really change our habits necessary for real change towards a better world. Professor Dennis Meadows who ws co-founder of the Club of Rome and the co-author of the Limits to Growth in 1972 introduced his latest bestseller to be The Climate Change Playbook! He presented all 22 games how to learn to change our habits for real change!
The world in dialogue – the future of marketing
For the years to come education will be highest priority for all of us consumers young and old because WE are the change! And working towards an economy of question and answer we are the ones to ask better questions so that producers can give us better answers in delivering better products and better services. For that we need all kinds of platforms and activities to exchange needs and possibilities. Consumer organizations and inititiatives will be the game changers towards new business models of this new bottom-up marketing.
Consumer360Academy and catalyzing change
In 1980 November 11 our chairman started his research project about new consumer initiatives and consumer organizations and the role of the single consumer and the management information needed to be able to find relevant arguments to take best possible decisions, Working at the newly founded Triodos Bank for sustainable and ethical business finance he had the opportunity to meet many new initiatives in all kinds of projects in agriculture and food, healthcare, education, housing, transport, communication etc etc. After seven years of research and many newsletters he published in 1998 his sixty page book Consumer freedom and responsibility – towards the 21st century. Founding the Free Consumers Association in 2001 was the next step and the website Consumer360Academy in 2004 the final step to inform consumers and organizations worldwide. By ongoing research, following all the news in the world, helping many projects by lobbying and moderating, with brainstorms or a simple email about an interesting article or link, helping where possible in catalyzing change.
Annual report 2015
Another World in the Making in 2015 and Beyond
After twenty years of thinking since the Club of Rome (Limits to Growth1972) and another twenty years of talking since the conference in Rio 1992 now everybody have agreed in New York to start doing something about the world problems working on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals 2015 – 2030. And the Climate Summit COP21 in Paris a few months later was one of the biggest challenges in the history of mankind to decide! Only possible because in the last few years billions of people already learned to understand that change was necessary and that we have to pay the true price for products and services on the road towards a sustainable and responsible future! Read more www.globalgoals.org.
Globalization of Transport, Communication and Science meant Globalization of Consumer Education
In a globalizing economy more differentiation of work in products and services also means more worldwide transport, travelling and tourism. But also more communication, including the shadows of economic development and all the problems of sustainability. But science and research can make things more and more transparent so educating people in schools and universities and lifelong learning towards responsible lifestyles can go faster forward. And the experiences of all people is that the world is really interesting to discover! To recognize that the world is one big economy where we are free to choose but also responsible for everything we choose! Consumer freedom and responsibility! The 21st century has begun! Read more www.ifhe.org.
Transparent Accounting, Reasonable Incomes and Social Creativity towards A Healthy Future for All
Parallel to world trade we need most of all transparent and true pricing to be able to take better decisions! And of course not only a reasonable division of labour but also of income so that everybody can afford to pay the right prices for all necessities of life, of products and services. Then only then all our creativity can make it possible to find the best arguments, alternatives and best practices for a healty life, a healthy nature and a possible most healthy organized society. Read more www.globalreporting.org.
Housekeeping, Organizing and Dialogue for a more Sustainable World
The better we have our own housekeeping in order the better we can also manage all kinds of issues between consumers, consumer organizations and producers. And so the sustainability of nature and the universe as a whole! Everybody has now to play his/her role on the stage called world and in dialogue with all stakeholders! Read more www.consumersinternational.org.
Consumer360Academy
After the basic research (1980-1987) on which the book Consumer Freedom and Responsibility (1998) was based we developed the content further and more user friendly in our website (2004). According to the developments in the world from pilots towards best practices and even better we ourselves also changed our own business model from platform to co-operation in startup projects as well (2016). Read more www.consumer360.org.
Consumer360Academy
www.consumer360.org
Annual report 2014
Annual Report 2014 / Outlook 2015
Consumer360Academy and Free Consumers Association
The World is Changing
People and organizations came into a current of actions more and more this year. Because of the Rio+20 conference there is a kind of basis now for mutual understanding about the roadmaps. Consumers learn to see better the importance of change in production, trade and financing. And as consumers themselves for more responsible lifestyles. To see where we can take responsibilty on our own and where it should be an issue for groups or organizations we can use our insights about the areas of our daily needs.
When we take the twelve necessities of life as basis for our annual report it can give us a much better overview of the history of the world and the worldeconomy untill today, the things that happened in 2014, the projects in which we were involved as examples, and last but not least the outlook for what has yet to be done to create a better world tomorrow towards Rio+30 and beyond.
When we think about who can do what then the first six areas are of course our own individual responsibility. Where do we believe in and what are our motives. How creative are we and what are we reading and studying and discussing to become a little bit smarter every day through science and education. And finally how do we manage our own life by choosing the best food and to avoid medicine where fitness-training could be a far better way.
The second six areas are to be organized together in our own family, or in groups, organizations, countries or perhaps worldwide. Those are the areas in daily life where we have to work together with others to achieve our objectives.
In all twelve directions we can have our dialogue with the other side of the economy. In casu the people who take care for all the products and services, for trade and advices, for communication, lawmaking and the bookkeeping of it all, named “money”. In those dialogues with all stakeholders we’re always talking about the seven aspects of production and trade. About quality, quantity, price, guarantee, payment, delivery and userguidelines.
Religion Art and Science
Since all sciences became more transparent through internet, more and more people discovered that matter and mind are two sides of the same coin called reality. And that all human action always starts from a spiritual idea or ideal (mission statement) via a highly creative process towards physical and non-physical products and services. Everybody is an artist! (Joseph Beuys).
01 Religion and Humanism
During a very interesting lecture and presentation of the Humanist Association about humanism and spirituality somebody made the remark that everybody has to explore himself if and what’s more between heaven and earth to convince himself rather than being convinced by anyone else. Surprisingly we made the conclusion that that gave also the exact definition of the humanist: everyone who is standing between heaven and earth or in other words inbetween the polarity of spirituality and materialism. So not the materialist but the humanist is the one who can choose in freedom what reality can tell us. So humanism is in fact the basis for the freedom in science! To discover HOW natural sciences and spiritual sciences are the two sides of that same coin called reality (as we can see especially in the mathematics of projective geometry).
02 Art and Social innovation
During a week we gave short presentations about consumer governance in one of the rooms of the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven (Netherlands). It was during the exposition ArteUtil about art and social innovation and sustainability, about the 500 best practices worldwide where art and artists where involved in all kinds of projects working for a bettter world. Read more about the exposition: www.museumarteutil.net. Read more about Social Sculpture on Wikipedia (Joseph Beuys).
03 Science and More
It was Rudolf Steiner (1863-1925) who started to connect all sciences exoteric and esoteric as well. Because then only then both sides of reality could be researched. To be researched in the same concrete way as the natural sciences had proved to be scientific relevant and very useful since five centuries. The spiritual sciences proved to be even more clarifying reality than natural sciences alone! To underline these aspects the title of the great international exhibition about 150 years Rudolf Steiner was named The Alchemy of Daily Life (Allchemie des Alltags) which was in Rotterdam this year.
Outlook 2015
Looking forward to the years to come we already see a tendency of utmost transparency. Not only about what people say and do but even more about what’s essential in all problems and in the search for solutions. Since Rio+20 and especially since the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement people are asking why we should change ourselves and the world we create. And how we can find as much possible ways to achieve the world we really want. Protests and debates became dialogues and working groups. Another world is in the making!
Education Health and Nutrition
The physical basis of every human being begins with good food and a proper worldclimate to live in. Then only then we can live on this planet. About food, climate, wildlife and biodiversity, about the oceans the honeybees and all animals, about landscapes and the search for commodities and the spoiling of the environment, there’s still a lot to clean up. Our food is also the basis for our health and wellbeing. And as experts now found out what parents already knew is that it is also the basis for education. To become responsible worldcitizens! (Lifelong learning).
04 Education and Change
Everyone of us is now in the 21st century the “age of maturity” which means that lifelong learning has gone to a higher level of individual conciousness and social responsibility. Because of the multitude of problems in the world caused by our almost “too little too late” reactions the need for more speed is becoming obvious. Consumers International has therefore started a new strategy 2015-2020 to give us some help in the process of empowering by “Unlocking Consumer Power on a Global Scale”. Read more www.consumersinternational.org.
05 Health and Selfcare
At the University here in Maastricht we enjoyed a very inspiring PhD lecture by Dr Machteld Huber who presented a new concept for a definition of health. The current definition used by the United Nations World Health Organization WHO is about 100% wellness and thus idealistic and thus unrealistic!. A far more better definition could be found when people should be motivated to be manager of their own health and healthcare. As with education also a kind of empowerment of the consumer.
06 Nutrition and the Sustainable Development Goals
Most discussions about sustainability are about nutrition. About food and water, climate and energy, oceans and fisheries. And about our ambassadors for change the honeybees! In 2015 the follow-up of the UN Millenium Goals will be the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) 2015-2025.
Outlook 2015
Especially nutrition health and education are our own individual responsibility! And so the climate and our own footprint. Although only producers and politicians can manage the process towards sustainability, we ourselves as 7.000.000.001 consumers have to learn to ask better questions and making better choices! Read more on our website!
Housing Means/Money and Travel
During a lifetime we need a place for shelter, money to be part of worldeconomy, and an infrastructure for travelling to meet other people. Although almost everyone has some kind of home and some opportunities to travel, the transport and distribution of all products and services needed isn’t functioning quite well … because of a staggering bookkeeping in the distribution of money (Read: citizensincome).
07 Housing and Geometry
Houses in the last century were cubes only even untill complete areas of flats like container terminals. Without any form on their own only by composition of different blocks some sculpture was possible. Since the end of the century however architects became more and more creative in all directions out of the cube and we can see more and more buildings and sculptures nowadays of real beauty! Interesting to know is that we can see before our eyes the growing forces from the physical world of the crystals towards the “etherical” world where growing forces let plants grow. And therefore the new architecture is called organic architecture especially when the growing principles are followed best. Read more about tangent lines in the mathematical science of projective (perspective) geometry (See especially the magnificent book of Olive Whicher – Projective Geometry).
08 Means and Money
When looking to the world of money we can recognise that everybody is more and more looking for better ways of bookkeeping reality. Since the new accounting rules (IFRS, GRI, Trueprice) for producers also consumers are learning to think about what really matters in their daily expenses according to quality, fair and true pricing including sustainability and responsible lifestyles.
09 Travel and Tourism
Traveling becomes more and more a way of exploring the world. Not only for pleasure and culture but also more focussed on getting to know the other people in their economic and political development in connection to the globalised world in which we are one big family. Technical innovations in the use of green energy will make travelling accessible for everyone.
Outlook 2015
Especially the developments in accounting (GRI reporting) will be most important to give us a real picture of the real world. To facilitate in asking the best possible questions in an economy of question and answer (products and services based on true price).
Communication Justice and Association
As individuals we need communication with the world around us. We need justice in laws and politics for living together. And we need all kinds of opportunities to meet each other in all kinds of settings: in sports, restaurants, all kinds of associations, friendships and families. Home economics therefore has to do with living on our own and living together with others, working together, and so sharing together everything one way or another. (Read more in Common Wealth written by Jeffrey Sachs)
10 Communication and Dialogue
Communication has become more and more professional where consumers and producers are meeting each other during open days, consumerpanels and annual meetings. Connected by internet for all background information, annual reports and productinformation. And even moderated by a modern press worldwide. Be it nutrition, travel, housing and energy, or medicare or education etc etc. consumers have become part of the chain “from farm tot fork” in all areas. And after all the years of questioning, protest and action it becomes more business as usual in a new economy of question and answer.
11 Justice and Fairness
The new Nobelprize winner for economic sciences Thomas Piketty and his worldwide bestselling book Capital in the 21st century was the most interesting development in all kinds of discussions! Because he did the most comprehensive research about inequality he gave the discussions about basic income (www.citizensincome.org) an enormous boost. And with that all other discussions related to that such as fair trade, true pricing and the social systems. The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are from eradicating poverty to sustainability and an economic growth based on true pricing. Here in The Hague as a guest of Parliament we heard him say exactly the right words: it is too important to leave this question to economists only! It were these words that gave us the hope that “a reasonable income is a (human) right” will become the very basis for all further discussions!
12 Association and Organization
Associations are there to meet other people. To talk, to travel, to play games and all kinds of sports, to organize all kinds of activities. But the very new form of association since the 20th century is the consumer organization. This was in fact the biggest innovation of all times! This was the change from an economy of demand and supply towards a free but responsible economy of question and answer!
Outlook 2015
Consumer organizations, consumer education and dialogue are the most important trends in the 21st century to become more and more professionalised. In a globalised world we need all stakeholders involved now to make better choises for the futures we want!
Peter Daub
chairman
Maastricht
20150115
Annual report 2013
Annual Report 2013 / Outlook 2014
Free Consumers Association
The World in 2013
This first year after the Rio+20 international conference in Rio de Janeiro last year worldpress could show a lot of action and many many initiatives working out now how to go on working for another world!
No more why’s and when’s and who’s but more and more about the how’s! After twenty years of thinking and another twenty years of talking the time has come to start taking action, making agreements, doing realistic research, reporting true prices, delivering the best qualities of products and services. In dialogue with consumers towards an economy of question and answer! And although trial and error is also the basis of lifelong learning including the world as the biggest enterprise of all, more and more people are creative and active then ever before.
But from now on it will be daily practice for ALL seven billion consumers to follow the information and discussions to be able to take the best possible decisions in their daily consumption patterns. Or ask better questions to get better answers i.c. products and services. For all the twelve necessities of life there are now consumer organizations and also all kinds of systems for communication, delivery, payment, guarantees etc. Plus annual meetings with producers “live” at open visiting days. And because there are twelve and only twelve kinds of producers cq consumer organizations we are dealing with, we only have to read twelve and no more than twelve annual reports every year. That’s one report and/or one meeting every month to have hundred percent (or call it a 360 degrees horizon) management information!
To be well informed from the beginning of our lifetime there is a lot of consumer education on all schools now worldwide or will be implemented in the school curriculum of home economics. Consumers International together with United Nations Education for All, EU Consumers Classroom program for teachers and the International Federation of Home Economics IFHE have promoted these programs in all countries worldwide. Many teacher training programs were developed by the Partnership for Education and research about Responsible Living PERL an international group of more than hundred teacher trainers and academics led by Prof. Victoria Thoresen in Norway. The same country where in 1987 Brundtland was prime minister and chair of the UN commission which introduced the word “sustainability”!
About Us
As a small organization we’re only able to help “catalizing change” by working together with others, by writing for the press and online, and networking in the flow of ideas, best practices and all the many people we talk with at all kinds of meetings, workshops and conferences. For instance the first year we were invited to join the discussion about the review of the international ISO 26000 guidelines for good governance was interesting while experiencing that in these guidelines really everything comes together! And in the end of course in the annual sustainabilty reports of more and more companies worldwide working with the new international financial reporting system IFRS and including the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative GRI.
On October 10 the Day for Sustainability we wrote our press release that our archive is now open for researchers and everyone who is interested in the social history of consumers, consumer movements and consumer organizations and the world economy as a whole as seen through consumer-eyes. November 11 which is St Martin Day we celebrated our initiative in 1980 to research and disemminate all necessary consumer management information for consumer governance which is now Consumer360Academy!
For the years to come we shall be more visible in lectures and workshops, an upgraded website, and we invited some experts to help us with their expertise and advise. We will continue to work together with Consumers International, IFHE, UN and EU Classroom, PERL and of course with everybody and every organization who is thinking talking and acting for another world!
Outlook 2014
For the year(s) to come we can only expect a lot of new initiatives worldwide, professionalizing of existing organizations, and of course always some stones on the road! Looking around the twelve areas we hope that religions will find each other and globalize too, that art will help stimulate people’s creativity, and that the science will go on also discovering that the world is more than matter alone, that mind and matter are two sides of the same coin called “reality”.
The biggest issues are educating ourselves and the new generations to become responsible consumers and world-citizens, working on their own health instead of leaning on healthcare alone, and of course taking care of good nutrition, on real good food! Our ambassadors the bees and the beekeepers can tell you all about!
And if houses and buildings will become more vivid and tailormade, when financial organizations will become better bookkeepers of our worldeconomy, and worldtrade will be based on fair and true prices, things will go into the right direction. We think!
With a free press worldwide, good information and real dialogue the world can go forward, an economy of question and answer will be possible. If culture, state and economy work together with their unique expertise good governance in all directions can become the best possible. And people meeting each other in all kinds of relations and organizations will give the feeling that we are all part of one “developing” world! Life(s)long learning is a most exiting way of living!
Peter Daub
chairman
Annual report 2012
New Mexico, USA
In the first half of 2012, there were some interesting conferences where we tried to get a picture about what might be changing in the world. Following the major UN conference Rio +20.
Dutch development organization NCDO existed for 40 years, but also Consumers International, the European Consumers Organisation BEUC and the international organization of home economic teachers IFHE celebrated their 50th or 100th anniversary!
Following the Springtij Festival on Terschelling Island there was in the Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam a great Preparatory Conference for Rio +20. About what the Dutch people wanted to give to all the representatives of our country and all organizations to take to Rio de Janeiro.
The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro, where some 50,000 officers and dozens of heads of state participated, was impressive to follow! Via internet all the politicians called it a great success, the green organizations called it a big dissapointment. But the reality is of course that all of humanity has now become involved in both the world’s problems, and now form the platform of support on which politicians, companies and NGOs can start working now! Much more focused on action than talking alone!
In September, Ban Ki Moon took the initiative for a new UN website, now not only for the millennium goals to get all children to school but also to educate them becoming responsible and active citizens of the world! ( www.globaleducationfirst.org ).
To prepare ourselves for a more active role in developing innovative organizations, we participated in two conferences on consumer education in Berlin and Oslo of the Partnership for Education and Research for Responsible Living PERL (www.perlprojects.org ), in which we are partners and also helped organizing.
In the summer, there was a seminar in Dornach Switzerland ( www.goetheanum.org ) of Christopher Budd about John Maynard Keynes and the financial crisis.
Recently we were asked to join the committee about ISO 26000 ( www.nen.nl/iso26000 ), a global directive for social responsible organizations.
On December 12, we were at the meeting of the Club of Rome in the Netherlands. Forty years after the starting conference in the impressive auditorium of the University of Delft, where the first signs of yes/no sustainability were heard!
Peter Daub
Chairman
Annual report 2011
We are living in the middle of an interesting time! Worldwide the post-war generation is going to retire. Especially the students that protested for a better world in the sixties and have done their jobs in business, politics or culture have now a lot of time to get creative on another level! Especially ceo’s, politicians or the chairman of some cultural or scientific organization who have a lot of experience are now free to speak about their real thoughts about society. And because of modern social media more eager then ever to join the problem-solving in the 21st century!
But even more interesting is that almost everybody is going into a higher gear of activism! Not only the movements of the Arab Spring or the Occupy (together with Adbusters Magazine of Kalle Lasn who also started the Buy Nothing Day years ago), but also many people as members or not-members of organizations in public transport, medicare, food, education, politics, housing etc. etc. are more and more talking and acting towards more sustainability and responsibility!
We have entered the 21st century of maturity where the human being is starting managing his or her own life and all kinds of relations in society together with other people now also in all kinds of economical/financial, political and cultural issues. As consumers, citizens or cultural creatives we are more active in dialogue and decision making including the responsibility of what our money is doing in the world. Towards an economy of question and answer where we are learning every day to ask better questions to get better answers (sustainable products and client-oriented services).
Our activities this year were more and more changing from research, writing and catalysing towards co-operation with other organizations. A few examples:
1. We helped organizing the PERL (www.perlprojects.org) conference about consumer education at the Maltepe University in Istanbul.
2. Instead of a workshop/paper we had this year a small poster-presentation of drawings in projective geometry as a teacher tool to show economic processes and relations on a innovative way for better understanding.
3. We were co-writers with 400 other people of Our Common Future 2.0 (www.ourcommonfuture.nl) as follow-up of the 1987 Brundtland report of the United Nations about sustainability.
4. In Wageningen/Holland and Munich/Germany the first students graduated for the new EU Masters in Consumer Affairs (www.eureca-online.eu )! They will be the future ceo’s of consumer organizations, marketing managers or politicians, or chairs of ngo’s or hallmark institutes. (At a conference in 2007 we were partner in a working group drawing the first lines of a first proposal).
5. We also joined this year the oldest organization in the world working on consumer issues, the International Federation of Home Economics (www.ifhe.org)
6. And with our three years of lobbying for the honeybees we could help a little bit that even the EU and UN are now also working on the issue and that hundreds of people are interested in organic and biodynamic beekeeping in the Netherlands alone! But this was only possible because many research was already done and published by the American organization for beekeepers and the German researchers for biodynamic beekeeping (www.mellifera.de). Why help these little girlfriends and promote to buy organic honey as a consumer organization? Because without honeybees no fruit no consumption no consumers!
In this year the Free Consumers Association also celebrated her 10th anniversary! Founded on the 14th of July 2001 to remind us to the ideals of the French revolution about freedom equality and fraternity. Especially chosen because these words can be recognised as basic principles respectively in culture, human rights and world economy.
The year 2011 was also in the press worldwide because of the 150th birthday of Rudolf Steiner (www.rsarchive.org) who further researched these principles of “threefolding” in their relations to the human being and society as a whole as the scientific basis for analysing all possible “social contracts” which we want to create in society for a more sustainable and responsible world.
Peter Daub
chairman
Free Consumers Association
Consumer360Academy
Vrije Consumenten Vereniging
Schepenenplein 38
6224 VX Maastricht
The Netherlands
0031 88 0000360 / 0031 43 3635654
consumer360.org@gmail.com
www.vrijeconsumenten.nl
(website will be updated soon)
Annual report 2010
The year 2010 was again full of surprising and challenging questions, with meetings in Rome, Malta and Istanbul plus an international conference at the Nyenrode Business University in Breukelen near Amsterdam to help prepare for the next three years conferences of the Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living PERL . This is an advisory group of 90 teacher-trainers working for the Marrakech-project about consumer education 2011-2020 of the United Nations in collaboration with Consumers International www.perlprojects.org
We have participated in the Dutch national project Our Common Future 2.0 where 400 people together wrote the follow-up of the Brundtland report on sustainability for the next 25 years www.ourcommonfuture.nl
In Maastricht we started to discuss possibilities for a small multimedia exhibition with workshops Consumer360Experience about everything related to sustainable and responsible consumption i.e. consumer governance. Research and education are now also better reflected in the name of our upgraded website Consumer360Academy. For all work areas and specific issues we also began to start new research to expand our expertise on a higher professional level.
Since 11 November 1980 where we started from the experience at Triodos Bank and consultation with Lex Bos our research in the development of modern consumers and consumer-organizations and in particular the innovations, the Free Consumers Association now exists already 30 years. Especially since 2004 (State of the World of Worldwatch Institute was also all about consumption and consumers) we are a very present catalysing player in the world partly because everything globally in this field accelerated and came into a current worldwide.
Annual report 2009
Good governance initiatives entering like comets into the 21st century
Consumers and their organizations were asking ever better and more critical questions, even including the financial aspects of their choices. Trade organizations and banks as translators of the economy became more and more aware of their responsibility in the whole process. Producers and service organizations, including governments and ngo’s are in the middle of transforming towards holistic ways of research, product development and guarantees, involving nature and all stakeholders. Towards corporate governance, government governance and consumer governance, or in other words: all parties are playing their role in the world economy more and more based on good governance!
The new standards for sustainable production and trade ISO / DIS 26000 were published this year and will be introduced in 2010. The fair trade organizations transformed their common goal into the new World Fair Trade Organization WFTO this year. Ethical banks decided to work together in the new group called Global Alliance for Banking on Values. Consumers International started introducing consumer education on schools worldwide.
Free Consumers Association
Also our organization was fully involved in all these worldwide developments, although on a small catalyzing scale of course. We were asked to give our comments and suggestions for the new ISO 26000 standards. We joined the discussions with World Fair Trade Organization and Consumers International about harmonizing sustainable hallmarks worldwide. And we presented our workshop about consumer governance at the conference of Consumer Citizen Network CCN for consumer education together with Consumers International and United Nations Decade of Education in Sustainable Development DESD 2005-2014. The CCN in which we are partners as well will continue as an advisory organization, now called Partnership in Education and Research about Responsible Living or PERL.
The Free Consumers Association still works more like a foundation and as a small catalist organization. The whole information flow is managed by only one person, especially to indicate that every consumer can manage his/her own information 360 degrees! THAT was the initial question asked in 1980 at the start: how can i myself as an individual consumer become an overview and enough insight in the complex world economy around me to work for what later would become a world wide slogan of the World Social Forum: “A better world is possible!” The one who triggered this research project was the Nobel prize winner for economics professor Paul Samuelson, writer of the most famous handbook for economy. He died this year at the age of 94 and will surely be very interested how the world goes on!
Our office is now in the beautiful south of the Netherlands, in Maastricht. The city where in 1992 at the Maastricht treaty the decision was taken to introduce a new coin: the Euro. Our activities in the years to come will be more and more international. Not only by writing and catalyzing and lobbying, but also assisting in e-learning programmes. Parallel to that we will go on in developing our research and expertise together with others in the newly started Consumer360 Academy.
Peter Daub
chairman
Looking360… Jungfraujoch (Sphinx Observatory 3571 m)
Annual report 2008
The world around us
Most important development in the world was the OECD conference November 2007 in Brussels “Beyond GDP”. Followed by a conference at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands January 10 about the neccesary trend in thinking from Wealth to Well-being. If this is the breakthrough in our thinking about disconnecting labour and income, now in a current since the last three years, then we may have hope for another world! Because thinking about the quality of life – of ourself AND of all the others – is in fact our everyday starting-point in decisionmaking! See our publication / contribution to the conference “About the quality of life”. Also the actual financial crisis and the solutions discussed are pointing in the same direction. YES to a free capatilist market in the economy, but then also say YES to a social system of dviding the wealth in a reasonable way. The same as the dutch accountancy professor Limperg always said that creating wealth is one issue (economic), dividing it is another issue (justice). The next international conference will be in 2009 January 16 in Antwerpen, Belgium.
But even more urgent is of course the present foodcrisis worldwide! Although the development in the quality of food and organic foodproduction is booming (Michelin-star top restaurants and their top cooks are switching to biological/biodynamic), the quantity-problem is even getting worse! Hopefully the experience of world politics in problemsolving will be strong enough to overcome the foodcrisis as well as the financial crisis! Hopefully WE CAN! Also this problem is not a question of production but also in the first place of the dividing of wealth to be able to buy your food and water etc. Especially now becomes visible that ……. “a reasonable income is a right” ! And in fact it’s a consumer problem how six billion consumers divide the production they made together. Interesting discussions ahead!
Read more: Consumer360 Outlook 2009…
Catalizing change
As Free Consumers Association we are now more and more active in workshops, seminars, and in innovative projects such as “professionalizing” consumer-trade-producer dialogue and of course the ongoing conferences on consumer education of the Consumer Citizen Network, this year in Tallinn Estonia, next year in Berlin – see our publication in concept for a paper “Consumers and Consumer Organizations in Action”.
Although we’re a very small player in the field, our way of networking however is special in a way that we only send messages to people or organizations who are on the knots, the roundabouts or the crossings of some most essential networks in the world. Especially those who are working in categoral consumer organizations, or in specialised research activities, interested papers and journalists, interesting people saying interesting things, etcetera. Working from a white agenda into the colourfull world of daily history in the making That’s why we call it “indirect” lobbying. Helping other consumer organizations to lobby by giving good arguments, warm support and as a think tank in helping to develop new initiatives, so called pioneer projects. As the World Social Forum calls it “Another World under Construction”.
But the most important reason is of course that we are working on consumer governance of the individual consumer! He or she has to be able to survey the whole picture as a manager! Therefore the information for consumer governance has to be compact, to the point and highlighting the items which are really important. At least give a systematic informationsystem to find the way in the big google wiki wood of websites. So that every single consumer can learn to become a consumer360 !
Publications
- About the Quality of Life
- Information360
- Consumer Arguments and Producers (2007)
- Consumers and Consumerorganizations in Action
Activities
- Website English version completed
- About 300 catalysing emails
- About 40 special articles and comments
- About 10 press releases
- Giving workshops in 5 cities
Information
- Listener at 34 conferences (live)
- Reading Foreign Affairs and Monde Diplomatique and IPS (long term news)
- Watching CNN, EUX.tv and IWT/RealNews (daily news)
- Listening BNR BusinessNewsRadio (breaking news)
- Surfing websites of all 12 groups of consumer organizations (management issues)
- Special lobbying for the honey-bees (see news/october)
Other Statistics
- Website since 20040203 / 14000 hits / 3000 unique visitors ………
- but more important are the publications on other websites, read by people who have to know to do their lobbying.
- Library 60 meters / Archive 40 meters
Organization
- Organization of 1 man at the desktop 24/7, two more people in the board and two members as advisors.
- Home office / archive / library
Finance
- The budget of about 3000 euro in/out is based on 30 membership fees and donations.
- Because our website is open courseware there is no need to become a member to get all written information. Seminars are free.
- Expenses only for pc/internet/traveling/literature/conferences. No other expenses because of home office and voluntary work.
- The international conference in Tallin and taskgroup meeting in Athens were EU paid via CCN,
- So was the BEUC training course media presentation in Brussels this year.
Annual Report 2007
The year 2007 was full of activities and new developments. A new website, again hundreds of small catalist-actions such as comments, articles, networking, lobbying, joining discussions at many seminars and congress workshops, and last but not least following the world news to serve our members looking 360 degrees around the horizon to all twelve working fields in the world!
Strategically we worked more and more on priorities as quality of life, new ways in science, innovative initiatives and helping in the search for solutions in different problem-situations. And we started seminars and masterclasses in different cities in Holland and abroad! In Sofia Bulgaria we gave our first workshop in the Consumer Citizen Network CCN where teachers are preparing programmes for consumereducation on schools and universities worldwide, in connection with the UN Decade for Sustainable Development. In our workshop we worked on the issue “Consumer, Arguments and Producers”.
In the world around us a lot of positive developments are going fast forward! Al Gore showed us the way in handling the Climate. Cradle2Cradle (see Google) is the new way for 100% sustainability. And Professor Pralahad wrote his famous marketing bestseller The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid about producing for the two billion poorest consumers as the new emerging markets! Globalising is going on!
Our plans for 2008 are to complete the english pages on our website and to globalise also! Our new (extra) name is consumer360.org to be remembered more easily, but especially to show the essence of the consumer-management-information-system. The image of the twelve daily needs produced around the horizon of our world!
PS For the bees who cannot speak for themselves we want to cry out for them that the global problem of CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) is a problem for us all! The bees are dying of too much efficiency in bee-keeping, in the US and also in Europe up to 70% have died instead of the normal rate of 20% in winter times. And so we are loosing our girlfriends AND the basis of our agriculture!
So: buy more biological honey! (See also the breathtaking bestseller Phanomen Honigbiene – not yet in english – written by professor Jurgen Tautz and with 180 color photos isbn 978-3-8274-1845-6 and go to www.beegroup.de and watch the trailer video of BeeMovie!) Or Google to CCD Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD BEES in english or your own language. Save the bees!
The new subtitle of our association is: “forum for active consumers and innovative initiatives”!
Annual Report 2006
The smallest website about the biggest issue: consumer governance!
After 5 years we’re still a small organization but that has everything to do with the character of our association! Catalyzers ARE always small by definition, they only try to help forward the bigger issues! But in 2007 we will introduce our new website and start with more lectures and seminars. And of course also continue in writing comments, joining discussions and social forums, indirect lobbying via consumer organizations, and networking by matching information between organizations, press-agencies and individuals.
In 2006 we gave seminars in consumer governance at the Dutch Social Forum and at Nyenrode University. We joined conferences about consumer education in Hamar/Norway, Berlin/Germany and Utrecht/Netherlands. And we were listening and discussing at several meetings with lectures of ministers and members of parliament. Plus seminars about microfinance, about alternative moneysystems, (Lietaer), and the introduction of his book Globalisation that works by Joseph Stiglitz in Amsterdam.
Comparing with other general and special consumer organizations we are focussed on management information as a tool itself. How can we as individuals oversee and understand the whole worldeconomy and ourselves in the middle of it? With the 360 degrees overview of consumerorganizations we all have to deal with, it has become much easier to find our way and to prepare our decisions. With the different pages of our website with “open courseware” information, search-options and a newpage in which we try to analyse the main issues, daily information becomes easy to read! In working out these things during lectures and seminars we experienced how everybody became aware of that as an eye-opener.
To write about all 200 actions this year would take pages. To get a broader insight of our activities see our former annual reports. An overview of the developments in consumer governance worldwide over the last few years is also given in our newspages.
Annual Report 2005
The Free Consumers Association was in 2005 particularly active in exchanging information on innovative producer-consumer dialogue. In a way we call “indirect” lobbying we fulfilled in more than a hundred cases the role of catalyst, transmitting information or think along in the search for appropriate knowledge or good arguments.
Last year there came an increasingly global consumer momentum as we said already in our last annual report 2004. It was mainly very visible this year in September at the expansion and participation of civil society organizations within the United Nations in December, and at the participation and recommendations of Consumers International at the WTO in Hong Kong (“Say NO to GMO”). But it became clear that people worldwide increasingly wish to be involved in new developments in (direct) democratization, debtrelief developing countries, conscious investing, untill ethics of science and its applications. Consumers / citizens movements also grew more and more towards an increasingly broad support for businesses and politicians to continue work on “good governance”. Towards an economy of question and answer!
In 2005 we took part in seminars on the history of finance (Colors of Money), alternative money schemes (Lietaer), ethics and sustainable business (Club of Rome, the UN Earth Charter), new forms of marketing like MultiChannelManagement (Nyenrode seminar Wells Fargo Bank ), and about taking initiatives as a process (Triodos Bank). Furtheron a one-day training about lobbying plus a visiting tour through the European Parliament buildings in Brussels together with consumers from the new European countries. We also worked actively in the preparations for the next Dutch Social Forum 2006 that will take place 20-21 May in Nijmegen.
All these seminars and conferences helped us to go on to be informed about all the latest developments. But they also offered opportunities to direct discussions to think and to argue. From our experiences and know-how plus the great information that flows through our association was often possible to go further, to help structuring or to provide arguments for further innovation.
Annual Report 2004
Vrijeconsumenten.nl is on the map!
The Free Consumers Association is now in an accelerating world of consumers increasingly participating. This year, more and more questions we could answer in the form of interviews, delivering articles and participate in seminars and debates.
Interviews published in Nyenrode VCV Magazine (producers) and the DO Sustainable Business Courier of the Dutch Council of Women (consumers). For Driegonaal, a magazine about the threefolding aspects of culture, law and economics, we wrote the history of our association. At BEUC the European organization of Consumer organizations in Brussels we followed four days in training for consumer legislation, consumer rights. In Delft, a small lecture and a final debate on the “new consumer”, together with Unilever, and Club of Rome. (The same place where we were in 1972 when the Dutch branch of the Club of Rome was founded during a big congress).
In Amsterdam we started with our own workshop at the first Dutch Social Forum in Amsterdam. In December we participated in a seminar in Stuttgart with the writers of “Another World is Possible” by the International Forum on Globalization IFG. Participation in two Internet discussions of World Watch Institute on consumption. Their yearbook State of the World in 2004 was fully dedicated to the consumer! Similarly the special December edition of the Courier-DO of the Dutch Council of Women.
Consumers International launched in South America on a large scale consumer education in schools. And in Switzerland, Demeter Konsumenten designed a special training course for consumers of organic / dynamic food. The European Commission drew even 72 million euros for management training for new consumer organizations! In England, an international standard was set for companies that integrate producer-consumer dialogue (associattive economics).
Although we ourselves have only a few club members are now clearly on the map! But in 2005 the course will really show which role we can play as an association, a platform, a catalyst for innovation. Besides the development of many networks which now take place may perhaps give more opportunities, plus seminars, active discussions and challenging articles helping others in the “maturity phase”, the professional phase of the consumer in the 21st century! We call it consumer governance!
The main plans for the 2005 are renewal of the website, and especially active participation in innovation through writing, discussing and networking. At the annual meeting April 2, we have completed this review of developments in the first quarter of this year: English summary on the website, group participation preparation Dutch Social Forum in 2006, press release distribution, many other network-activities and e-mails. (Instead of a flip-over with a marker we made drawings on the parquet-floor, as lines in the sand. An idea that arose following the example of the artist Joseph Beuys when he spoke about “Social Art”).
History (1980-2004)
Article in the magazine Driegonaal, September 2004
Free Consumers Association on the Web
vrijeconsumenten.nl as a guide in associative economy
by Peter Daub
The Free Consumers Association is since February this year on the internet. The website vrijeconsumenten.nl is also an innovative search-engine for all currents in consumer activity, a brief introduction in consumer education, household expenses and a new style (manager). In short a complete set of management tools for consumers. This article gives an overview of its content and development in conjunction with threefold society (culture/justice/economiy) and globalization.
Associations in the making
Driegonaal published in January 1979 a special number about consumer-producer associations. Together with many others we wrote about how the economy should be addressed differently in this world. Now 25 years later we see that in all areas of consumer associations arise consultations with manufacturers and service providers. To subscription forms and annual meetings. The last direction to get under way was the one most connected to the earth: food (agriculture) Via vegetable packs, open days and “Pergola-associations” came into motion only the last ten years.
Recently there are even many new initiatives worldwide! In Switzerland, a conference launched a consumer education course. In England, the Institute of ae-label for associative working companies. The EU provides training for developing consumer-organizations. And the Worldwatch Institute dedicated the 2004 State of the World and its website this year entirely to the consumer. And with the major conferences of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre on ethical globalization, and this year India the world was one village at last! And even a festival of globalization on June 28 and 27 in Amsterdam (“I am a World Leader”) was a great success! On 26, 27 and November 28 as the first Dutch Social Forum takes place in Amsterdam.
For further orientation in the global economy and in the laws to recognize there is now also our new website. An extremely convenient ordering of managementinformation based on the 12 necessities of life and the 7 trade issues. Through news, seminars, forums and of course the help desk can be an interesting focal point for members and website visitors. We are a statutory association for the exchange of insights and experiences. A platform for discussion between consumers. Research and advocacy, we therefore deliberately left to research institutions and interest groups.
Some History
The initiative originated in 1980 when I took the decision to move from advising innovative companies at Triodos Bank towards helping consumers find what they could further ‘professionalise’. From my managerial background, I then searched for the economic laws for consumer transparency. Years of “phenomenological” research in various consumer groups, but particularly in my own position as consumers ultimately yielded a clear picture. After several publications, courses and lectures it appeared finally in 1998 all in one book “Consumer freedom and responsibility”. The website is actually a brief summary of it plus a search engine.
Consumer and threefolding
But what about the thoughts of threefold social order and how can we recognize those laws? Without writing on now in this article the main aspects of liberty equality and fraternity are coming into sharper focus more and more in the global debate. Including the four major subjects associations, forms of money, property and income distribution. But we also see so many trends, things again to reverse or to confuse! But to all those “fronts” so much discussed in the world does indicate that the time is now!
Read more
- Consumer freedom and responsibility / Moving into the 21st century Peter Daub (ISBN 90-76206-01-5 / 2e edition in preparation)
- State of the World 2004 / Special Focus: The Consumer Society World Watch Institute (ISBN 0-393-32593-3)
- Mensch Markt Macht / Rudolf Steiner Sozialimpuls im Spannungsfeld der Globalisierung. Peter Normann Waage (ISBN 3-85636-150-2)