Take some time to arrive and meet others over coffee and pastries

Discover who you’re in the room with and hear from our Host Adrienne Buller about the intentions and plan for the day

Hope in a Time of Collapse | La Grande Halle

Drawing from her deeply researched debut book "Natural Connection," environmental justice researcher Joycelyn Longdon will talk to us about what it means to cultivate and maintain hope through these times. She’ll invites us to embrace new roles beyond activist and observer, exploring six pillars through which sustained change can flourish: rage, imagination, innovation, theory, healing, and care. 

Through her research with indigenous and marginalised communities - from the US to the UK, Brazil to Iran, Ghana to Ethiopia - Joycelyn shares stories of resistance, resilience, and reimagination. She reminds us that hope isn't passive optimism, but a discipline and practice at the root of systemic change and collective action.

Pause for tea, coffee and conversation

Choose one of the following sessions:

New Economies with and for the Working Class: Building Hope from the Ground Up | La Grande Halle

What does it look like for the new economy field to build alliances with, and for the working class? Through powerful examples of grassroots organizing, community-led initiatives, post-growth research and policy proposals, this session will demonstrate how the new economy field can genuinely serve—and be led by—working-class interests and voices, whilst countering the rise of the far right, increasing polarisation and appeal of populist narratives.

Julia Steinberger | Emma River Roberts | Declan Owens

Advocacy in Times of Unraveling: Reimagining Influence and Alliance-Building I La Salle Des Murmures

In today's challenging advocacy landscape, the new economy movement must rethink both our ways of working and who we build bridges with. Now is the time to ask: How do we ensure that momentum is strengthened rather than lost in the changing political currents? Might our messages be better received if they come from unusual suspects? And how do we approach new alliances while avoiding co-optation of the agenda?

This session brings together civil society leaders to share examples of policy advocacy for economic transformation and climate action - including partnerships with business, faith communities, and centrist political parties across contexts from New Zealand to the UN and the European Union.

Aurélie Maréchal | Gareth Hughes | Tariq Al-Olaimy | Eloise Todd (chair)

Securing Transformation – climate action amid securitisation and geopolitical fragmentation | Pause and Play

Global governance is fragmenting, climate impacts are no longer hypothetical, and policy debates risk shifting from mitigation toward mere adaptation. Companies are scaling back their climate targets, while major emitters such as the United States have once again abandoned the Paris Agreement. Increasingly, responses to global warming are framed as power struggles - between electro- and petro-states, between those preparing geopolitically for the worst and those striving to sustain momentum. These dynamics place the very premise of climate change as a solvable collective action problem into question - precisely at a moment when greenhouse gas emissions are reaching new heights.

This session begins from that daunting diagnosis. A decade after Paris, sustaining Europe’s climate ambition is essential to keep the global climate agenda alive.

We will explore: How can momentum and trust in climate mitigation be maintained when security and geopolitical concerns dominate political agendas, and the foundations of global cooperation are fracturing? How might Europe integrate climate resilience into its security vision without reducing it to militarisation or narrow control - advancing a multidimensional agenda despite a rightward political shift? What actors, narratives, and tactics can ensure climate returns to the top of the political agenda ahead of the 2029 EU elections?

This session brings together leaders from the new economy movement, each with distinct tactical approaches, to discuss which messengers and narratives can reframe climate as a core element of security—credible to policymakers, trusted by the public, and ambitious enough to drive the transformation we need

Katy Wiese (chair) | Jonathan Barth | Khem Rogaly | Chandrima Padmanabhan | Per Espen Stoknes

Sustaining Active Hope: A Work That Reconnects experience | L’Escale

This workshop is based on Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects framework. It is designed for those who want space to connect more personally to the gathering’s theme of Hope in a time of collapse. Guided practices invite participants to acknowledge and reflect on their experience of the uncertain and entangled world we are part of, without intellectualising or jumping to solutions. Together, attendees will explore what finding and sustaining active hope in the current geopolitical context requires, both as individuals and collectively for the global new economy movement.

Diana Cianelli Gabriel

Building Resilient Movements: Organizing in a World of Unpredictability | River Cruise

All movements go through patterns or cycles, as the landscape around us changes and new opportunities and risks emerge. But how do we know where our movements are in a given moment? What types of useful work can we do at each stage of a movement lifecycle? And as we move through a context of cascading crises and unpredictability, how do we navigate moments of movement contraction and disillusionment, and take action to build our preparedness and resilience? Join us for this participatory session on the water where we’ll use the ‘Movement Lifecycle’ framework to make sense of where our movements are in this moment, explore future scenarios and share ideas about building resilient movements in a world of unpredictability.

Andrew Nolan | Amanda Janoo

Pause for tea, coffee, light bites and conversation

In a Time of Monsters: Opportunities and Routes through a Collapsing Status Quo | La Grande Halle

Host Adrienne Buller brings together four leading thinkers to shed light on the opportunities, models and strategies for building a new economy that can be found in these times of compounding crises. The moment demands action, but it is not always easy to see the opportunities in the chaos of a fragmenting status quo. 

This panel will explore these opportunities, as well as reckon with where inertia and path dependency still remain. We’ll traverse the case for and practical challenges of degrowth; identify sites of political influence and action; ask how the state can be leveraged for change; and look for solutions and alliances unexpected places, from spirituality to natural systems.

Adrienne Buller (chair) | Hans Stegeman | Tariq Al Olaimy | Carolina Alves | Jo Swinson

Enjoy a freshly prepared spread of vegetarian food, connect with fellow participants, and refuel for the afternoon.

Eradicating Poverty: Reimagining development beyond growth | La Grande Halle

As environmental breakdown, inequality, and economic precarity deepen, the promise that economic growth alone can end poverty has collapsed. In this keynote, the UN Special Rapporteur presents a bold alternative: the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth. This UN-backed initiative lays out a rights-based, post-growth strategy to make poverty eradication a deliberate outcome of restructured economies—not a trickle-down side effect of aggregate expansion.

Developed through wide-ranging global consultations, the Roadmap offers a practical catalogue of transformative policies. These span universal social protection, care-centered labour systems, progressive fiscal reforms, global debt justice, and democratic governance of natural resources. It redefines progress around dignity, equity, and planetary boundaries across income levels and governance contexts, proposing context-specific pathways for justice in both the Global North and Global South.

In a time of cascading crises, this keynote is not a call for optimism, but a call for action—through visionary leadership, collective courage, and policies that serve both people and planet. As governments and international institutions begin shaping the next generation of global development goals, the Roadmap provides direction for a historic shift away from the false inevitabilities of growthism, and toward economies grounded in the effective realisation of human rights, well-being, and ecological responsibility.

Choose one of the following sessions:

Beyond Dollar Dominance: Rethinking Global Financial Architecture | La Grande Halle

As geopolitical tensions rise and the need for climate action grows, the current system is under strain. This session explores how the dollar-centric international financial system entrenches global inequality, drives the debt and climate crises; and limits the macroeconomic policy space for countries in the Global South. We’ll examine the case for change and explore emerging alternatives such as regional financial cooperation, monetary pluralism; and new public finance institutions and infrastructures that offer hope for a more balanced global economy. The workshop will spotlight Global South-led approaches that expand policy space and strengthen resilience in the face of climate and economic shocks rooted in systemic injustice.

Adrienne Buller (chair) | Danisha Kazi | Adriana Abdenur | Fadhel Kaboub | Carolina Alves

Building Economies in Place: Real-World Alternatives Close to Home | La Salle Des Murmures

Join a ‘world cafe’ style hosted by four organisations embedded in the work of building real world alternatives to current economic systems in place - from Bioregional Economics in Uttar Pradesh, India, to Grenoble’s Doughnut city portrait, Geneva’s solidarity economy movement and the Prosumer Economy System in Turkey with its real-life application Good4Trust.org

Uygar Özesmi | Sujay Hammannavar | Caroline Dommen | Nathalie Le Meur

Litigating for the Future: Challenging the Economic System through Strategic Litigation | L’Escale

Innovative lawsuits are challenging the legal rules and fiduciary duties that prioritise short-term profits while leaving nature as well as younger and future generations to pay the price. This session spotlights the potential of a structural, 'Law and Political Economy' approach to strategic litigation as a vehicle for transforming the economic system. From youth‑led climate suits to pension‑fund challenges, strategic litigation can play a role in reshaping the legal architecture that rewards short-term financial gains over long-term ecological and social wellbeing. In this panel, we will explore how strategic litigation can shift focus from remedying the harmful effects of economic power to targeting its structural enablers - the foundational legal rules and institutional arrangements that generate and sustain it.

Anna Chadwick | Ioannis Kampourakis | Mariana Gomes

Unlocking Monetary-Fiscal Coordination: Joint Solutions in a Fragmenting World | Pause and Play

Europe is at a critical juncture. A prolonged series of crises, from the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wars in the Middle East and genocide in Palestine, all against the backdrop of the climate emergency, has exposed the limitations of isolated fiscal and monetary policy. The ongoing inflationary environment has revealed the inadequacy of traditional policy instruments in ensuring price stability and facilitating the investments required for social and climate goals, leading to political discontent and a rightward shift across Europe.

This session will explore the need for more intentional and strategic monetary-fiscal coordination. The aim is to open a political and participatory conversation: What opportunities exist for aligning monetary and fiscal tools to achieve shared goals such as economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and democratic legitimacy? What are the institutional, political, and normative obstacles? And how do we garner excitement around this technical topic through smart campaigning?

Sebastian Mang | Katie Kedward | Isabelle Jiani Zheng | Carol Peterson

Finding Fellow Travelers: Rewiring Narratives on the River I River Cruise

Join Ashanti Kunene aboard our floating sanctuary to rewire narratives through peer connection and creative exchange. Navigate the currents of change with curated prompts, trade hand-drawn wisdom cards, or reflect in quiet spaces—choosing how you engage. Leave with deeper bonds, tangible tools from your crew, and renewed currents for transformation.

Ashanti Kunene

Pause for tea, coffee, light bites and conversation

Closing remarks and a chance to take stock and look ahead together

Continue your conversations on the banks of the River Saône, accompanied by a DJ set from Joycelyn Longdon, at our drinks reception on the terrace until 20.00