The Finance Innovation Lab

Website: www.thefinancelab.org

The Finance Innovation Lab is a place where people who have good ideas about how to improve the financial system can take them and do something with them.

The organisation aims to build a financial system that really sustains people and planet. It is run jointly by ICAEW and WWF-UK, who founded it in 2008.

The financial system is at the root of many of the social, environmental and economic crises we face in the UK today. One of the main things that came from the financial crisis was an understanding that the finance system is very good at serving itself, but very bad at serving a much wider group and community as a whole.

The Financial Innovation Lab has built a diverse community of over 2,500 people who are committed to changing the system. They include social entrepreneurs, investment bankers and anti-capitalists, design students and economics academics amongst many others.

The organisation invites the community to events to explore and crowd-source ideas for a better financial system. It lets the crowd pick the best ones and turn them into solid projects, which it prototypes and helps resource. 

Currently the organisation is supporting around eight innovation groups. These range from a programme of support for social entrepreneurs tackling sustainability issues (UnLtd* Future) to The TEEB for Business Coalition, which looks at how we can drive change in business behaviour to minimise the negative impact it has on the environment, with the UNEP, UNCTAD and the WBCSD amongst others.    

The Finance Innovation Lab offers a place to meet other passionate people and to get the support needed to turn ideas into reality.