Pat Conaty

Pat is a Californian working in England and Wales. He has worked with NEF since 1987 and is also a research associate of Co-operatives UK. He specialises in action research, education and development that focuses on successful methods of social economic innovation. Pat has been working on introducing other innovative forms of co-operative economic democracy, including community land trusts for housing and workspace, social co-operatives for care services and ecological co-operatives for green energy and local food systems. Since 2005, he has worked internationally as one of several UK members of BALTA – a Canadian research, education and development network involving practically-orientated academics from ten universities plus other social economy and co-operative sector network practitioners.

Inspired by the work of the late Elinor Ostrom, Pat has specialised in innovative work on Commons solutions, since 1999. Many of these solutions are covered in his 2012 book with Mike Lewis, The Resilience Imperative: Co-operative Transitions to a Steady-state Economy. The theme of the book is practical solutions for the Great Transition that co-develop commonwealth in ways to meet basic needs for equitable co-operative finance, low-cost housing, local food and renewable energy.