We only need to walk down a street, open a browser or turn on the TV to understand that we are being addressed as consumers. But what if behind that narrative, there were another waiting to step into the limelight and reshape the communities and countries in which we live?

Jon Alexander, author or Citizens, Why the Key to Fixing Everything Is All of Us, argues that there is. He calls it the citizen story. Tamsin Walker sat down with Jon Alexander to talk about exactly what that is, what can happen when even a small group of people decide to take matters into their own hands, and how some leaders are also daring to dabble with more participatory forms of co-existence.

Jon started his professional life in an advertising agency in London, but a decade in, had come to see that treating citizens as eternal consumers was undermining their inherent power as individuals.

He returned to university and co-founded the New Citizenship Project, a strategy and innovation consultancy operating on the belief that given the right opportunity, people can and will shape the things that matter to them for the better. To date, NCP as it is known for short, has worked with the European Central Bank, the Guardian and many others to shift the story of the individual in society away from that of consumer to that of participatory citizen.

Since publishing his book Citizens in 2022, he has met with and heard from people all across the world, who he says are finding one another, organising together, and stepping into whatever power they have to shape the future for the better.

About the Inner Green Deal

The Inner Green Deal is a non-profit organisation based in Cologne and Brussels with a growing community around the world. We address the human dimension of sustainability and support leaders, change makers and facilitators to accelerate the green transformation. We offer a range of short and longer programmes cultivating capacities such as collaboration, systems thinking and compassion. In addition to programmes for organisations, we empower facilitators and offer train-the-trainer programmes, access to curricula and digital tools to create cohesive communities of change. Our podcast is hosted and produced by Tamsin Walker. Executive producer is IGD co-founder Jeroen Janss. For more information, visit us on LinkedIn, innergreendeal.com or write to info@innergreendeal.com. 

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