Our Next Economy is an environmentalist for-profit consulting firm involved in sponsoring at least one group, the environmental journalism organization Climate Investigations Center (CIC). ¹ Our Next Economy was established in 2009 as a for-profit limited liability corporation, or LLC. It reportedly accepted $5 million from the Sustainable Markets Foundation an environmentalist grantmaker, to fund CIC. ²

Founding

John Passacantando founded Our Next Economy in 2009. Passacantando is a former Greenpeace  executive director. ³

Passacantando led Greenpeace from 2000 to 2008. Before working for Greenpeace, Passacantando founded and ran Ozone Action, starting in 1992. From 1989 to 1992, he was the executive director of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation. ⁴

Our Next Economy is elusive. It has no website and little online presence. Passacantando’s Twitter bio did not list Our Next Economy as of January 4, 2020. ⁵

Federal Election Commission information from 2017 listed Passacantando as an economic consultant with Our Next Economy LLC. ⁶

Pass-Through Funding

Our Next Economy is the primary sponsor of the Climate Investigations Center, an organization that investigates groups that oppose certain environmental regulations. To do so, it acts as a pass through conduit for the environmentalist grantmaker Sustainable Markets Foundation. ⁷

Sustainable Markets Foundation donors have included the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Tides Foundation, and the TomKat Charitable Trust, the private foundation of hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer and his wife Kathryn Taylor. ⁸

Sustainable Markets Foundation directed about $5 million to Our Next Economy from September 2010 through August 2017 as an independent contractor, according to a report by Energy In Depth. From 2010 through 2013, the payments were between $180,000 to $320,000. After the Climate Investigations Center was founded in 2014, the SMF donation to Our Next Economy increased to about $1.5 million annually. ⁹

The founder of the Climate Investigations Center Kert Davies worked for Passacantando first at Ozone Action and later at Greenpeace. ¹⁰

1. Shepherd, Todd. “Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network.” Washington Free Beacon. October 12, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website-obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/
2. Shepherd, Todd. “Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network.” Washington Free Beacon. October 12, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website-obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/
3. Shepherd, Todd. “Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network.” Washington Free Beacon. October 12, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website-obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/
4. John Passacantando. GreenPeace USA. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/bios/john-passacantando/
5. John Passacantando. Twitter. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://twitter.com/JPassacantando
6. Katie Wilson for Congress. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00650531/1205687/sa/ALL
7. Shepherd, Todd. “Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network.” Washington Free Beacon. October 12, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website-obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/
8. Shepherd, Todd. “Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network.” Washington Free Beacon. October 12, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website-obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/
9. Walrath, Spencer. “Climate Investigations Center Utilizes Dark Money Network to Obscure Its Funds.” Energy In Depth. October 14, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://eidclimate.org/climate-investigations-center-utilizes-dark-money-network-to-obscure-its-funders/
10. Walrath, Spencer. “Climate Investigations Center Utilizes Dark Money Network to Obscure Its Funds.” Energy In Depth. October 14, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020. https://eidclimate.org/climate-investigations-center-utilizes-dark-money-network-to-obscure-its-funders/