The Applied Economy R/Evolution Institute is a collaborative effort of core and external teams comprising economic researchers and investment practitioners, with an average of over 20 years of experience in their respective fields. This work is supported by a growing global network of partners from related domains.

What unites them is a shared understanding that our global society faces an unprecedented ecologic and climate catastrophe — one that threatens not only human well-being, but the very survival of our own and other species. We are all committed to advancing real-world solutions.

We start from a simple but often overlooked premise: the polycrisis of our time — war, poverty, violence, the rise of authoritarianism, climate change, ecological degradation, and the risk of societal collapse — is not a set of separate emergencies. These are symptoms of a shared root cause, embedded in how our economic and financial systems are structured and how capital is allocated. Fossil fuel expansion, arms manufacturing, and extractive finance are not incidental side-effects of an otherwise neutral system; they are financed, insured, and sustained by ordinary investment decisions made every day — including, often unknowingly, by institutions whose stated values point in the opposite direction.

This is why AEEI's work is not only about raising ethical concerns, but about applying that understanding directly to how capital moves: tracing exposure through pooled funds, index products, and asset managers, and making that exposure visible to the institutions and individuals whose money it is. We believe that changing course starts with seeing clearly where the money already goes — and that this clarity, patiently and rigorously pursued, is itself a form of real-world solution.

In short, AEEI is an answer to the call to transform economic and political systems through urgent, concrete action—both individual and corporate—with a particular focus on investing ethically and sustainably to demonstrate love for humanity, nature, and the Earth. This call was explicitly minuted at Pisac (Peru) during the 15th World Plenary Meeting of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) in 2016, which urged Friends and meetings globally to act as effective instruments of change, practice ethical stewardship of funds, and challenge the financial structures driving the climate crisis.