ProutCast
ProutCast is designed to make the ideas of PROUT accessible, engaging, and relevant. Episodes feature conversations with project leaders who are actively applying PROUT principles in real-world contexts, alongside thought leaders who are deepening its theoretical foundations and engaging with critical questions.
ProutCast aims to spark meaningful dialogue, bridge ideas and action, and invite a broader community to engage with pathways towards a more balanced, cooperative, and sustainable future.
Find our episodes on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, and all major podcast platforms.
Local Is the Future: Rethinking the Global Economy with Helena Norberg-Hodge | Ep. 7
What if everything we’ve been told about progress, growth, and the global economy is wrong? In this episode of ProutCast, Ralph speaks with Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder of Local Futures, to explore a radically different vision for the future. Drawing on her experiences in Ladakh, Helena reflects on how globalisation transformed a once resilient, community-based culture—bringing not just economic change, but deep psychological and social impacts. We explore the wider consequences of the global economy: the erosion of local cultures, rising disconnection, and whether we’re facing a deeper crisis of meaning. From distorted food systems and fragile energy dependence to the growing power of tech and AI, this conversation connects the dots between today’s biggest challenges. But it’s not just critique. Helena offers a hopeful alternative: localisation—rebuilding economies at a human scale, rooted in community, resilience, and real human needs.
Regional Integration and Ethical Cooperation in Latin America | Ep. 6
How can Latin American countries collaborate to address inequality, deforestation, and economic crises without relying solely on external powers? In this episode of ProutCast, Arunima talks with Regiane Nitsch Bressan, associate professor at the Federal University of São Paulo and a specialist in regional integration and governance in Latin America. Regiane guides us through her extensive career researching Mercosur, UNASUR, the Pacific Alliance, and the challenges of “liquid regionalism”. Enable English subtitles to follow along in English!
How One Indian State Rebuilt Its Rural Economy from the Ground Up | Ep. 5
In this episode of Proutcast, Ishaan speaks with Pradeep Sharma, former Planning & Policy Advisor to the Government of Chhattisgarh, whose life journey bridges tribal village life, environmental activism, corporate agriculture, spiritual inquiry, and state-level policy design. Born in a remote tribal region of central India, Pradeep’s early life exposed him to deep inequalities between industrial “development” and rural realities. After training as an engineer at IIT and working in the petroleum sector, he made a decisive break — turning instead toward environmental justice movements, grassroots agriculture, Ayurveda, and long-term village-based organising. From 2019–2024, Pradeep brought these lived experiences into government, where he helped design and implement Narwa–Garuwa–Ghurwa–Badi (NGGB) — an integrated rural development model focused on water systems, livestock, soil regeneration, and nutrition. Under his guidance, NGGB later evolved into Rural Industrial Parks (RIPA), enabling villages to move from raw production to local enterprises, skills, and value-added livelihoods.
Inside Portugal’s Bold Experiment in Local Economic Democracy | Ep.4
In this episode, community organiser Filipa Costa takes us inside the Converge Movement of Cova da Beira, a pioneering effort in Portugal where residents, local producers, associations, and municipalities come together to identify their real needs, create shared priorities, and solve problems through local, block-level planning. In this conversation, Ishaan speaks with Filipa Costa, one of the key facilitators behind Cova da Beira’s bottom-up transformation. She explains how the Converge process brings people from every sector of society into the same room — farmers, schools, cooperatives, activists, councils — to map local issues, pool resources, and collectively design solutions. From food systems and transport to land use, education, and economic resilience, Filipa shows how local intelligence and cooperation can achieve what centralised institutions often cannot: practical, grounded change that reflects the lived reality of the community.
Beyond GDP: Rethinking the Economy on a Living Planet | Ep.3
In this conversation Tiernan speaks with James Quilligan, a pioneering voice in planetary economics, commons-based governance, and post-growth thought. Over several decades, James has worked with the UN, World Bank, and international NGOs to help redefine value — not as a product of endless growth, but as a function of energy, ecology, and cooperation within living systems. Drawing from biology, thermodynamics, and the study of complex systems, Quilligan shows how human economies are bound by the same physical and energetic principles that govern all life. He argues that only by recognising these limits — and managing our shared commons accordingly — can we create a just and regenerative civilisation.
Why Foreign Aid Keeps Failing — and What Haiti Did Differently | Ep.2
In this episode Ishaan speaks with Demeter Russafov, a humanitarian, environmental planner and social entrepreneur whose long-term work in Haiti has reshaped communities with a model that goes way beyond charity and relief, focusing on sustainable development and economic democracy. Demeter has directed AMURT Haiti since 2004 and helped found DESPRI in 2014. Over two decades their programmes have spread across multiple regions of Haiti — from sea-salt production and moringa cultivation to reforestation, soil conservation and community-led economic initiatives. Today, DESPRI and associated programmes employ hundreds of Haitian staff and place particular emphasis on bottom-up empowerment and women’s leadership.
Building Community Coalitions with Nada Khader, WESPAC | Ep.1
We had the immense pleasure of having Nada Khader, Executive Director at WESPAC (Westchester People’s Action Coalition) foundation as our first guest. Nada Khader has been directing WESPAC for 25 years, building coalitions of local organisations across an impressively broad range of areas such as: food security, restorative justice, indigenous solidarity, local employment, racial justice. WESPAC also takes a firm stance against national and global injustices. In this episode Nada details some of these schemes, providing practical proposals for how to build coalitions in community to ensure basic necessities are met and that justice is constructive and restorative.
The Prout Podcast
The Prout Podcast ran from June 2020 – September 2023 by Prout Alliance. Exploring core principles of Prout and how we can apply Prout principles to various sectors, The Prout Podcast is a valuable resource for exploring economic democracy.