The failure of money to adequately reflect social or environmental value is a central theme of Jed Emerson. He suggests that the ‘right use of money’ will only occur if investment decisions are made on the basis of assessing ‘full value’ returns; that is, the blended value of economic gain, social gain and environmental gain.

Pierre Calame also identifies the simultaneous meeting of economic, environmental and social need as the greatest challenge. He feels that currency systems and other economic institutions fail to meet this challenge. To correct this failure, he suggests investigating how the overall monetary system and its governance need to be changed. He feels that local or regional ‘territories’ will gradually become more important players, relative to international corporations in meeting combined economic, environmental and social requirements.

Jonathan Dale highlights that money in today's complex world is often very distant from the true nature of production and trade. In particular, he is concerned that prices do not reflect true social costs, so that ethical issues are hidden from the consumer. At the same time, companies are accountable only to shareholders and not to the other stakeholders affected socially and economically by their activities.

Finally, Stephen O’Brien picks up the problem of decisions being far too removed from the realities of trade and the needs of people in their local communities. He suggests that governments’ ‘right use of money’ should foster free enterprise and wealth creation and use people-focused techniques: localism over centralism; diversity over rigid targets and controls.