reconomy project

Local Economic Blueprint highlights potential of community resilience

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Today sees the publication of what may well turn out to be one of the most important documents yet produced by a Transition initiative. Over the next few weeks we will be returning to it, to hear a range of perspectives on it, and hope it will generate debate and discussion. The document is the ‘Totnes & District Local Economic Blueprint‘, and you can download it for free here. The Blueprint is the first attempt that I am aware of to map in detail a local economy and to put a value on the potential benefits of an increased degree of localisation. If you like, it identifies “the size of the prize” of Transition.

Communities, co-operatives, and social businesses: Towards a systemic proposal

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The inability of economics to internalize social and environmental externalities makes it so that it essentially serves capital through a debt-based economic growth; thus moving away from its primary goal: the correct distribution of scarce resources in order to satisfy human needs. As a consequence, unless a dramatic change in the path of development is implemented, it (the economy and our economic system) is leading us to an abyss. On the flip side, the re-localization of economies and lifestyles, linked to the rise of social businesses and to the potential of cooperatives as a social form for a more equitable distribution of wealth, inspires an opportunity to reorient human evolution towards wellbeing-generation and the creation of a system that is resilient to the threats that the world is facing. Hundreds of cases now exist in which neighborhood communities are assuming an increasing role in the decisions that affect their own future. The key to an encouraging future might lie in providing these socially and environmentally desirable approaches with economical viability.

Real life, real incomes – creating social enterprises

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Over the last few years, Transition Initiatives have been looking at how to get economically real. This is key in terms of formulating a response not only to climate change and the need to stop using oil, but equally to the financial crisis and the need to be able to articulate and show what an economic alternative would look like.