World Localization Day on June 21st and during the month of June

April 10, 2024

 

Groups, individuals and networks are invited to join in the celebration of World Localization Day on June 21st and during the month of June.

To read more about Naomi Klein and other speakers, use this link.

There are many strong voices and organisations that have taken part in World Localization Day over the past five years. Our global partners are spread out over 49 countries, all raising awareness about the need to localize our economies and build strong and healthy local communities. Find more inspiration here.

The localization movement is growing stronger. Across the world, people are speaking out against the global economy that is playing havoc with our lives and destroying our shared planet.

Simultaneously, millions of us are engaged in rebuilding healthy local economies, communities and food systems. Listen to strong voices from the movement and meet some of the many organizations that have taken part, amplifying the solutions and bringing the economy home

A myriad of initiatives make up the localization ‘movement of movements’, from community gardens, eco-villages, transition towns, seed libraries, farmers markets, decentralized renewable energy projects, repair cafés, local business alliances, the revival of local knowledge systems and more.

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This recent article: Localization: A call to action provides a helpful overview of the local food movement.

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The Wigan Deal targets the human and local

March 14, 2024

Last April, Polly Curtis, chief executive of the think-tank Demos, described the UK state as being stuck in firefighting mode, responding ’frenziedly’ to whichever new disaster is tearing through the country and wired to service problems it can’t ignore rather than take preventive action and address the underlying causes of those issues.

She asked what would happen if, instead of prevention being an afterthought, it was placed at the heart of public services (Financial Times), giving the Wigan Deal as an example.

In 2011 Wigan Council, facing significant financial pressures due to the austerity policies that limited public sector funding, decided to find a new way to relate to and work with citizens in order to deliver services.

The council and the community informally agreed to work together to create a better borough through the Wigan Deal, an informal agreement between the council, residents and all who work in the area, to create a better borough.

As part of this social contract, the council invested £13mn in local residents’ ideas: community co-operatives, sports initiatives and start-up investment in schemes such as Wigan Men’s Sheds, a community business designed to teach new skills and reduce social isolation for men.

Wigan subsequently added seven years to healthy life expectancy in its poorest neighbourhoods, while life expectancy stagnated in the rest of the UK.

A campaign involving over 600 civil society, public and private sector organisations, gave rise to the Community Wealth Fund, which invests in abandoned neighbourhoods. The government announced the fund will receive a share of dormant bank account assets.

Wigan has one of the lowest Council Tax rates in Greater Manchester – see this brochure. It has details of projects such as Incredible Edible, pioneered in Todmorden, an urban gardening project which aims to bring people together through local food, helping to change behaviour towards the environment and build a kinder more resilient world.

To date, the Deal has saved £115m and Wigan now has the second lowest council tax rates in the whole of Greater Manchester. If everyone continues to recycle even more, to volunteer their communities and use online services, Wigan will continue to balance its books.

Due to the hard work and commitment of residents and communities the Deal has been a huge success

Last December, Wasafiri, a global community of systems thinkers, wrote about the Wigan Deal, four years after the 2019 Kings Fund analysis, during which the pandemic and UK cost of living crisis hit. They concluded that Wigan was better able to adapt to those shocks having adopted aspects of a systems-based approach, ending:

“We hope the people of Wigan will manage to hold their nerve and not relapse, under significant pressure, to the fallacy that the council can solve these challenges on its own”.

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See Richard Vize in the Guardian, 2019, for more detail.

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COMMENT

A reader cautions against placing faith in the Shawcross report, citing Amnesty’s  press release. 

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Morlais renewable energy project, creating jobs, enhancing local skills, offering supply chain opportunities and re-investing profits in host communities

October 30, 2023

ENDS

Councillor Llinos Medi, Leader of the Isle of Anglesey County Council, Portfolio Holder Economic Development and Lead Member for the Low Carbon Energy Programme on the North Wales Ambition Board said: “The County Council has been supportive of the Morlais project from its inception. The project, once operational, will ensure that the island leads the way in terms of tidal energy contributing to national net zero targets. It will also continue to provide significant local and regional economic benefits by creating jobs, enhancing skills and supply chain opportunities”.

In line with the Menter Môn commitment to secure benefit to the north Wales economy, Ruthin-based Jones Bros Civil Engineering has been responsible for the construction of the substation officially opened by the First Minister. Working with other local companies, they also undertook the cabling work, connecting the scheme to the national grid.

The Morlais project will be re-investing profits into those local communities that are accommodating the development.

 

Read the article on this website

 

 

 

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In Bristol UK, Planet Local Summit: a global gathering focussed on localization

April 29, 2023

Economic localization: the most strategic path to a healthy future

Local Futures has been raising awareness for four decades about the need to shift direction – away from dependence on global monopolies, and towards decentralised, regional economies. Building on its networking and movement-building endeavours over four decades, the three-day Planet Local Summit will be the biggest and most international event yet.

The overwhelmingly positive response already received affirms the great need for such a summit. This is shaping up to be the seminal ‘coming-of-age’ event for our worldwide movement.

It will bring together leading figures from all over the world who – despite their diverse disciplines – are now converging on economic localization as the most strategic path to a healthy future.

A remarkable number of confirmed speakers – cutting-edge thinkers and activists from across the planet – are listed, with brief biographies. They include George Ferguson, Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge (Local Futures co-founder), Manish Jain, Daniel Christian Wahl,  Michael Shuman, Keibo Oiwa, Ella Noah Bancroft, Alnoor Ladha and Rob Hopkins. Learn more here.

Venue: St George’s Bristol, from September 29 to October 1, 2023

Book tickets here

 

 

 

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Sound ventures – like ELC – can and should ‘scale up’ spreading far and wide

March 16, 2023

There are ELC small-holdings in six different parts of England. Read more about them here.

Shaun Chamberlin writes: “The Ecological Land Co-operative (ELC) develops affordable, low impact, smallholdings for ecological agriculture. The high costs of land and rural housing make it nearly impossible for new entrants to farming to establish a farm business. By providing affordable and secure smallholdings, we are helping to address this crisis”.

This cooperative of intelligent, ecologically aware young people aims to free us from the devastation of the Gates generation’s chemical-intensive agribusiness, by  restoring the ruined soil’s ability not only to store carbon through sustainable regenerative and organic techniques and maintaining a beautiful human-scale and wildlife-filled countryside, but also growing natural, healthy food in place of the processed junk which is making us sick and obese.

A hyperlocal/regional answer to more resilient food supply chains

Brexit, Covid-19 and most recently the Suez Canal debacle have all highlighted the fragility of long, convoluted supply chains with numerous middlemen. Environmentalists add concerns about the greenhouse gas emissions currently generated by air and sea transport.

Hyperlocal supply chains “oriented around a well defined, community scale area with a primary focus being directed towards the concerns of its residents” with a built-in regional buffer would lead to enhanced food sovereignty and food security, not increased vulnerability, with:

  • simpler distribution,
  • lower transport costs,
  • less food waste
  • and no need for plastic packaging.

In the newsletter Tracy Worcester draws attention to Sustain’s local food campaign:

 

 

 

 

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Brexit and Trade Moving from Globalisation to Self-reliance

January 9, 2023

 

Colin Hines has drawn attention to a report by Victor Anderson and Rupert Read entitled ‘Brexit and Trade Moving from Globalisation to Self-reliance’, published and launched in 2017 by Green MEP Molly Scott Cato.

Although it regrets our leaving the EU and wishes we wouldn’t, the report is written as an alternative approach assuming we are outside the EU. Its Executive Summary states: “This report puts on to the political agenda an option for Brexit which goes with the grain of widespread worries about globalisation, and argues for greater local, regional, and national self-sufficiency, reducing international trade and boosting import substitution”.

Hines continues: “As I am aware it is the first time a report from a politician isn’t clamouring to retain membership of the open border Single Market”

It details the need for an environmentally sustainable future involving constraints to trade and the rebuilding of local economies. Indeed the report actually calls for ‘Progressive Protectionism’ rather than a race to the bottom relationship with the EU. Some of the points made on page 14:

  • Reducing dependence on international trade implies reducing both imports and exports.
  • It is therefore very different from the traditional protectionism of seeking to limit imports whilst expanding exports.
  • It should therefore meet with less hostility from other countries, as it has a very different aim from simply improving the UK’s balance of payments.
  • It could be described as ‘progressive protectionism’, or ‘green protectionism’.

For detailed proposals on how this could and should be done, see http://progressiveprotectionism.com/wordpress/’

He adds, “Also ground-breaking in Green Party literature of late is its discussion of the arguments for and against managed migration. Its sensitive handling of this contentious issue for many in the Greens does mark an important step forward and hopefully will help to start an internal debate about whether or not the party should reconsider its open borders approach”.

Hines feels that we won’t leave the EU – and central to that happening will be a realisation across Europe that to see off the extreme right they must manage internal migration and protect domestic jobs. At that point the reasons for supporting Brexit for most are no longer valid.

He ends: “This report makes a crucial input to the debate, one that will rage for the next two years”.

 

 

 

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Two Canadian states localise cleaner energy projects: UK please note

November 6, 2022

The market rules

As European countries have filled their storage tanks to their limits ahead of winter, more than 30 tankers holding liquefied natural gas are floating off Europe’s shoreline according to shipping analytics company Vortexa.

Energy traders bet the autumn price reprieve prompted by robust supplies and warm weather will be fleeting.  Another 30 vessels are crossing the Atlantic and expected to join the queue ahead of the winter. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Wood Mackenzie’s Mr. Di Odoardo said that traders can make money by waiting even though the cost of renting their ships has soared. Traders are betting that soon consumption will increase, depleting supplies and boosting prices. No media report seen gave the nationality of the traders but this FT video offered a clue:

Two Canadian states are breaking free 

Many engineers support the development of tidal power as the cleanest and most reliable form of renewable energy and an energy entrepreneur told the writer that it would first have to be supported, just as the solar industry was in this country.

A search revealed that a Canadian feed-in tariff (FIT) program in Nova Scotia, which incentivized investment in and production of renewable energy was successful in the production of clean energy and the creation of green jobs – key elements in tackling the climate crisis.

In 2015, however, an incoming Liberal government cancelled its acclaimed COMFIT system, which had launched a troubled tidal energy project, saying the program was growing too expensive and would cause Nova Scotia Power to raise electricity rates. But from June this year it was reported that the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has now developed a Feed-In Tariff (FIT) Program for the province of Ontario to encourage and promote greater use of renewable energy sources. These include wind, waterpower, renewable biomass, biogas, landfill gas and solar photovoltaic.

Will the British government consider supporting this reliable form of renewable energy which could, over time, eliminate dependence on imported supplies?

 

 

 

 

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The economic, political and environmental advantages of localisation: Rana Faroohar

October 22, 2022

Some points made by Rana Foroohar, the FT’s global business columnist and author of ‘Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World’, in her blockbuster article today, summarised below (links and photos added) .

If we are to solve the world’s biggest problems — from climate change to wealth disparity — we have to start thinking outside the black box of conventional economics, and look at the world in a more realistic and holistic way, tapping into other disciplines such as neuroscience, anthropology, biology, law and business.

Amid the pandemic many realised that the US were sourcing the majority of cheap medical masks and key pharmaceutical ingredients from its biggest geopolitical adversary, China.

Today’s fractious politics are leading to more regionalisation in the most strategic sectors, including semiconductors, electric vehicles, agriculture and rare-earth minerals. Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine brought into painful focus the fact that Europe bought most of its gas from a country run by an unstable autocrat.

After decades of a “winner take all” trend, in which the majority of prosperity has been located in a handful of cities and companies, look for business and policymakers to be more focused on ensuring that wealth and place are re-moored. 

Ms Faroohar (left) notes that long before the pandemic or Russia’s war in Ukraine, a host of shifts — demographic, geopolitical, technological — has been moving the world away from one-size-fits-all globalisation and towards a world of economic policymaking and business models better suited to local interests.

A wave of technological innovation is making it possible to move jobs and wealth to a far greater number of places (later in the article 4D printing was cited). A generation of millennial workers and voters are pushing politicians and business leaders to think about local sustainability rather than just global growth.

Creating more opportunity at home, while still remaining connected to the global economy, will require building more resilient models, better education, infrastructure, higher local wages and less focus on the short-term.

The common economic assumption is that it doesn’t matter where jobs are located, as long as they are created, because people will simply move to them. But as Harvard academic Gordon Hanson, (left) who reimagines free-market capitalism, puts it: “When workers without a college degree lose their jobs, few choose to move elsewhere, even when local market conditions are poor.” They depend on the family and community ties of place to buffer them in difficult times. Hanson and his colleagues are building new, highly localised models of how economic growth happens in different areas.

China announced several years ago that it wanted its own supply chains to be more local

‘Dual circulation’ is the official Chinese term for the fact that production and consumption will be clustered far more closely everywhere in the future, for many reasons, including the fragilities associated with far-flung production lines.

Those have been in evidence for some time now within western multinationals. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, ran into delays and cost overruns in the late 2000s due to its incredibly complex supply chain, which involved outsourcing 70% of the aeroplane’s component parts to myriad countries all over the world.

Problems persist: Boeing has since stopped publicly setting delivery restart dates (2022)

It has become less cost-efficient to outsource globally in some areas:

  • Wages have gone up in Asia so it has become more expensive and complicated to have far-flung global supply chains.
  • Energy is more expensive.
  • Companies care more about their emissions output.

Climate change is also driving localisation

Supply chains in agriculture, textiles and home-building are among the most polluting in the world. The arguments for more community-based farming, an end to fast fashion, and not wasting emissions to transport insulation, concrete or plastics all over the world are clear.

A 2021 Boston Consulting Group’s analysis (title above) found that more localised production networks would add only a 2% mark-up on a $35,000 car, a 1% increase in the price of a smartphone, or 3% more for a $200,000 home.

Precision data technologies allow for precise tracking within supply chains; a textile retailer can now identify the provenance of cotton down to a particular farm or field), and a younger consumer geared towards buying fewer things of better quality, will encourage more localisation and help the planet.

Leaders want to buffer supply-chain disruptions, cut transport costs, and reduce geopolitical risk

Companies are moving more production in-house, and trying to source and control more raw materials. Elon Musk is ahead of the curve, producing most of his Tesla in-house after discovering that it was harder to innovate and much more expensive to work with cutting-edge technologies in real time when the supply chains were far away. Ultimately, Tesla became committed to sourcing and innovating as much as it could around its battery and power train technologies locally.

Localism will make sense not only as an economic prospect, but as a political one

In his 1996 book Democracy’s Discontent, the political philosopher and Harvard professor Michael J Sandel sharply outlined why decentralisation is crucial for democracy. He writes:

“Restoring liberty meant restoring a decentralised economy that bred independent citizens and enabled local communities to be masters of their destiny, rather than victims of economic forces beyond their control.”

 

 

 

 

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Localisation: a ‘systemic solution-multiplier’ simultaneously lowering CO2 emissions, restoring democracy and providing secure livelihoods

October 5, 2022

Science has established beyond doubt that the window for climate action is closing rapidly. In November 2022, Egypt will host the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, with a view to building on previous successes and paving the way for future ambition (UNEP).

The root causes of climate change and the most effective steps to reduce CO2 emissions were not discussed in Paris. Yet more and more people are waking up to the fact that our current corporate-driven economic model is causing havoc to the planet and to people. It is up to civil society to lead the debate and keep the pressure on governments to change the system behind climate change. 

isec report coverIn the wake of the Paris climate talks, Local Futures has released a 16 page action paper entitled Climate Change or System Change? (left).

It argues that globalization – the deregulation of trade and finance through an ongoing series of “free trade” treaties – is the driving force behind climate change.

This post is based on leads in a message we received from Local Futures’ Director Helena Norberg Hodge (right), who trained as a linguist with Chomsky and has delivered her message in English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Ladakhi.

Helena in JapanA recording of Local Futures’ first webinar, with community economist Michael Shuman and Helena Norberg-Hodge is now uploaded on YouTube.

In this event, recognised pioneers of the localisation movement – community-economist and author, Michael Shuman and Helena – explored localisation as a systemic solution-multiplier that simultaneously lowers CO2 emissions, restores democracy and provides secure livelihoods.

The conversation identified proven strategies that strengthen local economies including the need for an international movement for localisation. See table below.ISEC

Egypt is assuming the incoming Presidency of COP 27 with a clear recognition of the gravity of the global climate challenge and appreciation of the value of multilateral, collective and concerted action as the only means to address this truly global threat. To summarise: the climate problem can only be tackled effectively if governments stop subsidising globalisation, and begin pursuing a localisation agenda instead. A golden opportunity for all stakeholders to rise to the occasion and tackle effectively the global challenge of climate change facilitated by Egypt on the African continent (Local Futures)

 

 

 

 

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Globally Cooperative Localisation: John Bunzl writes to India’s high-profile food and trade policy analyst

August 21, 2022

Localisers will appreciate this rediscovered treasure. In 2002, ‘Subject: Re: Food Security’; John Bunzl (Simpol, below right) wrote to the editor and Devinder Sharma (below left) as follows (emphasis, photos and links added):

Sorry for the delay in responding to your exchanges and I have now read Devinder’s very informative ‘backgrounder’.

It seems to me – as a rather ignorant newcomer to all this – that the priority which should be pursued in the interests of both developed and developing countries is what I would call ‘Globally Cooperative Localisation’.

This means that farmers in all countries, rich and poor, should be entitled to sufficient price protection to allow the maximum amount of food to be grown locally in each country for local consumption. This entails global cooperation (along the lines of Simpol http://www.simpol.org ) to establish and agree fair quotas for all commodities which would qualify for protection and the level of protection to be provided. Beyond those quotas, however, trade would be free. No doubt these measures would have to be introduced in a phased
(simultaneous) way with some transitional relief being provided where appropriate.

There are various mechanisms that could be used to achieve the desired effects, not all of them necessarily being through the imposition of direct quotas and tariffs. For example, a stiff global tax on fuels as Simpol could make possible, would immediately make long-distance transportation of foodstuffs (and all manner of other widgets) much more expensive, and therefore automatically make them less competitive with locally produced and consumed items.

This tax would promote local production and consumption almost ‘automatically’ as well as making high-tech, oil-based farming less competitive with smaller-scale organic farming.

In addition, there would be many other spin-off benefits of this including a reduction in transportation, pollution, pollution-related diseases, etc.

Furthermore, from the tax revenues raised, not only could oil-producing countries be compensated for their loss of fuel production revenue (thus keeping them cooperative), but funds would be available to help developing countries meet higher standards, for other global purposes, disaster emergencies, the UN, etc, etc.

In general, it does seem to me that, particularly in agriculture where the health of the land everywhere is paramount and where, therefore, simple market forces cannot be allowed free reign, some combination of protectionism and free trade – along the lines I propose above, and always within a globally cooperative framework – is necessary. 

What I would like to see, Devinder, is all manner of organisations and NGOs – including trade unions – taking some time to look at this wider picture and, hopefully, to adopt SP as the preferred means or ‘tool’ for its practical implementation or an even more effective process if one emerges.

For what you describe in your backgrounder can, I fear, only get worse until people can find a globally cooperative way out. Of course we can and must fight the present situation but we should, I think, keep in the back of our minds that this can only be a losing battle unless the global paradigm is changed.

Since both ‘free trade’ and protectionism are BOTH characterised by unsustainable levels of destructive competition, it should not be difficult to deduce that the answer lies in global cooperation and the implementation of an appropriate ‘mixed’ regime which includes protectionism where that is needed to achieve localisation and free trade for everything else (but with appropriate compensating redistributions to provide for a gradual convergence between rich and poor nations).

This of course ties in with the discussions we were having about the need to highlight the issue of ‘international competitiveness’ as the key barrier to achieving the needed reforms and I still think we should form a global group of individuals to bring this issue out more clearly.

Be that as it may, do you think, Devinder, that the farming unions in India might have the time/resources to look into these issues in more detail and in a more strategic way (rather than solely concerning themselves with their immediate concerns)? I already had interest in SP from Public Services International (PSI) in Geneva which is an umbrella group of all manner of trade unions from all over the world with about 10 million members between them and I believe the union movement worldwide could be an excellent medium through which to achieve paradigm change.

 

 

 

 

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