The Emergence of local sustainable economies: Stories of resilience, renewal and rebirth

Anne-Marie CodurGlobal Development and Environment Institute

Tufts University

The three systemic global crises• Global Environmental Crisis: destruction of biodiversity

(Massive destruction of habitats - 6th global extinction), global climate change,…

• Social Inequality and Injustice crisis: 1% people on Earth has 46% of world’s wealth – richest 300 people have the same has 3 billion people!!!!

20% of world population consumes 82.7% of global production while 20% poorest live on 1.4% of global production

• Global Financial crisis: “2008 wasn’t the real crash. The real crash is coming.” - Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital (quoted in June 2012)

Public opinionsFrench polling company IFOP, 2011

Do you think our current economic system is deeply dysfunctional? Agree:French: 52%Germans: 42%Americans: 32%Do you think we ought to abandon this model for another one? Agree:French: 33%Italians: 22%Germans: 12%

BBC poll, 2009Do you think a strong public policy is needed in favor of a more equitable redistribution of wealth? Agree:Chileans: 91%; French: 87%; Spaniards: 83%; Germans: 77%Russians: 63%; British: 67%Americans: 41%

GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE REGULATED AND GUIDED TOWARDS A STEADY-STATE…3 scenarios1) More and more crashes and catastrophes… resulting in a « Fortress world » of the few against the masses of destitute people in a devastated planet: see Sci Fi movie « Elysium »

2) EMERGENCE OF A GLOBAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM ?(but G8, G20 have shown their limitations and national governments have lost ability to exert control on global financial markets and global corporations)

3) EMERGENCE OF MILLIONS OF INITIATIVES FROM THE GROUND UP…

EMERGENCE OF LOCAL SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIES

Socio-ecosystem’s vital flows

Natural ecosystem

Solar energy

water nutrients

biomass

Energy

water

Land/Food production Other basic

Resources

Families, communities,Firms, organizations,

Institutions, governance system

Socio-ecosystem

MONEY: enabler of vital exchanges

Labor

Local solutions to Global crisesACCESS TO BASIC RESOURCES: WATER, FOOD, ENERGYRe-appropriation by local users of systems of natural resources:

Ex: community-owned water systems

•Re-orientation of food production towards more self-sufficiency of local communities: slow food models

•Harnessing locally renewable energies, solar, wind, geothermic

WORK: Emergence of socially equitable forms of organizations: worker cooperatives

MONEY: EMERGENCE OF LOCAL COMPLEMENTARY CURRENCIEScommunity-based currencies to re-energize local flow of exchanges among people deprived of monetary means, to use underutilized resources (unemployed or under-employed people) and to re-create social ties of solidarity between people

WATER

The threat of losing access to common goods: global corporations’ water grab

Cochabamba, Bolivia

The acequias of New Mexico are communal irrigation canals, a way to share water for agriculture in a dry land. Tiwa Indians irrigated farmland in the area as long as 1.300 years ago.

“Communities have relied on institutions resembling neither the state nor the market to govern some resource systems with reasonable degrees of success over long periods of time ” Elinor Ostrom, in “Governing the Commons” (1990)

Re-creating collective systems of management of the commons

Felton, California

FOOD

Indian farmers vs. Green revolution: Resist the privatization of crops’ genetic pool

March against Monsanto, New Delhi, May 25, 2013: loosing their lands to debt (caused by high prices of GMO seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc…) 200,000 Indian farmers killed themselves since 1997

Vandana Shiva: the seeds belong to the farmer!

The keepers of seed banks:

“ I might be illiterate but I can argue with any scientist that I can produce with those free seeds and some organic manure a much healthier food than with those modern seeds that are so expensive and those chemicals that are exhausting the soils” - Chandramma, 58 year old woman from Medak,

Andhra Pradesh, India

Stopping Food, Inc.• USA, July 4, 2013

• Dakar, Senegal, Feb. 7, 2011: NO TO AGRA! (Alliance for a Green revolution in Africa is promoted by Rockefeller & Gates foundations)

Farmers’ response: WE ARE THE SOLUTIONCelebrating African Family Farming!

Urban agriculture in DetroitWe want to help make Motown a thriving Growtown”

B

Beekeepers inspect a bee-laden frame from a hive at Detroit’s D-Town Farm

The New Food revolution?

Carlo Petrini, pioneer of the Slow Food movement

Permaculture home

“when best management practices are used for organic crops, overall yields are just 13% lower than conventional levels”

Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture. Nature, 2012

Can organic farming feed the world?

Research has shown that organic agriculture, if practiced on the earth’s 1.4 billion tillable hectares, could sequester nearly 40% of current CO2 emissions

Tim de la Salle, “Regenerative Organic Farming: A solution to Global Farming”, Rodale Institute 2008

ENERGY

Harnessing renewable energies locallyTransition Towns: Marlow, UK – establishing 100 solar panels in their town – as a community project

Harnessing solar energy in Africa

Solar Sister is a social enterprise business

Our mission is to empower women with economic opportunity and eradicate energy poverty. We use a market based program to distribute solar technology that provides income to women entrepreneurs and is the most effective distribution for new technology to rural households.

WORK

1843 – founding of Rochdale equitable pioneers society

A man-made common resource: the worker-owned cooperative model

1934 Upton Sinclair’s electoral program to end poverty in California by seizing idle factories and farm land where the owner had failed to pay property taxes – and transform them into self-sufficient, worker-run co-ops

Mondragon cooperatives, Basque country, Spain

Father Arizmendiarrieta, founder of the Mondragon cooperatives (1954)

From Argentina economic crisis (1999-2002)and its Empresas recuperadas…

By 2003, there were 170 “recovered” firms employing more than 9000 workers in Argentina

…To the revival of Cleveland’s inner city neighborhoods through

the Evergreen cooperatives

The largest female cooperative in the world

• Started in 1959 with a seed capital of Rs. 80, Lijjat had an annual turnover of around Rs. 650 (over $100 million) in 2010

• Started with the hand-made production of Papad, the popular indian crispy bread, by thousands of poor urban women to provide them with sustainable livelihood

• It provides employment to around 42,000 people.

Cooperatives that empower womenProduction of olive oil, and argan oil (used in cosmetics) by women-owned cooperatives in Morocco

MONEY

Nurturing the local economy through community-based currencies

local currencies

National/global banks

Conventional money

Local Socio-economic system

Impoverished families

unemployed

Food, Housing, Health, Education, Basic goods and services

Markets of goods, services, factors of prod

Access to

Access to

Money flows “leaking out” from local to global system

Reconnecting people togetherPeople with resources

Social gap between have and have not

Local currencies as resilience strategy

Local Exchange Trading System (LETS)• The function of the LETSystemThe LETSystem is an economic system intentionally designed to address the

problems and limitations of conventional money. Rather than proposing a replacement for conventional money, the LETSystem

is designed to integrate with all aspects of economic and financial life. It is a complementary system rather than an alternative one.

Système d’Echange Local : SEL

TIME BANKSOne hour of person A = One hour of person BRecreates equality in the economy

Can be used to address unmet needs of services that require lots of time: elder care, children care=> Rebuilds social ties of solidarity between people

The Nayahan Banjar system in Bali: an ancient time bank

Japan Fureai Kippu Time Banking for elderly care

Investing in local economies: towards community capitalism

What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?

every dollar spent at a locally owned business generates two to four times more economic benefit—measured in income, wealth, jobs, and tax revenue—than a dollar spent at a globally owned business. That is because locally owned businesses spend much more of their money locally and thereby pump up the so-called economic multiplier.

- Michael Shuman

“Plugging the leaks”New Economics Foundation (UK) framework to help towns and local communities to maximize multiplier effect of local investments inside the Community and avoid too much “leaking” outside

Develop projects and strategies which encourage the local cycling of money.

These could be local currencies, Time Banks, Credit Unions or a range of other strategies.

To summarize…

Global Mainstream Economy Millions of “streams” of local sustainable economies

Human beings Inputs = HR – are disposable, laid off when are of no use

Consumers of outputs , ensnared by advertisement to consume always more…

Family, neighbors, communityCaring for each other : recreating networks of activity where everyone is usefulCommunity’s values shape consumption decisions

Relations between them None. Producers and consumers are disconnected, atomized, anonymous individualsWorkers, under constant threat of being laid off, are discouraged to join unions

Networks of people who know and trust each other – close relations between producers and consumers (often the same people!) no more than 1 degree of separation…

Environment Input and sink Home: where people live, which they need to protect for themselves and their children

Relations between Humans and Environment

Disconnected – food production is industrialized, seeds are owned by corporations, water is privatized, etc…

Close interconnections – organic gardening, re-appropriating ancestral customs, protect biodiversity of seeds, recreating local governance of natural commons, water systems,…

Global Mainstream Economy Millions of “streams” of local sustainable economies

Main economic actors Multinational Corporations Small-scale enterprises, cooperatives of citizens/workers/shareholders

Time Fast, accelerating pace Slow pace

Growth Absolutely needed or the whole system is in crisis

Not necessary, especially if no demographic growth

Energy High levels, and increasing levels are needed

Low levels – increasingly provided locally by renewable sources (wind, solar, geothermal)

Investment High levels of accumulation in corporate financial institutions/stock markets – with high risks of instability

Local small-scale investment, crowd-sourcing by pooling people’s resources

Currencies Global currencies, increasingly vulnerable to crisis (Euro-zone)

Resilience strategy: Emergence of local currencies, time banks, and other non-monetary systems of exchanges

Governance Concentration of power in fewer hands. Democratic Deficit – national governments and elected officials increasingly powerless

Vibrant local democracies, high level of participation/commitment from citizens in the design and implementation of their local policies

ConclusionEmergence of alternative economic models:Combining the best of globalization: networks of communication, information, global social networks of citizens (Facebook, twitter, global community of bloggers…)With resilient sustainable forms of local socio-economic systems (food, water, energy, local governance, cooperatives, housing,…)Question:Where is the tipping point? When does the critical mass of all of these local alternative systems start coalescing into a global network of local systems?