Lubrication for the local economy

I've often heard money being referred to as the lubrication for exchange systems. But recently it has been becoming less able to fulfil that role. With the Corporation of London and private corporations being in control of the creation of it, they obviously lubricate for their own interests before distributing it to other people.

The problem

In recent months I have been learning a lot about money and our economic system. I have discussed many of the issues with those at Occupy Norwich as well as with family and friends. I have established what I think is the problem with money as it is.

It is not the fact that money is created as debt - all money is a debt, and wouldn't be money if it wasn't, because money represents what value is owed to the bearer, through the authority of the issuer (The Bank of England, in the case of pounds).

It is not the idea that interest is borne on debts - ok, interest can be excessive, and needs to be curbed and regulated, but where it represents the foregoing of the use of that value by the owner for a period of time, interest is a justifiable payment as the compensation for not having access to that value, just as you might rent your house to someone, or lend them something you own as long as you can have it back as soon as you need it.

The problem, I feel, is that the interests of money, and the accumulation of it by banks and wealthy individuals, through the pursuit of financial growth by the wealthy, mandated via corporate law (companies are legally bound to maximise profits above all else), is directing the use of resources, both human and physical, to the benefit of a rich elite of society, rather than for the well-being of society as a whole.

Money as credit

If I do something for someone else, in hope of reward, I'd be a bit miffed if they didn't see it the same way, and that they weren't going to give me anything back. In this way, if they gave me their promise of value as reward, I would be happy that the agreement was in place that I could claim value back when I required it. At this point, it doesn't really matter whether that "promise of value" is in the form of pounds sterling or an IOU, as long as I have faith that the issuer will honour their promise.

In this way, money is merely credit, and nothing more.

Value as well-being

Value on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. Since value is the well-being that I obtain from a particular action, item or experience, I'd be very happy to be rich in value, especially (and this is where equating money and value really breaks down) when I can share that value with others, as that also gives me the addition value of feeling part of something bigger than myself.

So what is money really for?

In a previous blog post, I established that money may have three purposes: as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a measurement of value.

To me, it now seems obvious that using currency as a long-term store of value is bad, because it means that others are always endebted to you, enslaving them to your service, especially if you do not release that money without the condition of return to you with interest (a loan), and that stores of value for the long-term should be investments in things of real value - things which will not lose their value over time (and by value in this instance I mean their ability to provide well-being for people, not the amount of money that you could sell them for!).

Long-term value storage should therefore be in investments, such as property ownership (without mortgage) and in ownership of businesses that provide value to communities (see John's post).

But what about as a medium of exchange? It is the artificial scarcity of money (artificial because it is not aligned with a scarcity of value, as demonstrated by the fact that their are people out of work, who could be creating value if only there was money to employ them) that prevents it from being an effective lubrication for our economy, and thus we need to find alternatives that are more effective.

Previously this week, we have heard about gift economy, which is a great way of overcoming the difficulties of lubrication without having to actually exchange anything. A gift economy can be viewed as one where there is a free flow of value, and no debt. I.e. the creators or "owners" of value forego the debt of giving that value away on the basis that in future, others will do the same for them. It's a great idea, but it does rely on all those within the economy being fair, balanced people who won't take advantage of the system by claiming all the value for themselves and leaving others without, or worse, lending that "value" back to them at interest. It works well in families, but for communities where people don't know each other, we sometimes require something that is more robust - a currency.

Local currencies

From the word go, I think it must be recognised that money represents a promise to pay - a debt, and therefore an effective local currency should be safeguarded from two extremes of those promises:

1. No individual should be in so much debt that they are effectively enslaved to the community, working long hours simply to service debt rather than improve their own well-being.
2. No individual should have so much currency that they can manipulate, even control, the system for use to their will, rather than a collective will; their well-being, at the expense of others.

What kind of currency enhances our ability to create, share and exchange value, without individuals reaching these extremes?

This, I am still exploring, and I could write another whole post with my ideas of how this could be done (although it would be a bit rambly!), so I'll save that for another time!

Images: Oiling bike chain from this youTube video.

Mary Portas Review - High Street Collaboration

On Monday I blogged about how competition is bad for us. Today, I'd like to draw your attention to one report that promotes communication and collaboration as an antidote to such competition: The Portas Review: An independent review into the future of our high streets.

The review, written by retail expert Mary Portas, provides in-depth analysis of the current state-of-play in Britain's high streets, and concludes with 28 recommendations to progress regeneration.

Her first and quite possibly most critical recommendation, is to 'put in place a "Town Team": a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets'. I don't want to suggest by this that the other recommendations are irrelevant or unimportant, but it does seem to me that the biggest reason why small high street retailers fail to compete with large national chains is because of a lack of coordination in providing what customers want. Where a large corporation will coordinate between its various departments to ensure that the whole supply chain is efficient and effective in providing convenience for customers, a group of high street shops may actually hinder the effective provision of services to customers by having too many competitors in a small area, or having no "destination" services which will bring customers into the area.

Such coordination can only occur effectively when there is a team of collaborative stakeholders who are willing to invest in the future of their high street for the benefit of the community and for the profitability of local business.

In my survey of local economic concerns (which is still open for more input), there was considerable concern for the profitability of local business where they have to compete with large corporations (see figure above).  The idea of the Portas "Town Team" is that high streets could claim more power by collaborating with each other, challenging large corporations through innovation and better coordination between stakeholders, so that together, they can provide better services to customers, and ones which are more rooted within community than out-of-town superstores could ever be.

The local government minister, Grant Shapps, and Mary Portas have even launched an invitation to local communities to bid to become a "Portas Pilot", one of the first twelve "Town Teams", which attracts an £100,000 grant and the support of Mary Portas' retail consultancy team. Unfortunately the deadline is getting close (30th March), and it might be difficult to get a bid in on time if none has been started already, but if you know anyone with the resources to do so, it would be a ground-breaking boost to a local economy and a great project (which I would love to be involved in!).

It is clear that really successful local economies require collaboration, not competition, but also that the benefits aren't just economic, but also come in the form of social benefits in having a more cohesive community, and environmental benefits, because of reduced oil-hungry transportation.

Images: vision of a regenerated high street from the Portas review; responses to my Norwich local economics survey.

Risk, or Why competition is bad for us

On Wednesday of last week I had my good friend James over for the last time before he moves away from Norwich. Having noticed it in the loft a few days before, I proposed we played Risk, the classic "World Strategy" board game, where you have to conquer the world by battling and out-witting your opponent. It was a tense game... well, it was for the first two or three rounds, but after a few lucky dice rolls from James, it became quite obvious that I would never be able to claw back enough territories to get back into the game.

And this got me asking myself "is Risk unrealistic in giving such an unfair advantage to the person who is already winning?" and when I thought about it, the answer is no. It happens all around us. Wherever there is competition - that is to say, a truly competitive environment - anyone who is already ahead has advantage over people who are lagging behind. A trailing runner always has to run not just as fast as but faster than their competition even just to tie with them.

So it is with races, so it is with Risk, and so it is with business. The latter is the one that most concerns me, because favouring business that is already ahead favours the large, long-established businesses of yesterday, rather than new, socially and environmentally responsible businesses of today. To be financially viable and provide a competitive return to its investors, a new business would have to be a lot more economically efficient than its competitors.

Labour Efficiency

Since the existing company already (probably) has the advantage of the economy of scale and materials, the new company will probably need to make itself efficient through labour efficiency - i.e. fewer or lower-paid workers for the same economic output. If they're a social enterprise, perhaps they might even use volunteer labour where the large business has to pay its staff, in order to be able to compete. My point is that by being new, and being required to be that much more efficient than its competitors to be able to compete in the marketplace, jobs will be lost, margins will be squeezed and the company will have to choose between its ethics or its bottom-line. If it is successful, then its competitors will have to become more competitive too, and job losses will take place there instead (or as well!).

You may be asking "what's wrong with that? Efficiency is good, isn't it?". Well, material efficiency is good (although there is a problem associated with material efficiency which I'll get onto in a minute). However, labour efficiency is not good, because it is essentially what puts people out of work. OK, it's good for the particular company that is racing ahead and making profits, and that company's investors, but on average over society as a whole, labour efficiency means putting people out of work, paying them benefits out of taxes, which in turn puts more pressure on small businesses to maximise their labour efficiency because the small businesses are inevitably less able to avoid taxes through the use of tax havens and other tax-dodging schemes.

Material Efficiency

As I mentioned above, material efficiency is a good thing. Doing the same thing with fewer physical resources is always good news for the environment: less energy wasted in the extraction of materials, less energy wasted in processing and less energy wasted in transportation. However, going back to the competition model, if a socially responsible company uses less material to make a product, the competitive industrialist sees this as an opportunity to take up the resources saved and put them to another profit-making venture. Thus, material efficiency only serves to free up physical resources for those who are competitive, rather than serve any societal or environmental good.

This dynamic mechanism both relies on and feeds consumerism to take up the slack caused by more efficient production, and is the reason why competitive businesses feel such need to advertise to ensure we keep on spending and consuming, to make up for any decreases in economic throughput caused by material efficiency.

When does this all stop?

Imagine if, like in Risk, the entire point of the game of political life was to conquer the world. A scary thought, I know, but I think the result would turn out much like is does in Risk. There would be one nation, that by directing all its resources to the conquering of other nations would end up taking over the world. Thankfully, this hasn't happened, with the recognition at the end of the cold war that nations do much better for both themselves and others if they cooperate with other nations rather than consider them their enemies.

I'm not saying that there is no place for competitive systems in society - there are times when a free market is the only way of reaching an equilibrium of resource distribution within a particular closed system, but at the same time, shouldn't society recognise the flaw in competitive systems as a means of distributing resources fairly, and instead look at ways in which benefit is felt by all, whether or not they have a competitive advantage?

Image: Risk, the boardgame, photo by the author

Bees and Trees

From the many, many conversations I have with people, I have come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to get people to stop doing something. Not impossible, by any means, but difficult. We have become socialised over the last twenty or so years into an individual mindset that tells us we can do whatever we like; I want it all, so I will have it all. That's one tanker that will take some time to turn, to use a particularly apt metaphor in this instance.

So, my experience tells me that, rather than just trying to get people to stop something, could we get people to start, or do more of, something else? Can we incentivise people to do the things that are less harmful, to the environment, for example, or more beneficial, to our communities, say, on the other? What enterprises are there out there that make it easy for people to choose a different lifestyle?

Earlier in the year, at the Spring Scheming, we sat around tables and discussed things we could do in Norwich, that would really make a difference. We talked about going into schools, into workplaces, communicating with people. We also talked about creating schools, creating workplaces, creating the kinds of communities we wanted to be part of. Can we challenge the current paradigm - the consumer-led, in-it-for-myself world-view - by creating a new way of living? What structures would work? What businesses would we need?

Out of that session was born Norwich Community Bees - a community-led, not-for-profit cooperative beekeeping venture. It's taken a lot of hard work and time from many people, but we're up and running, with one hive of bees established, and ready for an exciting 2012. It might not change the world overnight, but then again, it just might - that's the beauty of possibility.

Another idea out of that Spring Scheming that really caught my imagination was that of a community-managed woodland. It came around the time when the government was thinking of selling our public forests to private companies. I was all fired up. Then I discovered just how much even a modest piece of woodland would cost... That idea went on the backburner, if you'll excuse the pun.

But recently I had a conversation with someone about how much more UK-grown building timber costs compared to imported tropical hardwoods. And I mean, significantly more! I was shocked, but it made me think - maybe there's an opportunity there. Yes, it would be a business, yes, it would need to make money to be viable, yes, it was about chopping trees down. But could it be done locally, in a truly sustainable manner, in a way that provides employment, protects and promotes habitats, and provides pleasure and opportunities for our community? Some parts of the country are already exploring ways to make this happen. Maybe it's an idea whose time has come again.

So there are just two of my hopes for 2012 - that Norwich Community Bees will grow from its small start into something really great, and that we can explore the possibilities for setting up a community woodland somewhere near Norwich. If you'd like to be part of either of these visions, do get in touch - or if you've got anothere great idea, suggest it on the comments page!

Look forward to hearing from you!

Pic: from www.climateark.org

Building Resilient Trading - Economics & Livelihoods Group

Colman Opticians, which has been trading on St. Augustines Street for many years, and Junk & Gems, a new retro/antiques shop

Ever since I first proposed a visioning session on behalf of the economics and livelihoods group, I have been asked the same questions multiple times - why should Transition Norwich be interested in local economic development, and what do I hope to achieve by a "visioning" session in St. Augustines Street?

The first has a simple, but long-winded answer, which I won't be able to cover fully here, but I'll include links to relevant websites and videos. Essentially, a vibrant and cohesive local economy means that more products and services are accessible on foot or cycle, reducing transport carbon emissions and oil use; money is kept in the local economy, and its power to serve local people multiplies as a result; and the community is more able to face challenges together and respond to global shocks quickly.

Numbers 74 and 75 are both being redecorated and fitted out for commercial use, the latter as a hairdresser, the former unknown.

So what do we hope to achieve by "visioning"? Afterall, none of us are capable of noting a community's wants and desires one day and plonking it on the street the next. And to do so, even if we could, would, I feel, be denying the community the right to evolve its own nature and personality in accordance with all those who reside and work there (the reason why many New Towns and blanket developments have spectacularly failed to achieve strong communities).

What we hope to achieve is an ongoing conversation between those who live and work in the area, so that cooperation is at the core of what the community does and there is a common sense of what the area means to people, and what it should become. It is, I feel, the second question on the visioning questionnaire (see below) that is most important - What personality would you like the area to have?

Numbers 31 and 33 are both undergoing extensive work but will be open as commercial properties at a later date

With this information in place, we can start bringing together the people who might make it happen. If traders are concerned that a particular empty shop is having an effect on their business, then we can try to identify the owner, find an entrepreneur who is looking for a place to trade from, help identify grants which may apply to bring the property into good repair and then setup a traders' association so that new and old businesses support each other.

Now, this is just an example, and in truth, something which appeared viable may be found not to be, and alternative paths must be explored... but this is the entire point of the exercise - to explore what paths are there, rather than making the assumption that there are none and that empty properties will remain so forever.

Numbers 5 and 59 are both boarded up and in need of some love and care, but number 5, with its prominent position with plenty of pavement space at the bottom of the street gives it loads of potential! The owners are not known.

I thank those who have sent back their questionnaires with their answers and will be getting in touch soon to share any analysis, but if you're interested in the future of St Augustines Street, it's not too late to get involved! Just answer these questions (with particular focus on b!):

a) What shops/services/facilities would you like to use/see locally?

b) What personality would you like the area to have?

c) What particular changes would have a positive effect on your life/business?

d) What would save you money, resources or wasted time?

e) What do you or your business have to offer to the development of the local economy in terms of premises, time and/or expertise?

You can email your answers to me at simeon@simeonjackson.co.uk

All photos taken by me.

Sustainable Livelihoods

This week is Sustainable Livelihoods week on This Low Carbon Life.

I proposed this theme on the blog because of observations I have made whilst I have been looking for jobs over the past few months. Firstly, that there is a huge problem with unemployment at the moment. The "jobless" rate is over 8% of UK population, and is far higher amongst young people at over 20%! Secondly, that many who are working are over-stretched, stressed, underpaid, working long hours and complain about not having the time to spend with family and friends. Thirdly, that the economic structure of our society exacerbates this trend, with corporate greed driving wages down and down and hours up and up to satisfy their own need for profit, whilst personal credit is available to "top up" earnings, or, more realistically, to ensure that the public are trapped in spiralling debt so that they will continue to work long, stressful hours to pay the interest on last year's Christmas presents.

It's essentially slavery. What makes it worse, it's voluntary slavery, entirely legal, and under no circumstances will you find a benevolent master willing, or even able, to free you.

So what options does that leave?

Well, there are some alternatives. Increasingly, there are books, magazines and movements in support of a changed attitude to work. Social Enterprises (where the social benefit of a company is essentially written into its constitution) are on the up. Starting a cottage industry, being self-employed or partially self-sufficient are all respectable career choices these days, and rightly so. "Consumers" are more aware of how their purchasing choices affect those involved, and the environment.

But this still doesn't answer the question - What makes a livelihood sustainable? What conditions must be met?

Firstly, there must be a continuing market. Farming, for example, will always be a sustainable livelihood, because there is always a market for food. Gadgetry, on the other hand, is only a market so long as the fashion calls for it, the advertisers make it desirable, and the "consumers" are in a position to be able to purchase it. Although highly profitable while those conditions persist, the industry must constantly service its own market and will die when fashions change.

Secondly, there must be a sustainable supply. One word - oil. I don't think we could possibly argue that there will ever cease to be a market for oil so long as it is pumped out of the ground, but such a supply of oil is limited and, on this basis, any industry which relies on the continued supply of oil cannot be sustained.

Thirdly, we must be in a position to connect the two without relying on unsustainable resources. This, in many ways, is the most important one. This covers all the skills, equipment, logistics and everything required to provide a product or service to a market. This is what takes time, thought and design.

At this point, I was going to give some examples of some jobs that I considered to be sustainable, but now that I think about it, there are too many different types of livelihood and structure that by picking one out, I wouldn't be doing justice to many others.

So instead, I'd like you to think about what you do, what you want to do, or what a close friend does. Consider each of the preceding conditions and see how they apply to that situation.

For many livelihoods, the supply and demand structure will be highly complex, but try to identify what human need they are ultimately satisfying. How much does the demand rely on marketing? Does the method of providing for that need use up unsustainable resources, like extensive travel? Is the method so complex that the failure of one part of it would negate the benefits that are being provided? Has the method been designed to meet the needs of humans, for their prosperity, or corporations, for profit?

Now, for the particular example you chose, where could improvements be made? How could reductions on the demand of unsustainable resources be made? How could you redesign the method of providing for the human need in a way that is not damaging, is resilient to shocks and benefits all those involved? Where unsustainable resources are being used, what alternatives are there?

Over the past few months, I have read many inspiring stories of people who have used their ingenuity to meet human needs in sustainable ways and started successful companies in the process. In the American magazine Yes!'s New Livelihoods issue, there's an article about SoupCycle, a company that delivers fresh soup made using local ingredients to nearby workplaces by bicycle. I've heard the story of a journalist who, rather than starting by pandering to the wants of the press and working their way up, has spent years on a shoestring, reporting about what they want until they earn the respect of major newspapers. I have heard the stories of community-owned energy companies, community-owned shops, transport, housing.

In Norwich, we have some way to go, but this certainly isn't an unrealistic fantasy - sustainable livelihoods are tried and tested all over the world!

Images: "Occupy Norwich" protest at the Haymarket on Saturday 15th October credit: Brian McHammer; quote by American founding father, Thomas Jefferson; Norwich Market; SoupCycler.

The year in blogs

Scanning through the blogs over the last year was like fast forwarding through the seasons. As I write this we are enjoying an Indian Summer but reading through the blog reminded me that in just 11 weeks we will be stumbling around in the dark of the solstice. So my first pick is Charlotte's heartfelt Spring Ahoy where she celebrates the end of winter with some great photos - though I don't see what she has against parsnips!

Jon gets to heart of the craziness of global economics in Woolly Thinking when he finds that the 'wool' that he has just bought is in fact an oil derivative and manufactured in China - whilst farmers in Norfolk can't give the real stuff away.

One of the photos that has stuck in my mind is the completely whacky picture of Mark wielding an axe in I'll Give You Cuts, George Osborne. The post is both a reminder to get our heating sorted out for the coming winter and a flash back to the cuts that were so much in the news a year ago and which have now been overshadowed by the Eurozone crisis.

Pic: Sun through goat willow (MW)

Spring Ahoy!

Charlotte Du Cann

21 March 2011

Happy Spring equinox everyone and welcome to our spring week on the blog! We’ll be taking a look outside, exploring what’s coming up and celebrating the end of winter. Low Carbon cooks and growers will be checking out new green shoots and leaves, our wild earth reporters, toads and bees and the medicine of trees.

I’m really celebrating the end of winter, throwing out that hot water bottle and thermal gear and throwing open the windows. No more shivering! No more parsnips! There’s a fresh breeze out there this morning, primrose on the banks, blackbirds practising their arias, woodpeckers drumming the oak trees. Time to wake up early, stretch the body and walk out. In the Chinese five element system this is the season of wood and the warrior when the deep energies of winter start uncoiling and branching out. Its organ is the liver and its sense, the eyes.

So I’m sensing out the world beyond all those rigid squares and pixels on my computer screen, looking at the undulating earth shapes of trees, the way life is bursting out of wood everywhere and colours and scents flashing past: tortoiseshell butterfly wing, crimson bird feather, musty and sweet fragrance of gorse and box. The equinox is when the sun is straight ahead, day and night are balanced equally and the new astrological year begins with Aries the Ram. It’s a big planetary time (Did you see that gorgeous moon?)

Like most people my attention has been caught up in the cataclysmic events in Japan and it seems almost incorrect to be considering these small events in our own secure neighbourhoods. And yet the Japanese famously gather under cherry trees to welcome the Spring. And perhaps we could do no better than sit beneath the oriental blossom that graces our city streets and connect with them – the people of a fellow island nation. You can never underestimate the power of the heart.

My chief Spring medicine tree though would be the willow, specifically the goat willow, that old craggy fellow now bursting into gold along riverbanks and canals.

Willow is a big water tree and well-known for its properties to relax and make fluid everything that is crystallised and cramped within (the bark of white willow being the natural precursor to aspirin). It's hard to feel joyous and alive with a stiff and tense body. Hard to sit under this tree and not look up! and see the sunlight in its branches. When you do, listen and feel the thunderous buzz of bees, now coming out of hibernation and gathering pollen from trees everywhere.

Here are my fellow Transitioners, Mark, Nick and Eloise spring cleaning at our Sustainable Bungay Give and Take Day on Saturday. It’s time to shift and move and recycle old things on all levels! I’m not in the picture because I played truant and went to the woods for the first time in a long time, lay underneath hazel trees and checked out early violets and upcoming bluebells and watched a flock of goldfinches feeding on knapweed seeds that had been left uncut in a meadow. Afterwards I dug the garden and made myself an inner spring clean tea of cleavers, plantain, dandelion and angelica (all great for moving sluggish systems, especially the lymph).

On my way home I gathered a few wild leaves to toss into one of those robust and tangy salads Elena’s been talking about: bittercress and tansy, hawthorn and chickweed. Here are some green and growing tips from my garden. I’ll be taking some feisty alexander buds along to try out with my fellow Low Carbon Cooks too tomorrow. It’s a full-on week ahead, including Nicole Foss on Friday and the big TUC march on Saturday. I’ll be needing those greens!

Under the neighbourhood cherry plum; coastal gorse; Sustainable Bungay Give and Take crew and van; Japanese cherry at Castle Meadow, Norwich; garden tips of bronze fennel, salad burnet, lovage, hawthorn, dill, chickweed, tansy and cleavers

How does Norwich face "the economic equivalent of war"?

Business Secretary Vince Cable said yesterday in a speech at the Liberal Democrat Conference that "we now face a crisis that is the economic equivalent of war". This kind of harsh analogy does not come as a surprise to me or, I would bet, to many of you. We have known for years that we cannot go back to "business as usual" and are aware that the financial crisis "never went away", but has only been hidden by bureaucrats and statisticians.

But in Norwich, business has gone on as usual over the past few months and years. The problem, as those who met at the last Economics and Livelihoods meeting established, is that business as usual for Norwich includes higher than average unemployment, underdeveloped regions of the city, and loss of many of our industries to faraway countries, or, at best, other UK cities, as well as fragmented communities. Such a business as usual cannot continue. It is not sustainable!

Over the past few months, I have been doing some research into what sorts of action might be possible in Norwich to change this trend - how we can simultaneously stimulate the local economy, create jobs, and develop Norwich's built environment in a sustainable way. With inspiration from the Transition Network Conference and the success of projects in other parts of the country, an idea for the development of this programme is beginning to form in my mind.

In the spirit of collaborative community, we, as responsible citizens, must step in and drive forward our interests, rather than rely on the initiative of others to act on our behalf. In the current spirit of government cuts, such initiative will not be taken. The inspiration for this project instead comes from Eldonian Group, of Liverpool and Sustaining Dunbar, both of which I heard about at the Transition Conference. Both are social enterprises which strive to develop towards a more sustainable future and this includes ensuring that any projects that come out of it are financially sustainable too, bringing in a return for their local community.

It is essential, in my view, that any development, as well as being economically sustainable in itself, should raise the value of the community in general (in terms of well-being, as well as economically), and should pay its contributors fairly for any work done to achieve this.

Step one of this development process to improve our city is visioning. We need to construct a shared vision of what personality and feel we want an area to have, and then can start looking at the specific actions that might bring this vision about.

Although several areas of the city have been identified as in need of development, the first that I intend to target with this project is the region of St Augustines Street, just North of the centre, where the new "gyratory" (one-way system) has paved the way (quite literally in this case!) for further development.

8/10/11: Details of a visioning session are here on the Transition Norwich news website.

Images: Vince Cable speaking at the Liberal Democrat Conference 2011 by Liberal Democrats; St Augustines Street during construction of the gyratory, by Evelyn Simak.

Social Enterprise is the way forward

Before attending this conference, I have been struggling to bring together the current need I have for a job with my passion for a resilient oil-independent future. I felt that transition could be seen as using up valuable job-hunting time but then get depressed when the only positions available are in unsustainable industries that are trashing the planet!

After the conference, I feel a lot different. I see now that there is another option, and look forward to pursuing it.

At the conference, it seemed there was a general consensus that social enterprise is the way forward for transition, and for healthy sustainable communities in general. At the first session I went to, I heard about successful projects in Dunbar, Scotland and 9 Carrots in Birmingham. It was clear that some groups had developed their small projects, which relied heavily on volunteer labour, into fully-fledged business which not only earn enough to pay their staff, but can feed some profits back into a local investment fund.

Then the Scaling Up fishbowl session became a continuation of this conversation for me, and highlighted the importance of creating business models that regenerate their local communities rather than just draw from them (either in time or money). There was a lot of talk about creating livelihoods, rather than "jobs", and making transition a collaborative effort by partnering with the council, schools, established community groups and local businesses.

On Sunday afternoon there was a long workshop which gave me more insight into how this can be done, and came back to some of the great projects which have already happened. One great example was Eldonian Group Ltd from Liverpool, a community owned company whose subsidiaries have become immensely successful businesses, whilst regenerating the local area and providing clean local energy. They reinvest all of their profits in new regeneration projects, not being afraid to try something new, but making sure they are economically sustainable too.

If you want to become part of this conversation in Norwich, join our Economics and Livelihoods googlegroup. It's a discussion group, so we'd all love to hear your take on the role of Social Enterprise in local communities. You'll also get the latest updates on Economics and Livelihoods Theme meetings in Norwich.



Images and videos: The Economics, Business and Social Enterprise session at Transition Network Conference 2011; An emerging social enterprise in Finsbury Park, London put up their sign; Jonathan Melhuish speaks about 9carrots.org.