Your Caring, Sharing Co-op

Revitalising our Economy; Rebuilding our Community? Molly Scott CatoProfessor of Strategy and SustainabilityRoehampton Business School

Only a crisisactual or perceivedproduces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.Milton Friedman

The Last Great DepressionFailure of aggregate demandRepayment of debtsFailure of lending and borrowingRecessionary spiral: the death spiral

The view from No. 10

The full picture

CO2 emissions associated with UK consumption 1990 to 2009 (Defra)

The Myth of Decoupling:CO2 intensity of GDP across nations

Source data for individual nations taken from EIA 2008, Table H1GCO2, World Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Combustion and Flaring of Fossil Fuels per Thousand Dollars of Gross Domestic Product Using Market Exchange Rates. World carbon intensity is calculated using total emissions data in Table H1CO2 in the EIA database and worldGDP data (at constant 2000 prices, market exchange rates) taken from IMF (2008) data available online at: www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/02/weodata/index.aspx9Carbon Intensities Now and Required to Meet 450 ppm Target

1099% of UK food imports depend: unsurprisingly they are at sea-level. In 2007 the IPCC predicted a 0.35m rise in sea levels by the end of the 21st century. In 2009 scientists declared that sea-level rise was occurring at twice the rate they had estimated just two years earlier

Why the globalised economy is insecureDefra (Food Chain Analysis Group) (2006), Food Security and the UK: An Evidence and Analysis Paper (London: TSO).11Where are the worlds ports?

Farewell to Thriftthe whole system of an increasing productivity, plus inflation, plus a rising standard of material living, plus high-pressure advertising and salesmanship, plus mass communications, plus cultural democracy and the creation of the mass mind, the mass manJ. B. Priestley, 1955Growing Inequality

Climate change is a class issue

'Mean average CO2 emissions are strongly correlated with income: households within the highest equivalised income decile have mean total CO2 emissions more than twice that of households within the lowest equivalised income decile. Emissions from private road travel and aviation account for a high proportion of this differential: aviation emissions of the highest income decile are more than six times that of the lowest income decile.'16The Bioregional Economy

Localisation plus

Where are we going?What is a bioregion?a unique region definable by natural (rather than political) boundariesA bioregion is literally and etymologically a life-placewith a geographic, climatic, hydrological and ecological character capable of supporting unique human and non-human living communities. Bioregions can be variously defined by the geography of watersheds, similar plant and animal ecosystems, and related identifiable landforms and by the unique human cultures that grow from natural limits and potentials of the regionAn economic bioregionA bioregional economy would be embedded within its bioregion and would acknowledge ecological limits. Bioregions as natural social units determined by ecology rather than economicsCan be largely self-sufficient in terms of basic resources such as water, food, products and services.Enshrine the principle of trade subsidiarityAccountability as reconnectionYour bioregion is your backyardEach bioregion would be the area of the global economy for which its inhabitants were responsible

20Community not marketsReclaiming of public space for citizenship and relationship. putting the economy in its place Market as agorapublic space for debate and sharing of ideas, not just commerce

Resilience: the property of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically and then, upon unloading to have this energy recovered.Ecological citizenship: intrinsic and ethical motivations towards protecting the environmentCritique: the importance of political economyThree key conceptsLocality: Walking the Land

Walking the LandLandscape and walking provide the catalyst for Walking the Lands creative activities. Based in the Gloucestershire countryside, Walking the Land comprises three lead artists, Richard and Tom Keating and Kel Portman. Each share a passion for the landscape, using artworks to bring landscape and environmental issues to a wider public audience. As painters, sculptors, photographers, videographers, curators and educators we produce work which refers to specific places, localities and environments.23

Stroud Community AgricultureBuilt on cooperation and mutual support the risks and rewards of farming are shared between the farmers and consumers. The consumers commit themselves to supporting the farm and providing a fair income for the farmers. The farmers can then develop the health and fertility of the farm, its wildlife and environment. All the produce from the farm is shared between the supporting consumers or sold locally if there is a surplus. Rent 46 acres of land on two sites near Stroud. Feed 185 families throughout the year with seasonal organic vegetables.24

Local CurrenciesThe Stroud Pound was launched in September 2009. In the first year a total of 10,066 were exchanged for Stroud Pounds. By the end of the year slightly over half of those (5940) had been redeemed, which meant that 290 had been allocated to the ten local good causes which people had chosen. A year after the launch of the scheme SP4,126 were in circulation. The scheme had around 180 consumer members and 44 outlets or service providers where the local currency could be spent.25

Seeds of a greener future?Flourishing within limitsA new consumption ethicRe-embedding26Find out morewww.greeneconomist.org

gaianeconomics.blogspot.com

Green Economics: AnIntroduction to Theory, Policy and Practice (Earthscan, 2009)

The Bioregional Economy: Land, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness(Earthcan, 2012)

= wealth creation

= taxation

= private sector= public sector= consumptionThe Linear View

= wealth circulationThis graphic represents the Osborne view of economics, that now appears to have been almost universally accepted. The first assumption is that wealth is only created in the private sector. Tax then removes this wealth and feeds it to the greedy public sector, which destroys it. What remains stimulates consumption-based economic activity. If the money paid via tax to the public sector could be shrunk, as in the right-hand panel, then the private sector would expand and the economy would be more successful.2

= wealth creation= taxation= private sector= public sectorThe Systems View

= third sector

= wealth circulation= recirculation of taxed wealthThis graphic represents the economy as a dynamic system, with public, private and third sectors all interacting. Wealth is generated in private, public and third sectors. Taxation is paid on all economic interactions, and that taxation becomes investment in further activity in all three of the sectors. The way to revive the economy is to increase the circulation of wealth and stimulate greater activity.3