REconomy Project update, February 2013

We’re going to do a monthly or bi-monthly update with important project news. This might at some stage morph into a newsletter, but for now this is also featured in the monthly round-up over on Transition Culture, and also in the Transition Newsletter.

This month saw the public release of Shane’s TEDx talk in Switzerland. In the 12 minute talk titled “the unstoppable rise of the collaborative economy”, Shane talks about some of the features of the new economy.

One of aims for this year is to feature more stories and more voices from around the globe. We started this month with a blog post from Alejo Etchart.

A long time worker at the Mondragon Cooperative, he is also a dedicated Transitioner and an academically trained environmentalist and economist. He shared with us his views on communities, cooperatives and social businesses, and the need for economic viability if these are to fulfill their potential.

We also featured a great post from Barcelona that capture a sense of what’s happening there, and offers some intriguing insights into money, our precariousness and the way we live our lives. There’s also now a case study of a French business that’s taking a leading role in sustainability within its sector.

Finally there’s a guest post from Steve Hinton (right) of Transition Sweden, in which he shares a process for mapping community assets, services, investors etc., which can be used to develop a plan for financing some of the transformations that our communities need – called the Community Finance Canvas.

If you are from a country other than the UK and would like to do a blog post on a topic that you feel is relevant more widely, please get in touch.

Meanwhile we have been hard at work on the Economic Evaluation projects: I’m just doing the very final edits on the Totnes & District Local Economic Blueprint, Nick in Hereford is finalising his reports there and Duncan in Brixton is organising his first stakeholder meetings, while also gathering local data for the analysis.

If you think  you might be interested in doing a similar project where you live, please let me know as we are looking for participants for a pilot online course that will help you to carry out this process. We’ll be hearing more from these projects in the next update.

If transforming your local economy excites you, then explore the REconomy Project for advice and resources. There are also useful articles, funding announcements and discussions on our Facebook page (like us to get these) or via Twitter.

If you have any suggestions or ideas about how the project could best help you, please let us know via fb or our contact page.

By Fiona Ward.