The story of the new economy told through 50 enterprisesOctober 3rd, 2012 15 comments
Your new economy needs you!!! Please tell us which enterprises are inspiring you to believe that a new economy is starting to emerge. Over the next 12 weeks we will be telling true stories of amazing enterprises, initiatives and entities, of all shapes an sizes. Individually these stories will likely inspire but collectively they start to do something far greater. They start to trace out a vision of the emergent new economy in all it’s stunning diversity.
Contact us either via email or via the comments section below and let us know about some real life initiatives or enterprises that have inspired you. What projects should be replicated or are particularly disruptive? Which initiatives are a living examples of a feature of the new economy? Let us know! Let the world know!!
Why do we want to identify these enterprises?
Each enterprise holds a piece of the new socio-economic puzzle. It’s only when we lay out all the pieces, that we start to visualise and articulate what that new economy looks like. It’s at that point that we can get really excited about it and start to believe in it. Below we’ve started to put that puzzle together in words. This is clearly only the beginning.
Words are cheap, as they say. We want to be able to tell this story through actions and we need your help to do so.
The are some new economic tendencies that are already significant in size. We really want to get some great case studies of enterprises that exemplify these tendencies. Such as collaborative consumption, open source, permaculture, peer to peer… and then there are other trends that are currently smaller in size but also have a significant potential impact on the shape and diversity of our new economy. Such as new currencies and exchange systems, urban agriculture and energy, the gift economy etc. Again, let us know which projects or enterprises that you think bring these features of the new economy to life.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that we’re looking for glamorous initiatives. In isolation each individual enterprise or initiative may not feel, to those involved, like they’re trailblazing or pioneering. They may be doing seemingly normal things like running a bakery or cafe or producing a product but doing it in a way that offers a glimpse into a different way of doing ‘business’ and relating to each other.
Initially, for the next 12 weeks we’ll put out regular blog posts highlighting some of the key individual stories as you send them in. We’ll then start a competition to try to find the best way to bring the collective vision to life. It could be through a visual collage, an interactive high street or a series of great posters, it could even be a video montage, a phone app or a million things that we haven’t considered.
The vision itself is important but so is the medium in which we promote that vision. People access information in different ways and we need to find the way that maximises access and engagement.
Bringing to life a positive vision of the future, and one that is grounded in reality, is perhaps, the single most important thing that we could be doing right now. Our current economic system has brought some levels of progress, but like a juggernaut racing towards a cliff, it has also brought us perilously close to disaster. Creating a clear and credible alternative vision for our future is an imperative if we are to avert collapse and catastrophe. It’s also an essential part of creating the better world that we know in our hearts is possible.
A friend of mine is a racing car driver. He once told me what he’s trained to do if he is facing an immanent crash. Imagine, that his car is in a high speed spin or out of control and, for example, on one side of the road there is a brick wall and on the other is a nice big open field full of flowers. He is trained to focus on the safe zone in the field. This increases his chances of landing there. We know from many examples in life that when you start to focus your vision and mind on something you start to drag your reality in that direction. We now need, more than ever, a positive collective vision that can entice our reality down a positive path. The great thing is that we don’t need to invent this vision or dream it up out of nothing. There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of millions, of people out there already building it from the ground up. We need your help to find out about some of the most amazing examples and to ignite that vision in our hearts and minds.
Here’s some enterprises and projects that inspired us at the recent REconomy Project Day. The event was a UK event so these examples are very UK and London focused. Let us know of any new ones that inspire you from all around the world.
Here's some posts you might like:
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well spotted. i'm not very good at spelling and gr ...
"We pay the rent for the building through a 'Bizar ...
I attended Nick Sherwood and Fiona Ward's presenta ...
Beautifully done Shane. ...
I’m especially interested in new financial services using credit issued by productive enterprises (i.e. not banks).
Insofar as a community can produce to meet its own needs, it can allocate credit to support endeavours it values. This activity is as old as money itself, but we need to work out new ways of doing in our present circumstances. So I would like to point to the following institutions which do essential work in this field.
- There are various private B2B barter systems around, including bartercard which works at the national level.
- Also Bank on Dave exemplifies the an fashioned relationship between community finance and entrepreneurs.
- Similarly, building societies show us how to manage money without leveraging it up into the ether.
- There are all kinds of ‘indiginous’ community finance/accounting methods in forgotten countries where banks daren’t tread, like the Chamas womens’ credit circles in Kenya.
- Collaboractions is a UK business network with a focus on women, and is venturing into brokered credit clearing.
- I value the Bristol pound not so much for the monetary innovation but for their focus on the supply chain issue.
Two very different enterprises that come to mind as doing vital pioneering work for a low carbon, resource constrained economy are http://www.vocaleyes.org and http://www.airfuelsynthesis.com.
While the former is relatively “easy” to develop, it is very difficult to see how capital intensive high-tech businesses such as those essential to develop new renewable energy systems can develop in today’s economic and financial climate and norms. The classic angel investor, venture/business capital raising models and business structures appear to be the most viable route – albeit with strong ethical principles underlying the business. I’ll be interested to hear views and ideas…
Transition Town Kingston’s own ‘From the Ground Up’ (http://www.ttkingston.org/groups-and-projects/ground-up/index.php) food box scheme inspires me – a blend of gift economy and money that is doing well, so far, thanks to the energy of dedicated volunteers.
It’s London again, but it’s a big place…
London is great!
John i’d be interested to understand how the gift economy element is woven in?
What I mean is that people share their time to run the scheme – it’s not (so far) about creating local livelihoods. This can be seen as a weakness – the affordability/accessibility of this good, relatively sustainable food has been seen by some as illusory, since the volunteer time isn’t factored in. But if we adopt a ‘gift economy’ vision it can equally be viewed as a strength (and none of us are currently looking to ‘employ’ people, with all the responsibilities that implies). I guess each community/enterprise will need to find its appropriate balance, so I see it as a good thing that different models are being explored.
A couple of good comments that both point to the richness in this line of enquiry;
Matthew, thanks for you ideas. What’s key here for me, when reading your comment, is that some sectors, like the financial sector, may not have a perfect exemplar with the full package, in fact no enterprise will be perfect no matter which sector but some sectors will be further off than others.
Graham, another rich area of enquiry around Air Fuel Synthesis which is, as i understand it, an enterprise of large / industrial scale. It’s very easy for us to get this twee and quaint idea of the future localised economy but for a credible vision we have to figure out how all scales fit and work together.
May I suggest Forager Wild Foods? Pioneering a return to larger scale harvest and use of wild foods in the uk. Using sustainable methods and stimulating the use of forgotten foods Forager aims to demonstrate how a renewed involvement in our natural environment through food can change our relationship with – and commitment to – nature. http://www.forager.org.uk
Beyond Zero Emissions is doing great work in Australia. It is a volunteer organisation which is mapping out a comprehensive plan to make Australia a zero carbon emission country in ten years. BZE is very actively promoting the plans via training volunteer presenters.
I know about the case of a farmer in Ontario who went to court because he was selling raw milk… and it is prohibited by law to sell raw milk in Canada…so… the “people he was selling the raw milk to”…. his clients, who wanted the raw milk…. well at the end the case was that…. at the end they found a cooperative, where the people were the owners of the cows… in that way… they were not buying milk, but making use of their milk… which is allow… I have to find more about this issue…but I think it is a good and innovative example….
There’s something wonderful about the resourcefulness shown in this example of the raw milk from cows in Canada.
What it says to me is that when “the current econo-political system won’t let us do what we want to do, we can find ways around the problems and yet within the law, so that we can do what we believe is right and necessary.”
The petty bureaucratic constraints on what we want to do can actually lead us to practical sensible good sustainable, community cooperation solutions ! Wonderfully counterintuitive !
Positive deviants in generating community power in a hyper-local situation is what we are aiming to achieve.
If you live in the Falmouth and Penryn Community Network Area, then do get in-touch as we always have projects on the go:
http://www.falenergy.co.uk/events/2012-10-12/
Hi Shane;
Great post. It’s so inspiring to see the range and possibility presented in these few enterprises featured. And nothing from Totnes, surprising!
Our co-operative http://www.de4food.org.uk/ starts trading at end of this month.
That’s a great opener for this series of articles – an impressive bunch.
My suggestions are: start the article with something that says “this is 1-19 of the 50″ so that you’re signposting the next one in the series.
Am looking forward to reading the next one.