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Posted on 30 Aug 2020 Categories: Related Tags:

Banks vs the climate: ‘Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?’

Stuart Kirk, Global Head of Responsible Investment at HSBC Asset Management, last month asked investors: “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?” His widely-reported comments demonstrate the... Read More

Employee ownership: Owning the workplace, securing the future

At the heart of the debate on community wealth building is a fundamental question about employee ownership and who or what holds the keys to wealth in our society.... Read More

Responses to the cost of living crisis? Community energy groups and cooperative farms offer help

The cost-of-living crisis is descending on all of us, and while the solutions obviously have to be, to some degree, macro-oriented and defensive (see this great blog from James... Read More

Housing co-ops could solve housing crisis in Canada

The housing affordability crisis seems impossible to solve. Policies intended to help people priced out of the market often serve to fan the flames and increase costs. An example... Read More

Green space access is not equal in the UK

A growing gap in green space provision divides the UK according to recent research, with people in northern cities having access to fewer parks than their southern counterparts. Nationwide,... Read More

The Democracy of Consumers is dying. Now we must build a Democracy of Citizens

This piece on a ‘Democracy of Citizens’ is #8 in the ‘Visions for the Future of Democracy’ series curated by Involve for its 15th anniversary. We have asked authors to... Read More

The 51%: Gender equality at the heart of a more inclusive economy

What if gender equality was at the heart of local plans for a more inclusive economy? Efforts to rebuild and recover economic prosperity in a time of crisis often... Read More

Beyond the framework: the co-benefits of deliberation

A new paper examining Shared Future’s Leeds Climate Change Citizens Jury highlights the co-benefits of deliberation, writes SF Director Jez Hall. Local authorities wanting to achieve meaningful carbon reduction, are increasingly turning... Read More

Levelling up: policy frameworks for collective wellbeing

Levelling up is never going to be one size fits all. To support the development of areas that currently have poorer economic and social outcomes, we need to recognise... Read More

How can local people take action on things that matter to them?

How can local people build control and take action on things that matter to them? Our research shows that there are five main components of collective control: social connectedness;... Read More

IPCC report reveals how inequality makes climate change impacts worse

Nearly half of the global population – between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people – lives in areas highly vulnerable to climate change. The brief window in which to limit... Read More

Community wealth building: making financial power work for local places

Recent years have seen a growing number of local councils across the UK, including Birmingham, Sandwell and Wigan, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales adopting... Read More

‘Levelling up’ the UK is a golden opportunity for climate action – but the government is failing

Economists no longer talk of decarbonisation as a cost; climate action is now widely seen as an investment. Like any investment in new economic sectors, money spent is expected... Read More

Shaping Our Future: a Wellbeing Framework for the North of Tyne

Earlier this week (Tuesday 25th January), the North of Tyne Cabinet endorsed the recommendations of a report by the Roundtable on Wellbeing in the North of Tyne and, in doing so, committed... Read More

Levelling up White Paper: you can’t level up from Whitehall

The Levelling up White Paper was finally published last week. But despite 332 pages of what was a rather chaotic document (part text book, part policy, part analysis), when... Read More

Wellbeing: how living well together works for the common good

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes mental health as “a state of wellbeing in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life,... Read More

Plymouth Octopus is a cosmolocal CAN in action

As we know from long experience, Plymouth is a world-class powerhouse of social and civic enterprise – and it’s richly demonstrated in the Plymouth Octopus latest newsletter. POP (as... Read More

We can’t level up without restoring nature

The government’s favourite term, ‘levelling up’, contains little meaning – just enough to be politically useful, but not enough to support any real plan. At NEF, we investigated the role of... Read More

The brave: delivering community wealth in Scotland

At the close of the 2021 Community Wealth Building Summit, we reflect on remarks by our opening keynote speaker Tom Arthur MSP and the work that CLES has undertaken... Read More

Lessons from a citizens’ jury on climate change

With COP 26 starting in Glasgow on 31st October 2021, we have brought together the recommendations from six citizens’ juries and assemblies run by Shared Future over the last... Read More

Earth, wind and fire – the just transition

This is an article from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. Last month, over 500 workers at the GKN car factory... Read More

Community power campaign says We’re Right Here

The politics of localism is shifting and developing, at all levels. We hear about a new national campaign being launched in the last few days. The We’re Right Here campaign is... Read More

Land justice: this land is our land

This is an article from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. Land is ultimately about power. Those who own the land... Read More

A community wealth building energy transition

On the eve of COP26, and with the challenges we face in tackling the climate crisis becoming ever more apparent, CLES and Carbon Co-op today release a major new toolkit for councils,  a... Read More

You can’t achieve levelling up without a Green New Deal

This is an article on levelling up and the Green New Deal from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. ‘Levelling up’... Read More

Doughnuts are popular in Devon

We have long seen Devon and the English South-West as a social, economic and cultural laboratory for what might look like an “ecological civilisation”. So it’s perfectly logical that... Read More

Resources for the metropolises of the 21st century

UK Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) Chief Executive, Sarah Longlands, spoke last month at La Metròpoli Pròspera, organized by the Metropolitan Strategic Plan of Barcelona. Following her appearance... Read More

Democracy Pioneers amplify young voices in the climate conversation

Katy Rubin reflects on Democracy Pioneers, a project she facilitated for Shared Future to engage Glasgow’s policymakers on climate change through the medium of theatre. On 14 September, eight young... Read More

5 Routes to Community Power

Adam Lent and Jessica Studdert look at the practical ways to make community power an everyday practice, not just a long-term ambition. How can community power be embedded in... Read More

Levelling up from the ground up

Depending on where you live in England, there can be huge differences in your quality of life. This is down to some areas’ economic decline and low incomes, but... Read More

Berlin and the community land trust

In this week’s German elections, Berliners voted with a resounding majority (56.4%), supporting a bill to expropriate 226,000 homes from private landlords, and take them into public ownership. It’s... Read More

Re-think power to build inclusive local economies

Thirteen years ago, the global financial crisis prompted human suffering across the world. In the wake of this, community wealth building emerged as an alternative approach to local economic... Read More

The road to recovery

The past year has been extremely difficult for all of us. Over 4 million people in Britain have tested positive for Covid, and over 150,000 people have died with... Read More

Local elections 2021: Ideas for new administrations

Economic recovery from COVID-19 will be a long and painful process. When the pandemic struck, we at CLES argued for a new common-sense approach to economic development based on the... Read More

The Case for Growing our Own Beans

As the pandemic has stood the world on its head, one of the debates which has been thrown wide open is that of the future of the economy. PSJP... Read More

A New Beginning

The one thing we all need after the pandemic is a new beginning. Change is in the air, whether that be ideological, legislative, or deeply personal. The theme for... Read More

What does Covid-19 mean for the inclusive growth agenda?

What’s the role of inclusive growth in recovering from crisis? It’s easy to see as a ‘nice-to-have’, but can be at the centre of helping us build back better.... Read More

What’s Earth Day got to do with Wellbeing?

“In nature nothing exists alone.” Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962) Over the last 13 months – and during a time of isolation, separation, and loneliness – many of us... Read More

Community food systems should be part of the new normal

With last year’s long queues and supply issues at supermarkets, the Covid pandemic has made us all re-examine how we get our groceries and where they come from. But... Read More

Vermont democracy conducted at a human scale

Other than being Bernie Sanders’ Congressional seat, we have picked up at A/UK on the singular qualities of the state of Vermont – as a “laboratory for democracy”, in... Read More

Three lessons from Bogota on making cities safer for women

In the UK, Sarah Everard’s murder has prompted debate around women’s safety, with 80% of women of all ages having been sexually harassed in public spaces. In Bogota, work is being... Read More

Cities must cut their ‘consumption emissions’ – here’s how

Almost every city now has some form of climate target. For instance Manchester, in northern England, aims to be zero carbon by 2038. But such targets generally focus on emissions... Read More

Caring for the earth, caring for each other

During the peak of the first lockdown, people gathered on their doorsteps to clap for carers. Now it’s time to truly recognise their value. The inadequacies of England’s current... Read More

The time is right for a children’s Wellbeing Budget

In so many ways, Scotland is a wonderful place to grow up. In a global context we have free education and health care, access to an environment noted around... Read More

Powering social value through recovery

On 11th March, we released our yearly analysis of the contribution that Manchester City Council’s procurement spend makes to the city’s economy and how it can support the achievement of wider... Read More

Building Back Better with a Green Industrial Revolution

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the UK economy and, nearly a year on from its outbreak, the number of people unemployed continues to rise. The latest figures show that an... Read More

Kendal Citizens Jury on Climate Change

What should Kendal do about climate change? That was the challenge tackled by a diverse group of local residents of Kendal during the summer and autumn of 2020. Commissioned... Read More

Glasgow locals demand an eco-housing and sustainable energy development

When we exalt the power of the local, sometimes we mean really local. We were alerted to this stirring Glasgow story this week. A patch of ground in the... Read More

Local innovations to solve the problems that matter

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its many challenges has tested our ability to innovate. Many of us associate the idea of innovation with bright, new objects or processes, and this... Read More

Valuable work

The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on the discrepancy between the work we most urgently need as a society, and the work we value and reward. So many of... Read More

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