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Posted on 03 Aug 2021 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

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

The impact of Basic Income Month

Compass and the Basic Income Conversation have published their report Basic Income Month: The impact of London Solidarity Funds and the case for local basic income schemes. The Basic... Read More

Finding social value in Manchester through public procurement

In its recently published Levelling Up White Paper, the government argued that the power of public procurement should be used to deliver support to communities and pledged to put... 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

Delivering universal basic services in Scotland

IPPR Scotland last week published their report Universal basic services: Building financial security in Scotland. Over a series of publications, IPPR Scotland has argued that in order to tackle... 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

Is degrowth – making less, but better – the future that the fashion world has been waiting for?

Fascinating article from the Vogue Business news site on the growing relevance of degrowth – producing and consuming less and less to mitigate climate meltdown – and fashion. It... Read More

Developing a shared framework for a hopeful future

In November 2021, a group of ten people gathered together in Letchworth Garden City for two days of conversation. We began with a clear sense of our collective failure... Read More

Steps towards a better world

Written at the outset of the pandemic, #BuildBackBetter showed how being forced to slow down had made people want a different future. Having a profound sense of vulnerability made... Read More

Democratic wellbeing: a new report from Carnegie UK

Carnegie UK published their report GDWe: A spotlight on democratic wellbeing last month. Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe) is an alternative measure of social progress to the dominant measure GDP, as set... 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

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

Transforming markets: why markets need a makeover

If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, they would be surprised by many things, but they would be shocked by an economic system that allows a few billionaires to play... 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

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

North Ayrshire and building community wealth

Some quietly achieved radical localism and community wealth building going on in North Ayrshire. While the Preston Model, and its underlying logic of community wealth building, have been lauded... 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

Our Land: Liverpool Land Commission

On the 6th July CLES launched the final report of the Liverpool City Region Land Commission: Our Land. Reflecting the findings of England’s first Commission to review the use of... 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

Can community wealth building scale up?

Probably the key challenge for all those committed to progressive causes is how we scale up from the multitude of creative initiatives taking place locally. ‘At local level, we... Read More

The Bank of England’s new ’net zero’ mandate could be a game changer

The Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee meets today, and will publish its first Monetary Policy Report since the Bank was given an updated ‘net zero’ mandate at the... 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

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

Rethinking Poverty: what needs to change?

We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without... Read More

Talking Points reflects on the 2021 local elections

The results of May’s 2021 local elections will have dismayed those who care about progressive causes, as showcased in Rethinking Poverty. But can we learn anything from them about... Read More

Basic Income in the US: is the Overton window open?

As outlined in March’s Talking Points, no-strings-attached direct cash payments are central to Biden’s stimulus package. While this is not Universal Basic Income (UBI), also known as Basic Income,... 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

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

Basic Income: a feasible route to income security?

Lack of income security is widely recognised as a major problem – and one that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Could a Basic Income help? And is... 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

Gross Domestic Wellbeing: a more relevant measure than GDP?

Carnegie UK Trust last December published their report Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe)™ An alternative measure of social progress, which proposes GDWe as ‘a more holistic and relevant’ measure of... Read More

Community ownership, recovery and empowerment

I was lucky enough to chair a panel discussion on Community Ownership and Towns this week, with Community Land Scotland, Greener Kirkcaldy, Power to Change, The Stove Network.* We recognised, with many others, the High Street... Read More

The case for a four day week

Shorter working time should be at the heart of post-pandemic recovery. That’s the message of The Case for a Four Day Week, published by Polity this month, and written by... Read More

Driving community wealth and green jobs in Lewes

Green New Deals aren’t just for cash-flushed central Governments. In the last year, Lewes DC in East Sussex has been growing its own distinctive variety of green economic strategy.... Read More

Making markets work for the common good

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

Degrowth: why we need a new political economy

Degrowth, or he end of growth is not the end of the world, says Parrique. ‘It can be the beginning of many worlds.’ … Basically, degrowth means a decline of... Read More

Wellbeing and GDP: explained

This is an article from the second issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here “The goal and objective of all economic policy should be collective... Read More

Putting place at the heart of a green recovery

With fresh discussion this week about the importance of a green recovery, it is increasingly clear that post-Covid rebuilding must have a just transition away from a carbon-based economy... Read More

The five clear principles of community wealth-building

As we noted in our Editorial last week, the Biden presidency (assuming it kicks off eventually by Jan 30th) may have a worrying tendency to top-down policy direction. Which... Read More

How workers can take on big finance and win

The impact of Covid-19 has been a powerful reminder of the leverage workers could collectively hold. Care workers, supermarket cashiers and couriers – usually dismissed as “unskilled” – have demonstrated... Read More

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