The concept of strong sustainability is based on the scientific fact that all human life and activity occurs within the limitations of planet Earth, or the 'biosphere' where humankind lives, including all societal functions, such as the economy.
It is a self-evident truth that without a functioning biosphere there can be no society or 'sociosphere', and without a sociosphere there can be no societal functions, including an economy or 'econosphere'.
Strong sustainability recognises that in order for human civilisation to continue, the true model for sustaining the planet on which we rely to survive should look like this (see above). 
We need an indicator that estimates the wealth of nations--natural, human, and manufactured. The United Nations is now proposing the "Inclusive Wealth Indicator" as a challenge to the myopic focus on short-term profits and economic capital inherent in GDP. In its early findings, it found that natural capital declined 46% in Brazil and 31% in India during the last 17 years. This reduced the countries’ blazing GDP growth rates to a more modest "inclusive wealth" increase of 3% in Brazil and 9% in India. Much less to get excited about. 
Leave it to the Dutch, who throw away only 3 percent of their municipal waste into landfills, to come up with a socially appealing innovation that does even more to reduce waste: the neighborhood Repair Cafe! As described in today’s NYT, volunteers with a talent for fixing things come together several times a month to repair anyone’s broken household items for free. 
Recently a new website AskShareGive was launched in New Zealand. AskShareGive is a not-for-profit website that allows people to share their time, skills, transport and old or unwanted goods. The website is the brain child of an Auckland business man who runs a software company. He felt inspired by the ideology of a gift economy – where goods and services flow through a community through sharing and without money changing hands. He felt that as a rule our homes are cluttered with an abundance of things and stuff and we have this trend of continuing to buy more rather than spread what we have amongst each other. 
Mobile Greenhouse Project by Compass Green Compass Green is a fully functional greenhouse built in the back of a box truck that grows vegetables and herbs and is powered by waste vegetable oil. They... People are finally taking things into their own hands .... Summary of Key Points
A natural agenda of issues is shaping the future, especially for corporations with global scope • The social divide: the ever-widening gap between those participating in the increasingly interdependent global economy and those not. For how long can 15% of the people get 85% of the goodies? • Redefining growth: economic growth based on ever increasing material use and discard is inconsistent with a finite world. How long can we keep piling up more junk in the same box? • Variety and inclusiveness: developing inclusion as a core competence in increasingly multi-cultural organizations. • Attracting talented people and realizing their potential: developing commitment in a world of “free agents” and “volunteer” talent. What are we committed to, really? • The role of the corporation: extending the traditional role of the corporation, especially the global corporation, to be more commensurate with its impact. Just how accountable will society expect us to be? • The system seeing itself: the challenges of coordination and coherence in social systems. 
Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme - but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being. vox pop In transition 2.0 screening preview, LYTTELTON (New Zealand)... 
As we navigate The Great Turning, we must create a safety net or "backup plan" as the conventional growth-dependent economic system falters and crumbles. Ideally, that safety net will integrate threads which become the foundation for the new economy -- a post-carbon, post-petroleum, post-peak-everything, more socially just, necessarily degrowth economy. 
The explosive force of Occupy Wall Street—and more than a thousand other local efforts—offers hope that a movement committed to long-term change might one day achieve a fundamental transformation of the American political-economic system. Quietly, a different kind of progressive change is emerging, one that involves a transformation in institutional structures and power, a process one could call “evolutionary reconstruction.” 
Geoff Lawton discovers a 300 year old food forest that has been tended for 28 generations by the same family. Incredibly it is in the suburbs of a Vietnamese city and only 2 acres in size yet it provides all the food and medicines for an entire family all year round. 
Let's mobilize of thousands of new residents, create innumerable sustainability actions provide the community networks and cross-sector collaborations needed to Transition our towns and cities across the US.
Roll up your sleeves and get involved :) |
My fascination with change is twofold. First, I believe that life is in continuous evolution and incessantly changing. And, second, I believe evolution leads to higher complexity, which requires a greater ability to handle change. One of the capabilities that can assist us with both of these notions is planning. Looking at the difficulty of the challenges that confront us, it is easy to go into denial or to become frustrated or cynical. In our current research project on “Transformation of Capitalism” we pose the question: How can we create an economy that generates wellbeing for all? 
Do you want to live more efficiently and reap the benefits of a closer community? Cooperative living is a great strategy for getting and staying out of debt while building community, resilience and security in a tenuous economy. But it requires a change in attitudes, and a return to more communal ways of living. 
This paper develops the case for a currency issued by a local authority and proposes a contract where a land levy is paid to council in exchange for local dollars to assist would-be purchasers to buy land. It addresses both land and money together. It argues for a currency that has a built-in incentive to circulate fast. It will supplement the existing interest-bearing monoculture of a national currency. It introduces a local Citizen’s Dividend. Local currencies need to shift up a gear. It describes the probable effects of such a marked change in the scale of complementary currencies, where they are issued in millions rather than hundreds of dollars. It argues that such a currency will stabilise the price of property, cause new prosperity, move business towards sustainability, stimulate new industry, create new jobs and move to a low carbon economy. The knock-on effects on the central government are discussed. It argues for a smooth gradual introduction of this dual currency system linked to land. Rob Hopkins’ leaky bucket animation on this TEDx presentation is a great resource for communities wanting to strengthen their local economy. 
Accelerated by the financial crisis, Europe has seen a trend for small businesses looking to make more cashless exchanges. Nantes is becoming Europe's first major city to experiment with a virtual currency that can be used both businesses and individuals. 
A new way to produce is emerging. By this I mean: a new way to produce anything and everything, whether it is software, food, or cities. What once required rigid organisations and a society defined by the mentality of hierarchies, we are discovering now (and in many cases re-discovering) how to do through free association of peers. 
A study of how leaders and change agents with postconventional consciousness design and engage in complex change initiatives.... Via Anne Caspari 
Contrary to popular belief, humans have failed to address the earth’s worsening emergencies of climate change, species’ extinction and resource overconsumption not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of imagination, social scientists and artists say. 
Alternative currency is a term that refers to any currency used as an alternative to the dominant national or multinational currency systems (usually referred to as national or fiat money). Alternative currencies can be created by an individual, corporation, or organization, they can be created by national, state, or local governments, or they can arise naturally as people begin to use a certain commodity as a currency. 
We can do this the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is that you skip this post and buy the book now. The hard way is that your reviewer attempts to describe a 320 page book whose contents have been shaped by the infinitely varied experiences of self-organising initiatives around the world. In these, thousands of people have explored one question over a five year period: “How do we make our community more resilient in uncertain times?”. 
There’s a lot going on right now.I’m in the process of federating with a large number of people across the globe to form a new kind of living systems organization, and lay down infrastructures that we intend will lead us towards a desired socioeconomic paradigm and human operation system. We’re pioneering practices in cultural design, systems intelligence, and coordinated creative action at scale.It’s really, really hard. Here’s an experiential exercise you can try... 
Maddy Harland revisits Ecocide, Polly Higgins' campaign, and exhorts us all to be open to new possibilities. Our disintegrating systems may allow an unexpected flowering of new culture. |
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