The financial crisis, fluctuating oil prices, a changing climate: these are shocks we now find ourselves facing. According to “think-and-do tank” the New Economics Foundation, the best way to cope collectively is to build a resilient local economy, based not on faceless shareholders and sprawling corporate giants, but a system of mutual trust and support within businesses built in our own cities and towns.

Not only do we need to re-examine the scale of the economy, says NEF communications manager Ruth Potts, talking to the Transition Brighton and Hove group last week, but we need to re-examine the way it works.

She says: “We think there’s only one kind of economics and there’s not – there is a myriad of different kinds. We need to start giving value to things other than money. We need to look at the triple bottom line of people, planet and then profit.”

People

It’s a lovely idea, but how can we begin to give a monetary value to something that isn’t money, such as the air or how happy we are?

John Bristow from campaign and community group Transition Brighton And Hove insists there is a long tradition in environmental economics of trying to put a price on those kinds of things.

But with greenhouse gas emissions rising at 3.5% a year and the continued rapid destruction of the rainforests, you might think it hasn’t got very far.

However, in Brighton there is a growing tradition of organisations which have been built to appreciate the people who work there a little bit more – just look at our burgeoning social enterprise sector.

The Werks is a community interest company based on New Church Road in Hove. It is a “collaborative and flexible work space” where media and creative professionals can gather together and work. It is like desk space with added benefits.

Founder Ian Elwick says: “Our idea was based on productive, mutual support – a kind of recycled energy to help make the community sustainable – and it’s really working.”

People who previously didn’t have access to resources, such as training or guidance, now have it through other professionals based at The Werks. Desk space is cheap, on the condition you participate in the community, and the result is exactly the kind of mutual support Ian is talking about.

“People have found others to work with and skills they couldn’t access before – often at no cost,” he says.

And while it may sound rather hippy dippy, the end result is more qualified, satisfied and productive members of the community, all contributing to the economy.

“People need to re-evaluate their lives and figure out what matters most to them,” says John. “We need to discover what meets peoples real needs rather than their wants, which they’ve acquired through advertising, imitation, or as a way of gaining status or control.”

He suggests we broaden the concept of wealth to include our bodies, our health and ourselves as human beings with skills and knowledge, and since it is natural resources that give us our health, we can then begin to give them a value too.

Planet

September 23, 2008 was known as Ecological Debt Day, as it marked the day we began to demand more than the biological capacity of our planet.

On Ecological Debt Day, we became a 1.4 planet world, needing, on average, a little over a third of an extra planet to maintain the global status quo. Yet, according to projections published in New Scientist last week, the world could easily support seven million humans – it just needs serious planning.

The NEF says Ecological Debt Day is yet more evidence the notion of an economy that can grow forever just doesn’t stack up. It doesn’t lift people out of poverty, it doesn’t make us happy, and it isn’t doing the planet any good.

Once again, it is our conception of wealth that needs to be examined. Services provided by nature, such as filtering the air, providing clean water, giving us nice spaces to sit in, are not even slightly valued by our current economy.

Our happiness, wellbeing and quality of life are measured in things, rather than experiences or feelings of contentedness.

“If St Ann’s Well Gardens was used for apartment blocks, how much would you want to be compensated?” asks John. “There needs to be environmental costs placed on the destruction of habitats and wildlife and on the imbalance of chemicals in the sea, air and soil. People should pay for destroying the environment, but we should also hold some things as priceless.”

Profit

The big question is why do we need more resilience in our local economies? Isn’t it just a smaller version of the big economy we currently have? Not according to the NEF.

They say high streets full of chain stores, which make enormous profits yet leach money from the local area, leave us all vulnerable. The protests over Starbucks on St James’s Street are not just about another coffee shop opening in the area, but the way it affects our community.

If one chain closes down, a massive, often irreparable hole is left in the high street. We are seeing this in action now more than ever. When Woolworths closed its doors for the final time in January 2009, empty shops were left on Western Road, London Road and Blatchington Road. Across Sussex, 600 jobs were lost. Imagine the effect if the mighty Tesco were to shut up shop.

Conversely, more smaller, locally-based enterprises make for smaller, more easily repairable holes in the net when one goes belly up.

Ian Elwick explains: “If you support local business as much as possible, you get a virtual circle within the local economy. Money doesn’t go to exiled shareholders, so it helps the economy grow in a sustainable way.”

The problem, as ever, comes down to the perpetual quest for more stuff: more financial wealth and more material possessions, for more profit.

Ruth Potts insists the mission to redefine the meaning of wealth is both necessary and urgent: “We don’t accrue additional wealth once our basic needs are met, because material goods do not add to our wellbeing.”

One study found the level of contentment people feel living within the means of our planet is exactly the same as for those living a lifestyle that would demand eight planets.

“We need to broaden our definition of wealth,” says Ruth. “And understand the strength of our relationships add to ourwellbeing, not things.”

  • Email green stories to Sarah at sarah.lewis@theargus.co.uk. or visit www. theargus.co.uk/ goinggreen for more features