Sustainable Local Economies Conference – Leicester in Feb 2008
Held at the Peepal centre in the city this was a wonderful event hosted by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) – who if you haven’t heard of I recommend you should Google. They foster the notion of bringing humanness back into understandings of economic measures of success – they talk about the triple bottom line – measuring our success on the basis of (1) financial outcomes, (2) social well being & (3) environmental impact.
There were many interesting speakers there including an American guy who invented time banks & the concept of co-production. This is coming of more interest of local authority service commissioners who are developing services. It encourages they to jointly commission (and produce) services with (not just for) their customers. This way customers sit it clear partnership with local authorities in meeting their own needs, not just LA’s saying what people need.
(This sits very well with the proposal I’ll be making to Liverpool Univ – that will be a co-production model.
Many things came up for me – another significant one for us as a group was meeting the Local Alchemy people.
Local Alchemy – is a whole new approach that NEF is launching to work with local communities to explore how we can create more sustainable local economies in the light of the impacts of climate change & peak oil in our lives.
A gentleman I spoke to there is very interested in working with us – they are presently testing a workshop approach they have developed and want to work with TT groups as they she us as almost perfect forums for their grass roots work.
Marion