In your view, what are three (or key) elements of “new economies”?

A key part of developing a New Economy is through redefining what it means to have a viable investment. I see that now with divestment, a movement that is stigmatizing the idea of investing in fossil fuel infrastructure, and diverting those funds to invest morally for the future. In the past, ideas of natural capital and externalities weren’t available to us. Now we understand what environmental and human impacts are. The idea of financial return hasn’t incorporated that yet.

• Anne Jamieson • David Lepage • Justin Richie • Mike Toye • Nabeel Ahmed Stay tuned for more posts in this series Check out last month’s series

Finding the investment – financial and labour resources – to fuel this low carbon future will be very important. From a traditional cost-benefit analysis, it may be that a low-carbon economy never makes sense, and we may not be able to sell it to your typical CFO. But we’ll need to mobilize not only at the government and municipal level but also at the level of individual firms.

How does this relate to cities?

With the existing built infrastructure in North America, it’s still hard to get by without a car in many places. We are sprawled out, but on the verge of many new technologies that will change our relationships to vehicles. Whether it’s Uber or car-sharing, new options are slowly whittling away at the incentives for individual car ownership. In 10 or 20 years, things will look very different, and it won’t necessarily be for environmental reasons. Owning a car can mean $6,000 to $9,000 in gas and maintenance fees every year, and you may just decide that it makes more financial sense to spend a fraction of that on a car-sharing membership.

Cities will need to densify in a way that maintains mobility. Patrick Condon at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture has done a lot of work on regional planning in Vancouver and his modeling work shows that we can add  about 800,000 people to the city without building another highrise – it can all be done with four to six-story buildings. Vancouver is actually not that dense, though we like to think it so. Our expectations around returns on real estate biases Yaletown-style highrise development, but a study from the Vancouver Foundation shows that the sense of community in these kinds of buildings is not that great.  I hope we move towards more holistic regional planning that accounts for affordable real estate, and a retrofitting of suburbia that works with existing physical and social infrastructure.

How do we finance the shift to low carbon?

How municipalities will finance infrastructure will be the key question for coming decades. In Vancouver, sea level rise will become an issue. With all the municipality’s existing obligations like health, education, etc., how are we going to finance climate change adaptation needs? We need to retrofit the city’s water infrastructure, and the full costs of living are going to change. Where the money will come from is still an open question. Based on my recent research on fossil fuel divestment, one possibility is putting the money divested from fossil fuels into proactive funds or bonds or anything that can address the needs for infrastructure changes. We’ll have to look towards forward-thinking policy, and carbon taxes and pricing carbon always helps.

Can you share a few success stories of low-carbon transitions?

The city of Feldheim in Germany was forward thinking and has transitioned away from fossil fuel and nuclear electricity completely. Communities are starting to co-own and produce 100% renewable electricity, and that can actually be a revenue source for communities. From a financial perspective, borrowing rates are lower than anyone anticipated years ago and have stayed that way. When European governments had almost zero yielding debt, people are putting money into government bonds that only have less than 1% or negative returns – very risk-averse investments. So if you had the option to put your money into a solar farm, with a rate of return of three to five percent a year, that looks much more attractive.

Another great example is Solar City, which is using securitization of solar installations and bulk packaging them together as a financial instrument you can put money into, as solar is quite reliable as an investment. There are programs like Mosaic Solar in California that allows individuals to invest in solar installations and Abundance Generation in the UK which is a peer-to-peer platform to invest in renewable energy projects. Here in Vancouver, our credit union Vancity just started a fossil-free investment fund.

What does real wealth mean to you?

I like to go back to the early days of capitalism, when Adam Smith wrote about the “invisible hand” in 1776. That’s the idea that most people jumped on, but less talked about is his theory of moral sentiments: the moral developments of human society as a result of the pursuit of wealth. He wrote about a mutual sympathy, something like a physical force that ties society together. That’s the reason why trends go viral. We as humans have a deep innate desire to see our sentiments shared by others.

To me, real wealth is about prioritizing human well-being, healthy personal relationships, and biasing that before the accumulation of financial capital.

A good friend of mine who worked in several major investment banks told me that people don’t want money; they want the feelings that money gives them, and so often you can get those brain chemicals delivered by the experiences we purchase with money in different ways.

Based on an interview conducted by Jane Zhang

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Justin Ritchie is a research analyst and digital media broadcaster who works on data motivated inquiries into a low carbon energy transition and financial systems at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability in Vancouver, BC. He is also the co-founder and producer of The Extraenvironmentalist Podcast and XE Live Broadcast video production company.

This blog is part of the ‘Voices of New Economies‘ series within Cities for People – an experiment in advancing the movement toward urban resilience and livability through connecting innovation networks.

The Voices of New Economies series is collectively curated by One Earth and The Canadian CED Network.

This series is an exploration of what it takes to build the economies we need – ones that work for people, places, and the planet. We are connecting key actors, finding patterns, noting interesting differences, and highlighting key concepts and initiatives. Together, this series offers insights into the new economies movement as it develops.

After working in the non-profit and social enterprise arena for over three decades, David LePage founded Accelerating Social Impact (ASI) in 2013 to pioneer an unusual type of business – a Community Contribution Company. This hybrid enterprise model blends the traditional for-profit corporate model with a targeted social purpose, and allocates 60% of its dividends to this purpose. This differs from typical social purpose businesses and benefit corporations, who are not legally bound to divert profits from investors.

The purpose of ASI itself is to accelerate this blended business world and help invigorate the social value of business, from policy all the way to purchasing and supply.

• Anne Jamieson • David Lepage • Justin Ritchie • Mike Toye • Nabeel Ahmed Stay tuned for more posts in this series Check out last month’s series

In your view, what are some key elements of “new economies”?

I think it’s actually the old economy. In North America 2000 years ago, the Aboriginal communities had a thriving cross-continent trading system that went from Mexico to Quebec to Vancouver, based on the exchange of goods and services to create healthy communities. If you trace historically the exchange of goods and services anywhere, it was based on a culture of mutual benefit, or “what do you have that I need?” mentality.

It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that we developed this idea of “you can’t have what I have unless you pay me more”. We created workers and factories, exploitation and the profit motive.

What some call the “new economy” is what I call the “true economy” or “community economy” – the economy as a tool to help us create healthy communities. In the modern world, we’ve switched it around and made the economy the objective.

How do we make the leap to a community economy in the 21st century?

A recent article by Robert Reich looked at how many people employed now are actually producing material things. When you add in the new technology of 3D production and robotic construction, there aren’t many people making things. We’re just exchanging dollars and services. I think the conversation we’re having is about shifting the culture of today’s economy. It’s a new exchange, but we haven’t figured out how to shift from the old model of paying someone to make stuff and someone else buying it. The structure of our economy needs to catch up with how we function as a society.

What would a more just and equitable system look like?

We need to change the structure of the economy and what we value as a society. We still have a minimum wage that makes people poor, and that working at fast food restaurant is not a legitimate job. We need to rethink what’s considered professional versus a service. We now have doctors running businesses based on what they can charge, yet people working in the service industry – nurses, naturopaths, homeopaths, and others outside of mainstream – have to struggle because it’s not seen as professional. This applies to any industry, where the dichotomy of working and owning is just changing.

Another aspect is that we have to do the environmental, social and economic all together.  People complain about Walmart selling organic food because organic without a fair living wage is only halfway there.

More people nowadays are conscious of externalized social and environmental costs. The government has subsidized so many things to create a market for certain partners. We just don’t know what a McDonald’s hamburger costs, for instance. When we account for all of its impact on environment, society, and future generations, who’s going to pay $175 for a hamburger? We need to look past the artificially low prices, and be aware of the actual “costs” of what we’re buying.

Are today’s new sharing economy platforms good examples of “true economy”?

Again, people are saying this is all new, but libraries have been around for a long time, and they’re a great example of the sharing economy. Farmers have had co-ops for almost 200 years and other models like tool-sharing and credit unions. Calling it the sharing economy and exploiting people doesn’t make it any different from the traditional economy. Take Uber for example, where they charge people more at busier times. Instead of paying a taxi driver, you’re just paying this other guy. I think whenever we create a platform, we have to look behind the name and evaluate the exchange value.

How do these relate to cities?

As more opportunities arise, we won’t have everyone moving to cities but we may start having urban and rural cities again. In Canada especially, we have a concentration of people in urban areas, and rural communities are devastated in terms of jobs and opportunities. If we start to shift the meaning of a job or opportunity, people can start to be healthy in their own communities.

What does real wealth mean to you?

Real wealth is putting community ahead of the individual. It’s not just about financial capital but social, cultural, and environmental capital as well. What truly makes a community wealthy is having a balance, maybe even an abundance, of multiple capitals.

Based on an interview conducted by Jane Zhang

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David LePage is a Principal with Accelerating Social Impact CCC, Ltd. (ASI), one of Canada’s first ever hybrid corporations. ASI CCC was created to serve and promote the emerging blended value business and social finance sectors. David works as a consultant, trainer and advisor with a cross section of social enterprises, social purpose businesses and social impact investors. He is a founder of Buy Social Canada, an initiative to promote social purchasing and social enterprise certification.

David is the Chair of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada. He serves as a Program Adjunct to the Sandermoen School of Business MBA in Social Enterprise Leadership. He is a member of the Social Enterprise World Forum Steering Group, the Canadian CED Network Policy Council, Imagine Canada’s Advisory Committee, and BC’s Partners for Social Impact. He is a Board member of the Vancouver Farmer’s Market and a Board member of Ethelo Decisions. David is the former Team Manager of enp-BC and played a lead role in the development of enp-Canada.

This blog is part of the ‘Voices of New Economies‘ series within Cities for People – an experiment in advancing the movement toward urban resilience and livability through connecting innovation networks.

The Voices of New Economies series is collectively curated by One Earth and The Canadian CED Network.

This series is an exploration of what it takes to build the economies we need – ones that work for people, places, and the planet. We are connecting key actors, finding patterns, noting interesting differences, and highlighting key concepts and initiatives. Together, this series offers insights into the new economies movement as it develops.

2014 was a big year for CCEDNet as we continued improvements to our communications infrastructure and extended the reach of our message with new tools to different audiences.  Our ability to connect communities for change is growing tremendously, and we are seeing the results.

Click on the image below to read our 2014 Annual Review today!

ccednet_2014_annual_report_postcard.jpg

Every year, CCEDNet members are invited to submit nominations for CCEDNet’s Board of Directors. This year, there were four vacancies to be filled. 

Five eligible nominations were received by the deadline, leading our Elections Officer, Yvon Poirier, to call an election to fill the four seats on the Board.

The 2015 Election for CCEDNet’s Board of Directors was held through a new online system from April 29th to May 11th. The Elections officer approved a ranked-choice voting system as is used in Scotland.  By putting candidates in order of preference, the choices allow the election of four candidates who are supported by the majority of voters.

After validating the results, the Elections Officer declared elected for three-year terms:

• Christine Landry
• William (Bill) Ninacs
• Élodie Bedouet
• Ryan Gibson

These results were ratified at CCEDNet’s Annual General Meeting of the members on May 29. 

Congratulations to these amazing CED leaders from across Canada, who join CCEDNet’s dedicated Board of Directors.

 

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Christine Landry     Winnipeg, Manitoba

Christine Landry has been with Community Futures Manitoba, the association of Manitoba’s 16 Community Futures organizations (CFs), since 2000.

As Project Coordinator, she works with the 16 CF offices to strengthen their capacity to assist rural, northern an Aboriginal communities in strengthening their business sector and build capacity for CED. Christine has been actively involved with CCEDNet, sitting on the annual CED Gathering planning committee since 2004. She was also a member of the planning committee for the 2009 National CCEDNet Conference in Winnipeg.

Christine works with Community Futures offices each year to plan their annual provincial conference, which is promoted to CED service providers across the province. She also handles the association’s marketing and communications activities. Recently she was pleased to be a member of CCEDNet Manitoba’s Interim Governance Committee to develop a model for improving communication and efficiency in the Network.
 

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William (Bill) Ninacs     Victoriaville, Québec

My background includes management positions in the public and private sectors as well as wide experience in the community sector where I helped support service and advocacy groups, worker and consumer co-operatives, and other social agencies.  I have been active in CED for more than 25 years, notably as Coordinator of the first community development corporation in Québec and as Co-Director of the Canadian CED Network.  For more than 20 years, I have been a researcher in the field and on the subjects of empowerment-based interventions, local community development and the social economy, with publications in English and in French.  I have taught at the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University and in the CED program at Concordia University.  Currently I am also Associate Professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. 
 

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Élodie Bedouet    Thunder Bay, Ontario

Élodie is Executive Director of the Association des francophones du Nord-Ouest de l’Ontario in Thunder Bay.  She has worked in CED with francophone communities in Ontario and the Northwest Territories for several years and has a keen interest in social enterprise.  Following graduate work in political science (specialization in international political economy) at the Université de Montréal, she did research for a UN agency in Chile on economic development and education and worked on youth inclusion projects with new technologies in Morocco.
 

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Ryan Gibson    Halifax, Nova Scotia

I am keenly interested how we can better use community economic development to enhance rural and northern regions. Over the past ten years I have been working with voluntary organizations, communities, and government on CED initiatives focused on rural development, philanthropy, governance, and public policy. I am an assistant professor of geography at Saint Mary’s University and the past-president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation. I have been actively engaged with CCEDNet through a number of board committees and served on the executive. I would like the opportunity to continue my engagement with the Board of Directors to further advance CCEDNet’s mandate, to enhance CCEDNet’s presence in Atlantic Canada, and strengthen our membership engagement.

Last week, CCEDNet members gathered online to participate in the annual general meeting (AGM).

This was the first time we have held an entirely virtual AGM.  Our shift to the Canada Non-profit Corporations Act in 2013 meant that we are now legally able to hold a formal member meeting virtually, and we experimented with online participation last year when we had members participate both in person in Winnipeg and virtually.  But we had never done an entirely virtual AGM, with a bilingual webinar platform for moving, seconding and voting on resolutions, an English teleconference room, a French teleconference room, and simultaneous translation between the two.  It was an ambitious idea!

Fortunately, it all came together: the meeting ran smoothly, and feedback was very positive about the level of interaction.  

CCEDNet’s Executive Director, Mike Toye, presented highlights of the last year from our virtual annual report.  The theme of this year’s report is ‘Connecting Communities for Change’, emphasizing the role CCEDNet plays as a network to connect and support community leaders in their efforts to improve lives. 

Members welcomed William (Bill) Ninacs to the Board, and expressed gratitude to outgoing Board members Caroline Lachance and Indu Krishnamurthy, as well as to our Manitoba Regional Director Brendan Reimer, who stepped down last year after 11 years with CCEDNet.  

Many thanks to the members who participated, the staff who organized the logistics, and to CCEDNet’s Board members who guide the Network throughout the year.

Localizing prosperity is about building upon existing strengths so that communities can develop from within, maximizing the local economic and social benefits for everyone.

It is based on a virtuous circle of local empowerment, thriving local business and wellbeing (diagram on the right).

Join us on June 4th for a webinar with Karen Leach of Localise West Midlands in the UK to explore the work that she has done to encourage the application of community economic development by businesses and public institutions, to effectively evaluate CED activities and demonstrate impact, and to address prevalent social and economic challenges at local and regional levels.

With their new resource “Localising Prosperity,” Localize West Midlands are clearly and simply outlining the CED approach, sources of inspiration, and guidance for implementation for diverse audiences: public institutions, communities, businesses – anyone interested in making places better and sharing prosperity.

Regsiter now for Clarifying and Simplifying CED to Localize Prosperity

About the Presenter

Karen Leach is Co-ordinator of Localise West Midlands (LWM) in the UK. LWM is a small non-profit think-tank, campaign group and consultancy whose aim is to promote a more localised approach to supply chains, money flow and decision-making in order to form a more just and sustainable economy. Karen’s professional interests are in economic efficiency in terms of sustainability outcomes and in economic awareness and empowerment amongst the general public.

About the Respondent

Stewart Perry is an honorary lifetime member of CCEDNet. He is one of the pioneers of CED in the US and Canada, as both a policy adviser and a designer and manager of CED institutions. Stewart currently specializes in community and development finance as an associate with the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal.

Learn more about Clarifying and Simplifying CED to Localize Prosperity

CCEDNet member David Upton was thrilled at the invitation to present on the opportunities social enterprise has to offer Nova Scotia, as a new effort seeks to change the future course of the economically and demographically challenged province.

Nova Scotia stands at a crossroads, a report on the province released last year identifies. A bright future is not guaranteed and there is a critical need for a collaborative effort to create positive change.

“If Nova Scotia’s economy were performing well today in providing jobs, sustaining communities and supporting high quality public services, the wise advice would be to stay the course and avoid major changes,” the One Nova Scotia (One NS) Report states.

“But this is not our situation, nor does the future outlook promise relief.”

The report identifies some fairly significant economic and demographics issues facing the province. It also lists goals to strive towards to ensure growth and prosperity.

The Nova Scotia Coalition on Building Our New Economy has now been struck by Nova Scotia’s government. The coalition consists of multi-sector, all-party representatives and is intended to generate collective, collaborative action to build a better province. As the One NS report states, “A province-building project is not dependent on government policies or the state of the world economy. It is about us, our courage, our imagination and our determination to do better.”

The coalition has been meeting monthly through 2014 on the various themes of the report, discussing how government, the private and non-profit sectors and others can work together to create the province everyone desires.

The current theme is youth and social entrepreneurship.

A respected and active player in the social enterprise sphere, David presented at the commission’s Nov. 27 meeting, which included the premier and party leaders.

“We’re really encouraged by the willingness (of the commission) to include us in the conversation and now we’re really hopeful that in an expedient way they’re going to respond positively to our reaching out,” David says.

Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed is a medical officer of health and One NS commissioner. She says she believes the possibilities that social enterprise presents are “huge” for a few reasons.

“The One Nova Scotia Report is first of all a call to action around revitalizing Nova Scotia’s economy and so when we’re talking about that, the social enterprise sector can do a number of things for us,” Gaynor says.

She goes on to note that businesses generate economic productivity, which is an opportunity in and of itself.

“Second, social enterprises are compelling businesses because the product is a social good and so they become an attractant to Nova Scotia for individuals who are looking for that type of opportunity in the workforce.”

Gaynor also notes the draw that social enterprises poses for the province’s young people “who are telling us that they are looking for opportunities to be involved in work that is meaningful and creates good within their communities.”

Finally, as a public health professional, Gaynor sees the opportunity to address complex issues with an “outside-of-the-box” approach through engaging the social enterprise sector.

“The reason I get excited about that is that it creates the opportunity for us to do some fundamentally different things about complex problems that have dogged us for decades in some cases.”

Looking ahead, Gaynor proposes that much of the social enterprise talent in Nova Scotia is hidden. “The critical piece will be to elevate that, showcase it and invite the wisdom that’s there to help us tackle these complex problems that are named in the One NS report,” she says.

“The more we can get Nova Scotians seeing the benefits and the potential of social enterprise, the better the conversations will be, the better the solutions that get generated around them in Nova Scotia.”

David’s report identified six action items that can help advance the social enterprise sector and thereby the province.

“We thought those were all doable requests, places that the government could start to collaborate (within) that, in this severe financial crisis, wouldn’t cause undue stress on the treasury but would in fact help improve the treasury situation as it relates to the social cause,” David says.

The six action items include:

1. Program Access: Ensure social enterprises in Nova Scotia can access provincial government programming now available to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
2. Sector Co-creation: Create a collaborative structure for ongoing co-creation of the sector that draws on the Scottish model of sector development.
3. Buy Social: Become a Buy Social Canada Purchaser to facilitate pan-departmental purchasing from social enterprise in Nova Scotia.
4. Legislation: The Nova Scotia Societies Act as currently written complicates the operations of many social enterprises in Nova Scotia. There is a need to remove the statement, “the Society will not carry on a business, including a non-profit business” and/or to replace it with a more progressive statement that recognizes the social and economic impact of social enterprise activity. There is also a need to finalize the Community Interest Company regulations and ensure they are operational.
5. Sector Building: Collaborate on capacity building and convening the social enterprise sector to support its development and expansion to new geographic areas and new industries.
6. Social Finance Development:
   1. Resolve existing gaps in social innovation and impact investment through the creation of tools such as the Social Impact Fund, patient capital, slow money, and Quebec’s Fiducie du Chantier de l’économie sociale model.
   2. Change the order of security in the provincial loan guarantee program so that government guarantee becomes primary security for non-profit social enterprise and organization assets become second security. There is also a need to expand vendors of this program to better serve rural areas of the province.

This article was originally posted by www.axiomnews.com on December 4, 2014 and appears here with permission.

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Michelle Strutzenberger brings more than 10 years of experience in writing, social media, curation and digital distribution. Subject areas of interest include creating abundant or deep communities, social-mission business, education that strengthens kids’ sense of hope and possibility and journalism that helps society create its preferred future. She is currently supporting the development of Axiom News podcasts. Contact Michelle at michelle at axiomnews.com.