The Economics of Happiness
Cargonomia takes a fun approach to shrinking food miles with three separate projects: an organic vegetable farm (Zsamboki Biokert), a do-it-yourself bicycle cooperative (Cyclonomia), and a self-managed bike delivery company (Kantaa). The three come together to create an urban food distribution hub that uses locally-manufactured cargo bikes to deliver locally-grown food across Budapest. To learn more, visit Cargonomia’s website.
The global fashion industry is responsible for a disproportionately high amount of the world’s carbon emissions. Localizing our garments may wind up being as important a task as localizing our food or water supplies. Hence, Fibershed – a network of over 100 farmers, ranchers, weavers, spinners, and designers across 19 counties in Northern California, creating an integrated garment-producing system where all materials are sourced from within a 150-mile radius. Fibershed makes localization fun with annual “wool symposia”, a fashion gala, and hands-on educational curricula for children to learn about bioregions and restoration ecology – including the use of regenerative farming practices to sequester carbon in the soil. It’s the first initiative of its kind, but Fibershed is actively involved in helping other groups of farmers and artisans create their own regional fiber systems. Learn more from Fibershed’s website and this profile by YES! Magazine.
Photo by Paige Green
Maya Pedal is a Guatemalan NGO that turns used bicycles into a variety of pedal-powered machines for use by households and small farms.
Passa ao Futuro is a Portuguese association working to preserve the cultural heritage of Portuguese craftspeople, drawing on the wisdom of the past for a sustainable future.
When woodworker Chris Holmgren learned that 3.8 billion board feet of usable wood is cut down and discarded annually in the US – equal to 1/3 of the country’s hardwood timber harvest – he knew he had to take action. He expanded his woodworking business, Seneca Creek Joinery, into a fully vertically-integrated, replicable, community-scale production facility that handles all aspects of wood processing, from dead tree removal to finished furniture. At his farm 25 miles northwest of Washington, DC, he works with the nearby city of Rockville and local tree removal companies to ensure that no local wood goes to waste. Read more about his business in our Medium article.
https://medium.com/local-futures/yard-to-table-building-a-local-wood-economy-151c45add548
Located in a protected Important Bird Area on Fiji’s Natewa Peninsula, the Sisi Initiative provides training for the local community in sustainable farming, beekeeping, baking, basketweaving, screen printing, jewelry-making and other handicrafts. Each of these projects is designed not only to build the resilience of the human community of the Natewa Peninsula, but also to serve as a reminder of how essential the biological community of the Peninsula — threatened by logging — is as well. In 2012, the Sisi Initiative won the Equator Prize, a biennial award given to community-based, rural sustainable development organizations. To learn more about the Sisi Initiative, read their Equator case study.
https://www.equatorinitiative.org/2017/05/28/i-tokani-nei-sisi-sisi-initiative-site-support-group/
Tosepan is a network of cooperatives with 35,000 members in Puebla, Mexico, dedicated to constructing a holistic, sustainable, locally- and democratically-controlled economy rooted in the indigenous culture and knowledge of the Sierra Norte. Tosepan is comprised of three civil associations and eight cooperatives, which together cover basic needs including organic ecological farming, natural building, local healthcare, decentralized renewable energy, and local finance. They also actively oppose globalization, and have successfully resisted corporate development projects including a planned Walmart. Read more about Tosepan in our article on Medium.
