Local Futures

  • Home
  • Media Room
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Contact

The Economics of Happiness

Donate
Menu
  • About
    • About Local Futures
    • Who We Are
    • Founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge
    • Our History
    • Get Involved & Support Us
    • Close
  • Our Projects
    • Global to Local
      • International Alliance for Localization (IAL)
        • Join the IAL
        • IAL Members
          • IAL Member Organizations
          • IAL Listserv
        • Video Project: Voices from the IAL
      • Webinar Recordings
        • Sacred Activism in a Post-Trump World Webinar
        • Talking Climate Webinar
        • People Power: Democracy and the Economy Webinar
        • Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change Webinar
        • Bringing the Food Economy Home Webinar
        • A World Without ‘Free’ Trade: What it would look like and how to get there
        • Beyond ‘Free Trade’ – Alternatives to Corporate Rule
        • Education: Promises, Myths & Realities Webinar
        • Debt and Speculation in the Global Economy Webinar
        • A New Activism Webinar
        • Climate Change or System Change Webinar
        • Going Local Webinar
      • Animation: Going Local: the solution-multiplier
      • Insane Trade Short Film and Factsheet
        • Insane Trade! & Factsheet Translated
      • Planet Local
        • Culture
        • Eco Communities
        • Ecology
        • Health
        • Local Business & Finance
        • Local Energy
        • Local Food, Farming & Fisheries
        • Local Policy & Community Rights
        • Place-based Education
        • Sharing & Repairing
        • Planet Local Short Film Series
          • 1 – Introduction: The New Local Food Movement
          • 2 – Diverse Farming Systems
          • 3 – Local Food Webs: Exploring Systems of Distribution
          • 4 – Local Food Processors: AKA Making Delicious Food
          • 5 – Challenges & Solutions
          • 6 – Ecovillages & Networks for New Farmers
          • 7 – And Finally… Here’s a Little More Inspiration
      • Local Bites Podcast
        • Unpacking Global Empire from an Indigenous Perspective with Tyson Yunkaporta & Helena Norberg-Hodge
        • More than Just the Vegetables
        • Food Sovereignty in the Global Economy
        • Transition, Tradition, and Trade
        • Not-for-Profit Businesses
        • Love, Values, and Wellbeing Economies
        • Growing a Farmers Market from the Ground Up
        • Beautiful Places: A Conversation with Wendell Berry
        • Creating the Framework for a New Economy
        • From GDP to GNH
        • Rebuilding Healthy Communities: The Growing Ecovillage Movement
        • Seeds of Resilience, Seeds of Sovereignty
        • Why Local Ownership Matters
        • Local Alternatives to Globalized Development: A View from India
        • How to Feed the World? A Political Agroecological Approach
        • Helena Norberg-Hodge on how corporate ‘free trade’ deals threaten local communities and economies worldwide
    • Our Work in Ladakh
      • Past Work in Ladakh
        • Experiences in Ladakh 2018
        • Experiences in Ladakh 2017
      • Ancient Futures (book & film)
      • Local Futures’ History in Ladakh
        • Women’s Alliance of Ladakh
    • The Economics of Happiness
      • Economics of Happiness Conferences
      • The Film
      • DIY Economics of Happiness Workshop
    • Close
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
      • Full Events Calendar
    • Economics of Happiness Conferences
      • Past International Conferences
      • Other Past Events
    • Calendar
        • « January 2021 » loading...
          M T W T F S S
          28
          29
          30
          31
          1
          2
          3
          4
          5
          6
          7
          8
          9
          10
          11
          12
          13
          14
          15
          16
          17
          18
          19
          20
          21
          22
          23
          24
          25
          26
          27
          28
          29
          30
          31
    • Close
  • Learn & Take Action
    • Learn About Our Work
      • Learn about Globalization
      • Learn about Localization
      • Learn about Big Picture Activism
    • Activist Tools
      • COVID-19 Response: Let’s Localize Like Never Before
      • What You Can Do To Localize Right Now
      • Films for Change
      • Recommended Readings
      • Organizations for Change
      • Independent Media Sources
      • Maps of Alternatives
    • Close
  • Publications
    • Local is Our Future (latest book)
      • Endorsements for Local is Our Future
      • Translations of Local is Our Future
    • Ancient Futures (book & film)
    • The Economics of Happiness (film)
    • Translated Resources
    • Free Reading Materials
    • Films
    • Books & Other Publications
    • Newsletters & Annual Reports
    • Close
You are here: Home / Our Projects / Global to Local / Planet Local / Local Business & Finance

Local Business & Finance

Edventure Frome

UK

Edventure Frome empowers cooperative community enterprises by hosting free 10-week courses that teach groups of young adults to design and create a place-based start-up venture together. An early student team created the Welsh Mill Hub, a community center with co-working offices, a commercial kitchen, and event spaces available for hourly rental. Later cohorts used the Mill Hub space to create more enterprises….

Read more…


https://edventurefrome.org/about/us-in-2-minutes/

Equity Trust

USA

Equity Trust

Access to land is one of the biggest challenges for farmers worldwide. In the US alone, 175 acres of farmland is lost to development every hour. Equity Trust, based in New England, works with farmers and land trusts to stem this tide and develop creative solutions for preserving farms. Their approach, based on the affordable housing movement, involves transferring land ownership to a nonprofit entity and leasing land to farmers at below-market rates. The farmers continue to own their homes, buildings, and other infrastructure on the land, with a buffer against the volatility of land prices in the real estate market. Read more about Equity Trust’s work on their website, in this article by The New Food Economy, and in this Medium article.


http://equitytrust.org/farms-for-farmers/

Evergreen Cooperative Initiative

USA

Evergreen Cooperatives

The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative, in Cleveland, Ohio, is an inspiring example of community-based economic revitalization in action. Their overarching purpose is to reduce poverty and inequality by building community wealth, democratizing ownership, and creating local green jobs for residents of one of the city’s high-unemployment, low-income neighborhoods. To learn more, visit the Evergreen Cooperatives’ website.

Read more…


http://www.evgoh.com

Fair Tax Town

UK

Fair Tax Town

Fair Tax Town is the project of small business owners from a little town called Crickhowell in Wales. Fed up with the fact that a giant multinational corporation like Amazon pays less in taxes than a small local bookshop, the business owners of Crickhowell banded together to create a “corporation” that could take advantage of the same tax loopholes big multinationals regularly use. Their goal in doing so is to shed light on injustice, shame the corporate tax avoiders, and take back some power for the little guys. Read Fair Tax Town’s full story on Medium.


https://medium.com/local-futures/how-local-businesses-can-beat-the-big-boys-at-their-own-game-3595d0ea493

FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Limited

Canada

FarmWorks, incorporated in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2011, is an association whose members annually purchase shares in a diverse portfolio of local food and farming businesses. So far, members have invested more than CA$2.7 million in 95 local enterprises, and have received provincial tax credits for keeping their money close to home. Learn more on their website.


https://farmworks.ca

Fibershed

USA

Fibershed

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


http://www.fibershed.com

Fund Milwaukee

USA

Fund Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin, USA, connects investors and companies through a social network for local economy enthusiasts. Members attend festive monthly events where businesses pitch ideas requiring loans; potential investors are welcome to join, with no obligation to invest. As with Local Investing Opportunities Networks, investors and entrepreneurs negotiate the terms of their loans. For more information about Fund Milwaukee, read this article and visit their website.


fundmilwaukee.com

Geng Motor Imut

Indonesia

Kupang - Photo by Luke Robinson

Founded by six university students who love to share their knowledge of sustainable farming as much as they love traversing the countryside on motorcycles, Geng Motor Imut (GMI) – the unlikely hybrid between a motorcycle gang and a sustainable farming resource – is helping to spread inexpensive appropriate technologies and sustainable farming knowledge throughout Indonesia. GMI uses all proceeds from sales of their cheap, human-scale technology to fund activities including advocacy, community events, and a sustainable agriculture program in the local juvenile detention center. The Small is Beautiful Project has released a short, five-minute film about Geng Motor Imut as part of a series of ‘little films about big change-makers’.

Photo by Luke Robinson

Read more…


http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/gang-motor-imut-small-is-beautiful-project/

Ixpiyakok Women’s Association

Guatemala

Ixpiyakok

Founded in 1984, the Ixpiyakok Women’s Association (ADEMI) is a local food organization run by and for women and families in Guatemala’s Chimaltenango region. ADEMI originally comprised a small group of Mayan widows who wished to combat malnutrition in their community. Now, ADEMI has grown to promote the value and health benefits of ancient seed varieties, native heirloom fruits and vegetables and family gardening in over thirty communities in the region. To learn more about ADEMI, read this case study by the Equator Initiative.


https://www.equatorinitiative.org/2017/05/25/asociacion-de-mujeres-ixpiyakok-ademi-ixpiyakok-womens-association/

Local cooperatives and refugee solidarity in Lewiston, ME

USA

Local cooperatives and refugee solidarity in Lewiston, ME

In opposition to a proposed highway through poor neighborhoods, residents of Lewiston, Maine instead developed a Peoples’ Downtown Master Plan that laid the groundwork for a renaissance of cooperative development and refugee solidarity. Today the city is home to a number of community organizations and cooperatives, including New Roots, Maine’s first immigrant-owned cooperative farm; the Healthy Neighborhoods Coalition, which promotes affordable housing and green space; the Good Food Council, which promotes healthy food systems; the Raise-Op Housing Cooperative; and six other cooperatives that provide childcare, herbal medicine, compost pickup, and food. Read the full story of Lewiston’s transformation here.

Read more…


https://nonprofitquarterly.org/voices-from-the-field-immigrants-collaboration-and-co-ops-revive-a-maine-town/

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »
  • Global to Local
    • International Alliance for Localization (IAL)
      • Join the IAL
      • IAL Members
        • IAL Member Organizations
        • IAL Listserv
      • Video Project: Voices from the IAL
    • Webinar Recordings
      • Sacred Activism in a Post-Trump World Webinar
      • Talking Climate Webinar
      • People Power: Democracy and the Economy Webinar
      • Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change Webinar
      • Bringing the Food Economy Home Webinar
      • A World Without ‘Free’ Trade: What it would look like and how to get there
      • Beyond ‘Free Trade’ – Alternatives to Corporate Rule
      • Education: Promises, Myths & Realities Webinar
      • Debt and Speculation in the Global Economy Webinar
      • A New Activism Webinar
      • Climate Change or System Change Webinar
      • Going Local Webinar
    • Animation: Going Local: the solution-multiplier
    • Insane Trade Short Film and Factsheet
      • Insane Trade! & Factsheet Translated
    • Planet Local
      • Culture
      • Eco Communities
      • Ecology
      • Health
      • Local Business & Finance
      • Local Energy
      • Local Food, Farming & Fisheries
      • Local Policy & Community Rights
      • Place-based Education
      • Sharing & Repairing
      • Planet Local Short Film Series
        • 1 – Introduction: The New Local Food Movement
        • 2 – Diverse Farming Systems
        • 3 – Local Food Webs: Exploring Systems of Distribution
        • 4 – Local Food Processors: AKA Making Delicious Food
        • 5 – Challenges & Solutions
        • 6 – Ecovillages & Networks for New Farmers
        • 7 – And Finally… Here’s a Little More Inspiration
    • Local Bites Podcast
      • Unpacking Global Empire from an Indigenous Perspective with Tyson Yunkaporta & Helena Norberg-Hodge
      • More than Just the Vegetables
      • Food Sovereignty in the Global Economy
      • Transition, Tradition, and Trade
      • Not-for-Profit Businesses
      • Love, Values, and Wellbeing Economies
      • Growing a Farmers Market from the Ground Up
      • Beautiful Places: A Conversation with Wendell Berry
      • Creating the Framework for a New Economy
      • From GDP to GNH
      • Rebuilding Healthy Communities: The Growing Ecovillage Movement
      • Seeds of Resilience, Seeds of Sovereignty
      • Why Local Ownership Matters
      • Local Alternatives to Globalized Development: A View from India
      • How to Feed the World? A Political Agroecological Approach
      • Helena Norberg-Hodge on how corporate ‘free trade’ deals threaten local communities and economies worldwide
  • Our Work in Ladakh
    • Past Work in Ladakh
      • Experiences in Ladakh 2018
      • Experiences in Ladakh 2017
    • Ancient Futures (book & film)
    • Local Futures’ History in Ladakh
      • Women’s Alliance of Ladakh
  • The Economics of Happiness
    • Economics of Happiness Conferences
    • The Film
    • DIY Economics of Happiness Workshop

Sign up for our email updates

Latest Blogs

  • How to fix a food system that’s not designed to feed people

    January 19, 20211 Comment
  • Progress and the modernization of Ladakh

    December 18, 20202 Comments
  • How the World Bank helped re-establish colonial plantations

    December 2, 20202 Comments

Local is Our Future
available in Spanish

  • About
  • Contact
  • The Economics of Happiness
  • Learn & Take Action

Sign up for our email updates

Donate Now

International Society for Ecology and Culture © Copyright 2021 | site by digiflip
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok