Let’s Go Local

I’ve been a follower, and occasional advocate, of the Local Futures community for a few years now, having met the founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge, at Schumacher College in 2015. It’s an international non-profit organization dedicated to renewing ecological and social wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide. And it’s latest offering is a Localisation Action Guide, that I really like.

The guide includes 146 actions that it recommends in service of building resilient local economies and flourishing local communities. Some of the actions will be familiar if you have read my articles on There is No Planet B or Project Drawdown. What I like particularly about this is firstly that it is totally focused on localisation as the core theme to take us to a more sustainable future and secondly the way the guide is structured and accessed.

Each of the 146 actions, or tools and resources, as they are sometimes called, can be found either searching by one of six themes or by one of five actors. The themes are:

• Food

• Business

• Science

• Education

• Consumption

• Community

The actors are:

• Individuals

• Community Groups

• Governments

• Business

• Institutions

By clicking on a theme or an actor you can look at a list of actions. They are colour-coded to help with navigation. Some of the sections are a little thin in terms of volume, but there’s still plenty there to inspire. The descriptions of the actions are very straightforward and are only around 100-200 words each. And there are helpful links to some of the topics they are referring to. All in all, I found it another helpful addition to the material available to help us get into action.