Act Locally: Ten Steps Toward Sustainability -- Step 2: Support Local Business

In his new book, "The Small-Mart Revolution," Michael Shuman argues that local businesses create a vibrant local economy with more local jobs and wealth.
A strong local economy also reduces transportation, and makes it easier for a community to maintain high environmental and labor standards (local businesses won't move simply to find a place with less protective laws).

And because shorter supply lines substantially reduce emissions (most food travels 1500-2000 miles before eaten), Bill Mckibben has said that local business may "be one of the keys to containing global warming." Municipalities can support local business by implementing local purchasing preferences, instituting "buy local first" campaigns, providing local business directories and training, and removing subsidies and other benefits for non-local businesses.

Large box stores and shopping malls are a particular problem. They contain huge impervious surfaces, lead to more driving by shoppers, and result in longer supply chains in the delivery of their products. Localities can enact size ordinances limiting the size of single retail stores and shopping malls. Localities may also require that new retail stores undergo special review if they exceed a particular size, or generate substantial vehicular traffic. The Institute for Local Self Reliance has put together an excellent BigBoxToolKit to help communities keep out big box stores, or reduce their footprint.

Local business networks are cropping up around the country. For example, in the Hudson Valley in New York, the newly formed Hudson Valley Sustainable Business Network, a project of Sustainable Hudson Valley, is working on a wide range of projects to support the local economy. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies is an alliance of 37 independently operated local business networks with more than 12,000 members dedicated to building local living economies.

See also:

Act Locally: Ten Steps Toward Sustainability
What is Sustainability?
Step 1: Create a Sustainability Task Force

Comments

[sushil_yadav]

The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.

Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

Emotion ends.

Man becomes machine.

A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.

SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.

To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6

http://www.earthnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=89&page=viewtopic&t=11

sushil_yadav

[John]

Stephen:

Excellent series of posts on sustainability and local economies. In case you missed it, there is a group of growers, retailers and restaurants at LocalHarvest.org. You can search geographically to find local and organic food sources near your home.

[Ted]

I'm an accountant and found one way to support sustainability and localism is to only work with clients who use Quickbooks. Only small (and thus local) businesses use this software so I am able to find the work i want without unpleasant conversations (at least initially) about sustainability and the evils of corporations.