I have been working with the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) off and on since 1993.  Yet, 5 years ago New Commons decided to go deep and get more involved with NESEA as a member organization and to lead into the 21st century with a new conference track called Whole Systems in Action.  Every year NESEA runs a Building Energy conference that brings together diverse disciplines of builders, developers, engineers, property management companies, and professional service providers all working in sustainable energy solutions and whole systems thinking.  The 2012  conference is March 6 - 8 at Boston Seaport World Trade Center. See more here

This year, I am the conference chair...a very intense and fabulous experience working with a cadre of over 100 NESEA members and staff to design an amazing, interactive and unique community learning experience!  The keynote speaker isn't--instead it is a "Keynote Experience" during the opening plenary with three NESEA members telling their story about what they are doing to create breakthroughs that "change the game" with sustainability.

On Tuesday night I will be leading the Community Forum, which is open to the public.  This is a highly interactive forum that asks deep questions about vision and practice for our communities around sustainable building and energy. We have some key questions about:

• What do you want to learn at BuildingEnergy 2012?
• How are you creating change?

We have 10 tracks this year, and our key interest is in Whole Systems in Action:  where we look at not only the built environment, but how it intersects with teams, communities, cities, villages and the ecosystem!

Here are the 10 tracks which offer something for every discipline:

Track 1: Renewable Energy
Track 2: Single Family Residential - New and Retrofit
Track 3: Boston Society of Architects - Residential Design
Track 4: Multi-family Buildings - New and Retrofit
Track 5: Commercial Buildings: Campus and Community
Track 6: Commercial Buildings: Health Care
Track 7: What the Pros Want to Know
Track 8: Green Financing  & Game Changers
Track 9 : High Performance Mechanicals & Renewable Heating
Track 10: Whole Systems in Action

Come to the conference to see WSIA in action and see how innovation in today's building and development is creating a more sustainable present and future for our region. Click here for more conference information and to register.

Some highlights for the conference include:

Wednesday 3/7:Green Venture Capital with Zaid Ashai of Point Judith Capital
This session will focus on Clean Technology investments for Point Judith Capital, including investments in companies like Earth Aid, Nexamp and Power Assures. Attendees will learn what venture capitalists are looking for and the kinds of opportunities they are funding.

See here for a full listing of Wednesday's sessions

Thursday 3/8: Finding Your Place in the Next Economy, with John Abrams, John Cavanaugh Terry Mollner
Our economy is based on constant growth, but the growth economy is likely to skid to a halt (or it may have already done so). Many are working on the transition to a new steady-state economy, but what will it mean for us? John Abrams will convene a conversation with several leading practitioners and advocates for the New Economy.

See here for a full listing of Thursday's sessions

 

NESEA 2012 Building Energy conference is the place to be for anyone interested in sustainability. Do plan to attend at least 1 day of the conference if not all three. Click here for more conference information and to register.

Transformational Economic Development

The profession of economic development was born in the 70’s to develop methods for attracting companies and jobs to a municipality or state. Times and conditions have changed and the profession has not.

This manifesto is a call, among economic development professionals, for the use of a fresh set of ideas and practices to guide the future of our economies.  The manifesto is not a demand to let go of the past, but rather juxtapose the future and the past as creative tension of the opposites.

A Manifesto

Robert Leaver New Commons

Scott Gibbs Economic Development Foundation of RI

Context for This Manifesto

NEDA held its 54th annual conference in Providence, RI, October 17 to 19, 2010. The theme was “Transformational Leadership in Economic Development.” It was designed to seed continuous conversation about the transformation of the profession and NEDA.  The entire conference was recorded and transcribed as a 78 page summary. This draft manifesto was inspired by conducting content analysis of what was said by presenters and participants.

Two words require explanation. Transform is to change the form or give a new form to something; in effect, change the substance, character or disposition of something – in this case economic development.  A manifesto is a public declaration about changing something that matters to you. Manifesto comes from the Italian “caught in the act, flagrant.” In effect, a manifesto is a coming-out.

Based on this manifesto, each community will be challenged to tailor, rooted in its own values and conditions, two things.  First, public policies – statements of what ought to happen. Second, local practices or what has to happen to change the game of economic development.

This manifesto challenges us to tell a new story for the future of economic development.

Current Reality of Economic Development

We know some economic development stakeholders are trying to change course. But as a general observation, the predominance of economic development activity is rooted in the old economy. The focus is still using old economic development practices, e.g., recruitment of capital through business attraction and economic development incentives. There is too much use of low-road strategies such as lowering business costs and regulatory relief. The focus of investment is hard capital instead of people as human capital. Absent of research supporting the efficacy of this approach, and an estimated $50 billion spent in economic development incentives annually, we really have to ask the question, what are we doing?

This Call to Action

The manifesto is a call to action to reinvent the way we think and behave about fostering economic health. This call to action demands true leadership from us, including the ability to integrate into economic policy formulation fresh questions. It requires the ability to break away from the economic development pack and do things differently.  It requires us to be willing to depoliticize economic development and build an inclusive, collaborative, and knowledge-based community dialogue concerning the future of our local, state, and regional economies. It requires us to focus on long-term transformational strategies and look away from the desire for short-term, incentive-driven quick fixes. It requires us to be aware of our propensity to develop economic development institutions instead of what we need: economic development systems or networks. And finally let us build economic development cultures that are value-based, not strategy blinded.

Motives – are what drive change

The conditions of the 1970’s that defined the profession of economic development have changed. Chris Martenson told us in Providence in October 2010: “The next 20 years is going to be completely unlike the last 20 years.”

• The motives, or drivers of change, are framed as what-if questions born from the issues discussed in last year’s NEDA conference:WWhat if the economy does not resume growth at a compounded rate? What does that mean to our financial institutions, and the capacity of our public sectors to provide adequate services?
• What if the cost of energy continues its upward trajectory (notwithstanding its continual fluctuations)?
• Our economic system must grow, but how to do it in a resource-constrained world of less energy...less natural resources...less money?
• What if the gulf between the haves and have-nots continues to widen? Stated otherwise, what if we continue to witness the decline of the middle-class?
• What if we continue to experience increasing economic change and volatility? How do we react to increasing mobility of capital, and declining product/company lifecycles?
• What if manufacturing is a future growth industry?
• What if what we are experiencing is the new normal?

None of us has the answer to any of these questions. We all know we are experiencing a fundamental change in our competitive environment.  And this fundamental change demands different approaches to facilitating economic health (notice, we didn’t use the term economic growth). We need a redesign in the face of increasing economic globalization and financial risks...continued depletion of our natural resources...concerns over environmental degradation...failure to develop our people...are all risks that cannot be ignored.

Vision – an achievable dream of what has to be different for economic development

• Integrate economic and community development.  Build the capacity of a local community to be resilient to adverse shocks and include diverse stakeholders at the table.
• Ensure that business drives economic development.  And that business has staying power when elected officials change.
• Advance the profession as a profession in the eyes of the public, especially politicians
• Evolve three new economic development roles: manager of serendipity, educate/cultivate conveners and coordinate and accelerate networks.
• Bring young people into the profession...young people who don’t think like the elders and use technology in effective and creative ways.
• Redesign the business model for economic development to get paid differently than only using tax money. Develop entrepreneurial/earned income funding models that do not rely on the public dollar alone.  Develop funding models that reward collaborative behavior, such as sharing credit, across silos.

Values – taking a stand on what really matters

Foster value-based leadership to evolve economic development professionals. These values are fundamental to shaping the future of economic development, programs, organizations and systems.

• Use crowd-sourced innovation and not internalized innovation. Capability solutions are now global.
• Live a stakeholder-drive, ethical mindset and not stockholder mindset...do what is best for the local community.
• Collaborate among diverse partners through continuous dialogue and not control and credit.
• Use systems and networks and not stand-alone organizations. Rely on intangible assets such as trusted relationships as the competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is now about connecting people, processes and ideas in combinations that are not replicable.
• Work with economic development predicaments and not problems. Problems have known or achievable solutions, while predicaments have outcomes not yet known. Predicaments need to be mitigated, as there is no 100% fix as there often is no solution. To face our predicaments, we must mount many experiments because we can’t predict which ones will take hold.  
• Rely on Information/knowledge to make an effective case and not opinions and anecdotal information...and foster transparency and metrics and not hubris and self-promotion.
• Use a pull-strategy focus and not a push-strategy.

Creative Tensions – opposing ideas to hold at the same time

These “opposite” ideas have to be held in our minds at the same time without getting seduced into letting one side go in favor of the other. Each pair is a creative tension, where one side is more familiar and historically used in economic development. With each pair, one side is newer to the economic development profession. It will take a lot of heavy lifting to keep the newer idea in our minds.

• Short-term thinking...Long-term thinking
• Transactions...Transformations
• State focused...Regionally focused
• Political....Transparency, equal access
• Old organizations...new organizations
• Attraction of companies from elsewhere...grow local companies from the inside through “economic gardening”
• Fixed-capital investment…human-capital investment
• Strategic planning…vision/mission/value acculturation

The intent of these creative tensions is not to imply that they are mutually exclusive, but rather to emphasize that it is a question of balance or learning how to stand in the tension of the opposites. For example, let’s not lose our ability to do transactions, but strive to continually transform at the same time.

Post 1: The Digital City of 2025

With the advent of broadband access, in the next 14 years, our sense of place and our experience of democracy can either explode for the good, or implode.  I am on the side of “exploding”.

The explosion of digitized information over the next 10 to 15 years will shape the urban landscape like no other period in human history.  The melding of advancing nano-technology with the demand for biological innovation will generate a dominant field of Bio-Tech and create fertile places to unfold -through trial and error – frontiers where the essence of democracy is “on trial.”  One developing area is the use of molecular sized nano-bots that are placed inside the human body for research or for treatment. The National Cancer Institute recently wrote: “Nanotechnology allows researchers to study cancer in its earliest stages of progression, enabling early detection and development of novel therapies to target the disease.” 

There will be many big stress points to overcome if urbanization, digitization and democracy are to mesh, creating cities of inclusion for even the poorest and most disconnected citizens.  We are moving from expanding wireless access to a focus on teaching digital literacy to the as-yet disconnected.  This inclusive environment will be constructed upon emerging technology. The fabric of the city will be sewn together using fiber optics of 4G Broadband, and visual interactive displays will become commonplace in the communities, allowing for universal access.  The firepower of computation will move toward centralization, with robust cloud-computing that will drastically reduce user costs and the dumping of tech-waste tools into our landfills.  Open data systems will empower marginalized inhabitants by shedding light on large volumes of government/civic data.  This transparency will not come without risks, however.

Privacy and transparency have always sparred in the shadow of tension.  The new world technology will ratchet up the strain.  Protection of personal information being one of the primary concerns of everyday citizens, the success of the Digital City of 2025 could very well hinge on the critical question: Who controls the data?  There are other points of conflict that will need to be addressed, such as the knowledge gap of the impoverished /disconnected; e.g., the disabled vs. the wealthy.  Data collection is frequently the easy piece of the puzzle, while making sense (use) of the information is the real challenge. 

The digital city of 2025 will not be the idyllic utopia that many suggest it will be.  Rather it could be a place where innovation and prosperity can be nurtured, if we search for common ground among the competing tensions that are intrinsic, to further our democracy in an increasingly complex society.

10 Core Ideas for Growing our Next Economy, Locally and Regionally

by Robert J. Leaver, V6: 2/18/11

“Something is happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear”

At the end of each century, the myths, stories and structure that supported it go away. The past does not leave gently. Many forces holding the past try mightily to keep it in place. But what must come next is a new myth, a new story and new forms to shape the next century. And the next unfolding of our culture blends what is best brought forward from the past with what must be invented for the future.

Our next economy is unfolding in unpredictable ways. The practice of segregating, too often overlapping economic sectors is a dead idea. For example, declaring a separate knowledge economy won’t fly in the future. The future is about convergence.

1. External conditions are converging

Chris Martenson in his analysis-driven “Crash Course,” challenges us to speed-up our understanding of 3 converging external conditions: economy, environmental resources and energy that, as they converge to create complex impacts, will fundamentally alter our sense of the next economy. We can no longer examine each condition alone. Instead, examine them together – one gestalt with massive impacts.

And as we respond to converging conditions, we must put into the world "many experiments to find our way forward, because we don’t know what will stick.” “The next 20 years will be nothing like the past 20 years,” so let go of our old assumptions. We need fresh designs. “The way forward requires us to embrace, even stand in our predicaments knowing the fresh outcomes we require will not come quickly or easily.”

The way forward will be less about assumed economic growth and more about: less energy use; less use of natural resources and less economic growth or as Chris says, plan on “reliable economic shrinkage.”  All 3 reductions in use are foreign to our psyche because they are less assumed growth than the past or take away and are not added growth. Thus, we have to learn to handle the creative tension between growth – an unsustainable construct – and conservation, especially the less use of everything.

2. The next economy is an economy of convergence

The next economy will integrate 4 historical economic elements, but blend and morph them in ways we are yet to fathom. The four elements: Grow food that is real and produced regionally…Make things…Yes, manufacturing is in the next economy game, albeit smaller and smarter…Serve people with grace…Create experiences that open our senses and souls.

There is not now, nor ever has there been, or will there ever be a separate…creative economy, knowledge economy, technology economy, or sustainable/green economy. The only economy there has ever been…ever will be…integrates the 4 core economic elements of food, things, service, or experience.

That said, going forward, our four economic building blocks require infusion of creativity…aesthetics…knowledge…technology…and sustainability/green…again in ways we can’t predict.

The i-Pod for listening to music exemplifies the presence of the confluence economy…it is made/manufactured… it is small, thus ecological…it is an experience…it is technology…it embeds knowledge. The i-Pod is not owned by an economic sector…and more and more of what we create will be about the unpredictable confluence of economic elements.

3. Make character and place central

The next economy will be first about a symbiotic relationship among four place-based elements. First, character of people…the desired character/culture of the place…Second, the ecology – don’t trash it. Third, unfold the economy that honors the ecology and evolves the character of the place. And fourth, build the built environment of creating buildings, sewers and so on that is in service to future character, ecology and economy. The four elements are a whole system in action.

The future economy will be less about new industrial parks and corporate office parks. It will be more about cultivating our cities and villages because they are “more naturally sustainable.” Further, the density of such places creates an entrepreneurial culture where ideas and talent circulate, combine, and eventually combust as the companies that will shape the next economy.

4. Think and act locally and regionally

Attend to the financial impact of the local economic multiplier. Money spent in the local economy has power. With each dollar spent at Starbucks, 38 cents circulates locally. Take that same dollar, spent locally at an independent coffee shop like Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street in Providence, and it circulates locally 73 cents…or twice as much. Buy local does matter to the economy as long is it not a protectionist strategy.

Embrace our “funky” region in Southeastern NE: This region ranges from…Cape Cod with Martha’s Vineyard and Provincetown…roams along Route 6 through New Bedford and Fall River…travels through RI…then up to Worcester…then over to eastern CT…and finally up through the Pioneer Valley. This funky place is real because it is chock-full of people who are characters and places with character…and getting to any portion of it is under a 2-hour drive from Providence.

The next economy for Southern New England will be local and regional…we will trade goods and services across municipal and state lines…yes our economy will continue to cross formal municipal boundaries. Our regional economy will likely evolve in waves.

The likely first wave could include: Broadband access… this is well underway with more to come…go to OSHEAN.org/Beacon 2, where OSHEAN, using federal BTP resources matched with private money will invest 32 million dollars in broadband infrastructure for community anchor institutions such as libraries. Next in wave one is food production and transportation. For example, in Burlington, Vermont, the Intervale produces 8% of local food needs and has a huge composting business as well. Next are art and cultural experiences – currently, people travel across state lines to have these experiences.

The likely second wave of the next economy includes regional tourism…seeds of this are already present and the formation of renewable energy production operated by local cooperatives.  

The likely third wave includes developing complex regional infrastructure like regional transit and the significant trading of goods across borders. And a real focus on public learning…separate state public college systems are not sustainable…UMass Dartmouth is closer to Providence than Kingston, RI. 

(see my talk at the Bioneers workshop in 2010 for more ideas and references: Bioneers, 2010)

5. Entrepreneurs will create what is next

We have to rethink our typical approach to infrastructure: make water – we are going to need it…Most places have way too many cars; create new on-demand forms of transit such as bicycles, Pedi-cabs and so on.  Make homes differently: As John Abrams of South Mountain Company tells us: “We have 25 years of energy re-work to do on existing buildings… 50% of our current buildings will still be with us in 25 years.”  How to make more houses for more people in tighter spaces in cities and towns… the era of the single family house is coming to an end. 

Community activists, artists, and immigrants will become small increment commercial developers in neighborhoods like restoring a three-decker house with a shop on the first floor and two living spaces above, and the owner occupies one floor.

6. Animate our sense of place

Emphasize the creation of place-defining, character building experiences in all neighborhoods through business: coffee houses, green grocers and boutique hotels. Create 21st century (non-public) education that turns kids into adults with minds and hearts that will create the next articulation of democracy.

Create many new access points for citizens to the real community news and stories from the streets.

7. Offer requisite “smart” goods and services

In the home-based micro lending area we need: caterers, house-cleaning cooperatives, and childcare cooperatives are essential for healthy neighborhoods, especially in depressed parts of cities.  Develop urban gardening within 5-to-10 miles of a city or town…As noted earlier, in Burlington, Vermont, the Intervale produced in 2006, 8% of Burlington’s food and had a 1.2 million dollar composting business. 

In business services, develop worker owned administrative and marketing cooperatives to organize all the independent professional contractors/creators and relieve them of the administrative work so they can concentrate on their craft. Wherever there is a group of individual professional service providers – those that file a 1099 (as self-employed) – there is an opportunity to build a business/marketing cooperative.

Pursue at-risk kids who get into trouble often but have entrepreneurial energies. Transform their energy and skill into useful capitalistic pursuits.  Riverzedge Arts Project in Woonsocket is doing this now! Learn from them and borrow what works for your community.

Waste has value: Currently the Johnston RI landfill uses the compost it creates as cover for the landfill – a business opportunity looking for an entrepreneur…collecting/reusing/reselling all of the good stuff people leave on the sidewalks for the trash collector each week. 

8. Do economic gardening

There are 3 strategies for growing an economy: one is outside-in by attracting businesses from elsewhere…most now acknowledge this as stealing and a zero sum game… 2 are inside-out strategies: grow what you got…start new companies. One inside-out strategy is “economic gardening”, a new, third approach to economic development – pioneered in Littleton, Colorado, in the early 90’s and now practiced in dozens of communities – focuses exclusively on growing local, high growth companies. Focus on high-growth potential companies defined as having at least $1 million annual revenue.

In 10 years, Littleton tripled its employment and increased the tax base 2.5 fold…and did do so without one dollar in tax incentive such as subsidies or tax breaks – historically, incentives and subsidies are common government practices for luring companies to leave one state to come to another.

For high growth companies, economic gardening mobilizes…without using any financial incentives: 1. Access to the market intelligence big companies get   2. Access to best practices for building 21st century companies 3. Connect growth companies so learning from each other fosters a culture of entrepreneurship to help companies rapidly grow to scale.

As an inside out strategy, in Southern New England, economic gardening could have two applications: Accelerating existing high growth companies and starting new entrepreneurial companies.

9. Cultivate the next generation of leaders

Many next generation leaders, not just "young" or 20 somethings, yearn to be more mobile and have flexible worktime/ playtime.  They search for the place that speaks to them and want to leave the world better than they found it--and that is the difinition of  "next generation" it is an ethos not just an age. These people are birthing social enterprises counter to the government grant/philanthropic mindset as the only means to solving social problems…this "next" generation is leading this charge.  Consider the L3C – consciously low profit LLC that first holds a social purpose with profit motive second…pay taxes on it all…operational in 8 states and 2 tribes and not just in typically liberal states…Vermont is the pioneer.  Or consider the B-Corp…no official IRS tax status like C and S Corps…You rate your business against standards and formally change your articles of incorporation to more broadly serve diverse stakeholders…Maryland and VT are the first states to recognize B-Corps.

Or factor in the full expression of independence such as self employment as a new path. In NYC, 1 in 4 people working files a 1099 with the IRS as self-employed. Now think of Providence as a comparable place with the same kind of stats where 1099’s are not counted in the workforce because the state of RI counts only those on a W-2.

Or that young people prefer to form temporary informal “companies” composed of a bunch of 1099’s…they see an opportunity, come together…get it done…disband….reform with new folks to pursue the next opportunity.

10. The next economy will be driven by different agents of change

Small business more than big corporations will shape the next economy. Entrepreneurs – commercial, social and civic – working at various scales and in diverse disciplines will be more front and center for at least the next decade. An entrepreneur launches a business without having all of the resources lined up at the start.  Instead he or she mobilizes requisite resources as they go.

And immigrant entrepreneurs will be front and center in this entrepreneurial revolution.

(c) 2011, Robert J. Leaver, New Commons

In 2011, I decided to put more good stuff into the world – both mine and the work of others.  This posting features 3 topics that I will speak about regularly this year:

• Whole Systems in Action: Why you need to get involved with the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
• Sustainability Matters: 2 essays I wrote on sustainable RI and a green Providence
• The Next Economy: papers, thinkers, and links about what is next!
  

Whole Systems in Action: The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association

From March 8 to 10, 2011, the professional community of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association will convene its annul Building Energy Conference at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston .  It will be the 35th gathering of thousands of engineers, builders, architects, planners and whole systems thinkers who are constantly creating new edges in thinking and practice about renewable energy, high performing buildings and sustainable urbanism.  It is one big learning community you need to be part of.

By participating in the conference, your mind is stretched; skills sharpened and you get to meet some cool people.  I have been associated with this tribe of great people since 1993.  It is one of my three professional communities that help define me and keep me pumped.

This year, David Orr will be the keynote speaker.   His current project is to transform the town of Oberlin, Ohio into a sustainable town.  The Whole Systems in Action track is a collaborative production among me and some of my closest friends in NESEA. This year, I will be closing the track presentations on March 10, 2011 with “Villages and Cities as the Next Frontier.”  This session features the work of James Hillman and his papers, which I edited, in City and Soul: The Uniform Edition of the Writing of James Hillman.  

On Tuesday, March 8 evening during the Community Forum John Abrams of South Mountain Company and author of The Companies We Keep and I will host a conversation on whole systems in action – in our work teams, our buildings and places.  We will provoke the conversation and then turn the room in to one big learning café with many small groups debating and sharpening their thinking.

Sustainability Matters: Sustainable RI, Green Providence

I just finished 2 essays on the future of RI and the future of Providence.  The “Sustainable Tax Credit” argues for the state to grant tax incentives for turning buildings into high performing, energy efficient ones.  And do this instead of reviving the historic tax credit.   Sustainable Tax Credit (55 kB) to download.

The second essay, “Providence as a Green City” puts forward a provocative design for the I-Way land under the old 195.  Instead of putting up ”regular” buildings, parks and so on, design the entire 19.2 acres as a self-contained ecosystem based on 21st century thinking and practice about sustainable buildings and places. For example, the place would have its own renewable energy sources. And by doing so, Providence is put on the map as a green city.   Providence as a Green City (64 kB) to download or see the post on EcoRI.com

And feel free to pass these essays along to others.

The Next Economy

The next economy will be different than anything we have known before. And by the way I no longer believe there is anything such as a creative economy...a knowledge economy.  Instead it will be an economy of convergence where creativity and knowledge and much more will inform the food we grow, the stuff we make, how we serve people and the experiences people want.

Here you can check out my favorite websites and thinkers as well as brose through a “library” of papers.  

You can also read my new essay, which is still a work in progress, “Growing the Next Economy, Locally and Regionally .”

Comment below or join me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Leaver/100001456206291

Workshop at Bioneers: Growing our Next Economy, Locally and Regionally

Robert J. Leaver, New Commons, 10/22/10

Our next economy will converge and unfold…the practice of economic sectors is dying…External conditions are converging…

The next 20 years will be nothing like the last 20 years, so let go of our old assumptions. We need fresh designs. The way out will not be through problem solving, that is a solution readily seen and applied. The way forward requires us to embrace, even stand in our predicaments knowing fresh outcomes are required, but they will not come quickly or easy.  Chris Martenson in his data-driven “Crash Course”, challenges us to accelerate our understanding of how 3 external conditions are converging: economy, environment and energy. We can no longer examine each condition in isolation – we must examine them together. And we will need many experiments to find our way forward.

The way forward will be predicated on not assuming a growth trajectory…instead there will be: less energy use, less use of natural resources and less economic growth, even ongoing decline or as Chris says, plan on “reliable economic shrinkage.” All 3 shifts are foreign to our psyche because they “take away/are not additive growth.”  Thus, we have to learn how to handle the creative tension between growth – an unsustainable construct – and conservation, especially less use of everything?

The next economy…will integrate our 4 historical economic elements, but blend and morph them in new ways:

• Grow food
• Make things
• Serve people
• Create experiences

Caveat: there is not now, nor ever been or will there ever be, a separate…creative economy, knowledge economy or sustainable/green economy.  The only economy there has ever been or ever will be has something to do with one or more of the four elements:  food, things, service, or experience.  That said going forward our four economic building blocks must be significantly infused with a mix of creativity…aesthetics…knowledge…technology…and sustainability/green….the i-Pod is an example

Character and place are now central…The next economy will be about the symbiotic relationship among the character of people…the character/culture of the place…the ecology and the built environment like buildings, sewers and so on. It is a whole system in action.

In this economy, place matters more than transactions. That said a vibrant place will accelerate transactions.
The future economy will be less about building new industrial parks and corporate office parks…It will be more about cultivating places such as cities and villages as the centers because they are “more naturally sustainable.”

Further, their density creates an entrepreneurial atmosphere where ideas and talent can circulate, combine, divide and, eventually, combust into the next economy.

Think Locally and Regionally…
The local multiplier…Money spent in the local economy has a powerful effect.  Of each dollar spent at Starbucks, 38 cents circulates locally.  That same dollar at an independent coffee shop circulates 73 cents locally, or twice as much. Official “buy Local” programs are essential to educate consumers about the availability and quality of local products, and to communicate the benefits to the regional economy.

New England as a “funky” region…This funky region begins on Cape Cod with Martha’s Vineyard and Provincetown, roams through New Bedford and Fall River, travels throughout RI, then up to Worcester, over to Eastern CT…and finally up through the Pioneer Valley.  This place is funky because it is full of people who are characters and places with lots of character…and any portion of it is a 2-hour drive from Providence.  The next economy for Southern New England will be local and regional…we will actually trade goods and services across municipal and state lines…yes our economy will cross formal boundaries

Our regional economy will most likely evolve in waves:

First wave is most likely:

• Broadband access…well in place with more to come
• Food production and transportation 
• Art and cultural experiences

The second wave is most likely:

• Tourism…seeds of this are already present
• Renewable energy production

Third wave is most likely:

• Developing complex regional infrastructure like transit
• Trading of goods
• Learning…our separate state public college systems are not sustainable…UMass Dartmouth is closer to Providence than Kingston 

One major part of our future economy will be worker cooperatives.

Use Economic Gardening…
There are 3 strategies for growing an economy: one outside in by attracting businesses from elsewhere… and the second, inside out strategies: grow what you got…start new companies.  One of the inside out strategies is “economic gardening”, a new approach to economic development – pioneered in Littleton, Colorado, in the 90’s and now practiced in dozens of communities – focuses exclusively on growing local, high growth companies. High growth potential companies are defined by having at least $1 million annual revenue.  In 10 years, Littleton tripled its employment and increased the tax base 2.5 fold…and did do so without one $ in tax incentive such as subsidies or tax breaks – both common government practices for luring companies to leave one state and come to another.

Economic gardening is an inside out economic development strategy which can compliment business attraction – the “outside-in” strategy.

As an inside out strategy, in Southern New England, economic gardening could have two applications:

• Accelerating existing high growth companies
• Starting new entrepreneurial companies

For high growth companies, economic gardening mobilizes…without using any financial incentives…

• Access to the market intelligence big companies get
• Access to best practices for building 21st century companies
• Connect growth companies together to learn from each other…fosters a culture of entrepreneurship to help these companies grow more rapidly to scale

Cultivate the Next Generation…Create “Jobs” in diverse forms
The next economy for Southern New England, as research shows, will be less about jobs provided by a company and more about:

• Creating work and wealth via self employment
• Creating temporary companies composed of self employed people operating in temporary, project-based “companies” and virtual networks

And the next economy will be mostly about small business than big corporations. It will be driven by entrepreneurs – commercial, social and civic – working at various scales and in diverse disciplines.

On Friday, November 5, 2010 New Commons attended the Social Enterprise of RI conference 2010.  Robert led a conversation about the Next Economy and started with a few provocations--okay about 20 minutes of provocations--but folks went with it. Then we split up into three intimate cafe conversations to take the provocations further. 

The groups convened to discuss, challenge and augment the following topics:

• New Forms of Housing
• Regional Food Systems
• Regional Communications to further Education

We'll post the notes later, but do tell us more about how the next economy (what is coming) is evolving in your communtiy now! It is okay to chat about the resistance, idealists, and what remains constant and what must change!  Remember, every system (community, economic, social,etc.) must declare what sacred value remains unchanged. 

Perhaps that value is in...(you fill in the sacred value).

PreservationMovie (4.46 MB) Click on the screen to play each frame.

Please join us here online in conversation.  You can pick one of the earlier 5 questions.  Or you can talk about something you are carrying from the conference on 4-23-09 that got you thinking that future of preservation will be very different from the past?  Something about the look of future farms?  Rebirth of villages where you work, learn, play and live?  Or...?

 

 

 

Rising sea level, the urbanization of America and the world, and rising energy prices, are major conditions impacting how we think about and how we will design our next buildings and create whole places.

Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) pulls together the diverse disciplines of builders, developers, engineers, property management companies, and professional service providers.  I thought that you would find valuable resources at this conference to help you more effectively understand and handle these environmental conditions as they impact the creation of healthy buildings and places.

In addition, for the past 34 years, this group has been home to the best talent in the northeast regarding high performing/green buildings, renewable energy, and sustainable transportation. What sets NESEA apart is its commitment to solutions, proven results, pioneering technology, and collaborative whole systems thinking.  I have worked with these good folks off-and-on since 1994 and have found them to be an exceptional resource and a remarkable professional association of practitioners.  Currently, I am working on strategy and governance with them.

Every March, NESEA puts on its Building Energy (BE) conference in Boston for over 3,000 professional practitioners.  Couple of highlights from this year's program:

• Conference theme is: Real Solutions. Real Experts. Tuesday, March 10 to Thursday, March 12, 2009 Boston MA.  Checkout: www.BuildingEnergy.nesea.org for the conference program. 

• This year's keynote talk on "Deep Energy Retrofits of Existing Buildings" will be delivered by Marc Rosenbaum, a colleague of ours since the early 90's. 

• A variety of tracks to weave the conference together.  I co-designed Whole Systems in Action, track 7, along with some of New Commons' closest NESEA colleagues:  John Abrams, Amelia Amons, Paul Lipke, Bill Reed and Jamie Wolf (see our bios here). We all plan to deliver a highly practical and interactive program.  Our aim is to raise the level of understanding and the practice of whole systems collaboration.  This one tool will help us all more effectively handle climate change and the reality that oil levels are at post-peak.    Click here to see our track content: http://buildingenergy.nesea.org/trackseven.php

I hope to see you at NESEA-BE09.  It will be worth your time!

Do you think that sounds melodramatic? Let me give it to you from the abstract of a scientific paper written earlier this year by one of the people who now work for Mr. Obama, NASA scientist James Hansen. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleo-climate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 [in the atmosphere] will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm." In other words, if we keep increasing carbon any longer, the earth itself will make our efforts moot.

The world is meeting in Copenhagen in December of 2009 to come up with a successor to the Kyoto treaty, the modest first international effort that George W. Bush walked away from weeks after taking office. If Hansen and others are even close to right, this will represent the last legitimate shot the world has at putting itself on a new carbon regime in time to make any difference.

Any hope of succeeding will require Obama to grasp, deep in his guts, the fact that climate, energy, food, and the economy are now hopelessly intertwined, and that trying to solve any one of these problems without taking on the others simply makes all of them worse. More, he needs to understand, again viscerally, the single stark fact of our time: No matter how many votes, no matter how much lobbying, no matter how much pressure you apply, you can't amend the laws of physics and chemistry. They aren't like the laws that politicians are used to dealing with. They will be obeyed, like it or not. 350 is now the most important number on the planet, the red line that defines reality reality.

It doesn't define political reality, however. The political reality goes like this: George W. Bush was so terrible on this issue that the bar has been set incredibly low - Obama will get all the political points he needs with fairly minimal effort. Doing what actually needs to be done will be politically...unpopular isn't even the word. It might well wreck his political future, because it would involve - directly or indirectly - raising the cost of continuing to live as we do right now.

My guess, from the outside, is that all Obama's instincts are centrist. Certainly in energy policy he's offered nothing all that bold or interesting, though his sophistication and engagement have grown during the campaign, which is a good sign.

A better sign is simply that, by every testimony, he's one of the smartest men ever to assume high political office in this country. Not just smarter than Bush. Really smart. Smart enough, if he sits down to really understand the scale of the problem he faces, that he might decide to take the gambles that the situation requires. He said, not long ago, "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" - which is a sign of someone who is aware there may be a reality to come to grips with.

First sign to watch for: Does he go to Poland next month for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and in so doing electrify the international talks over carbon?

All of us, you and I and all our partners, have been hard at work to collect over 44,000 invitations for President-elect Obama to attend that meeting.  We have heard him say he's interested and will at the least send a high level representative next month.

Obama, and the rest of us, have a lot more to fear than fear itself. We've got carbon, and right now that's the most frightening stuff on earth. Nonetheless, we're feeling inspired and hopeful about the new possibilities that exist after this election - for the US and for the world. It's now up to us to make sure the steps for Obama and for our global movement are laid out in rapid succession.  The next step is in Poland: www.350.org/invite

We're in this together,

Bill McKibben

click here for the orginal article