The document explores a new vision of economics aimed at sustainability, emphasizing a shift towards local economies, community control, and stewardship of natural resources. It discusses the role of social marketing and media literacy in changing consumption habits and suggests various ideas for transitioning to sustainable practices and well-being metrics. Additionally, it outlines the importance of social enterprises and community-based initiatives in enriching local economies and contributing to ecological and social well-being.

1. THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION
Written and Compiled by Giovanni Ciarlo and Jonathan Dawson
Content
· Module One: Shifting the Global Economy towards Sustainability
· Module Two: Community Funds, Local Currencies, and Banking
· Module Three: Right Livelihood: Jobs, and Local First Networks
· Module Four: Nurturing Local Economies and Social Enterprises
· Module Five: Legal Structures: Business Planning and Financing
Introduction
“We must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a
new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: A life-style
designed for performance.”
E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful 1973
How can we achieve living well within our means? What we are exploring in this course is not
just ways of reducing our consumption to levels that enable natural systems to self-regenerate,
but that we do so in ways that permit a high quality of life - that we live within our
means and that we live well.
A new vision of Economics will not emerge from the economic powers and mainstream
capitalist systems alone. It is not a vision to be realized only by economists or business
interests. This new vision will emerge instead from the bottom up in country after country
and village after village around the world as people learn to build and take control of their
own economic futures, find new ways to measure their own sense of well-being, learn to
manage how the Earth’s limited natural resources are to be protected and nurtured for future
generations -- after all these are our and their commons -- establish new ways to distribute
wealth and secure basic living standards and dignity for all, protect the health of labour, and
develop a sense of unique cultural and regional identity not dictated by global trends and
political strong arms.
It can be said that Sustainable Development is the equivalent of Prosperity Without Growth
(steady state). This view is rooted in traditional values, like Stewardship—The careful,
economical, long-range management of community, land, and resources. If we see ourselves
as stewards of the Earth we will act in a sustainable way and make sure that our ecosystems
and natural environments are healthy and whole, and we will design our economic activities
to those values, we will live in a sustainable way.

2. Since the advent of the Scientific Era in the sixteenth century, humans have stood apart from
the rest of nature, seeking to manipulate it for their benefit. Thus, we have learned to refer to
the natural world as ‘the environment’ and to see it, in economic terms, as little more than a
bank of resources to be transformed into products for human use and pleasure. This has
brought us to the brink of collapse, with natural systems straining under the weight imposed
by the sheer number of humans and the levels at which we are consuming.
We are, however, on the threshold of a new paradigm shift – into a new way of seeing and
understanding the world and our place within it – that is as large and significant as the
transition from the Mediaeval to the Scientific Era. The new age into which we are moving has
been called the Ecological Age. It will be characterized by a new understanding of our place as
a thread in the Web of Life, of our inter-connectedness with all other living things.
Given the pivotal role of economics in defining the nature of the Industrial Age – exemplified
by consumerism, unsustainable exploitation of the natural world and ever-widening wealth
disparities within the human family – it is here perhaps more than in any other field that we
need urgently to find new ways of thinking and being in the world.
Relocalization is a whole-systems approach to creating an alternative public infrastructure
that exists within a bioregion's carrying capacity. It is not dependent on infinite growth to
deliver human progress and prosperity, but on creating qualitative improvement in
cooperative, dynamic economic sectors. It also goes a step further than localization with a
commitment to reduce consumption, waste, and to improve environmental and social
conditions.
Rather than trying to be competitive in a global economy that's showing increasing signs of
decay and disparity, we have the opportunity to become global leaders in sustainable, steady-state
local living economies based in our bioregions and on the far reaching networks and
trading partners, ecovillages and sustainable communities, that is developing worldwide.
Jonah Sachs and Susan Finkel of Free Range Studios describe “social marketing” as
“marketing to encourage socially positive behaviours like avoiding smoking, wearing seatbelts,
practicing safe sex, or consuming less stuff, which can play an important role in redirecting how
people live” (quoted by Assadourian in SOW 2010). These high ground morals are not the
primary goals of marketing budgets, yet while social marketing is encouraged, there is a need
for governments to limit or tax overall marketing pressures. A few governments are working
to tackle advertising directly, such as the Spanish government, which voted to ban
commercials on its public television stations starting in 2010. Yet with advertisers’ influence
over policymakers, these efforts have been few and far between. (SOW 2010)

3. Using media literacy, as seen in the Social Dimension of the EDE, to educate the public about
consumer habits reminds us that it is one thing to teach children how to decode an
advertisement for fast food, for example, so that they may see how the image of a hamburger
is artificially constructed, and doesn’t actually resemble the actual product that you purchase
at the counter. And it is another thing entirely to encourage an understanding of fast food as a
mega-billion dollar global industry that is spreading particular industrial practices and ways
of thinking about food, labour, the environment, and power throughout the world. (SOW
2010)
We will need to examine how to create laws that protect community land use, a fair share of
the commons, and the possibility for creating alternative parallel systems that strengthen
local resilience.
Five ideas to stimulate and seed this transition. (form Constanza et al SOW 2010)
1. Redefine well-being metrics.
2. Ensure the well-being of populations during the transition.
3. Reduce complexity and increase resilience.
4. Expand the “commons sector.”
5. Use the Internet to remove communication barriers and improve democracy.
Note that the village offers many opportunities for home-grown businesses or cottage
industry to take hold. And that urban neighbourhoods of 2000 individuals or more provide
critical mass for supplying the need for services, materials, food, supplies, labour, expertise
and other human needs at the local level with many opportunities for light industry and
import replacement.
In the Economic dimension we start by looking at how the global economy currently works, at
the extent to which we are currently living beyond our means and at how the global economy
can be turned towards sustainability. Specific attention is paid to the role of money, and how
it is currently created through debt in shaping the global economy as we know it today. We
explore different possible ways in which alternative money systems could be designed,
including the creation, by communities, of complementary currencies, so that money can
effectively become our servant rather than our master.
Right Livelihood is the examination of values and the ethical dimensions to our economic
life, exploring how the way we live, consume, and invest can be brought into greater
alignment with our values. This includes a re-examination of what constitutes true wealth,
looking beyond financial capital to include social capital and natural capital.
We then look at the concept of Social Enterprise and ask to what degree can we use small-scale,
locally-based enterprises to provide the kinds of social and ecological goods and
services that would enrich our communities while contributing to the accumulation of real
wealth.

4. And finally we explore the legal and financial dimensions of creating social enterprises and
other economic organizations and activities that enrich our communities. This includes
strategic planning, how we can raise money to finance our projects, and the legal structures
that will be most conducive towards this end.
We hope that the course will be of value to all those interested in the theory and practice of
community economic development, whether or not they live in ecovillages, rural, urban,
traditional setting or any social organization with an economic focus.
Resources
This chapter was extracted from the Manual “The Teacher´s Guide-Design for
Sustainability” by Gaia Education. This is a practical manual for sustainability teachers,
ecovillage and community design educators and facilitators who are conducting courses on
the broad sustainability agenda.
In this 333 page-manual you will find a comprehensive guide packed with innovative
materials, methodological approaches and tools that have been developed and tested by
sustainable communities and transition settings worldwide.
It covers all aspects of the transition of sustainable human settlements arranged into four
distinct areas: the Social, Ecological, Worldview and Economic dimensions of sustainability.
Some of the key topics covered in this guide include: creating community & embracing
diversity, decisions that everyone can support, circular leadership from power over to power
with, shifting the global economy, plugging the leaks of your local economy, local currencies,
and appropriate use of natural resources, urban agriculture and food resilience,
transformation of consciousness. For more information on how to get the entire manual go to
Gaia Education web page:
http://www.gaiaeducation.org/index.php/en/publications/teachers-and-youth-guide
A Gaia Education book for the whole Economic Design is:
Dawson, Jonathan, Jackson, Ross, and Norberg-Hodges, Helena, editors. Gaian Economics: Living
Well Within Planetary Limits. 2010, Permanent Publications. You can download this book for free
at www.gaiaeducation.net