Transition Derby

Mike Payne Transition Derby and Friends

Mike’s talk was based on how are we going to build a new form of prosperity within an economy that does not allow for growth. He started off talking about our patterns of consumerism and that all our earnings tend to form a river of money, which then is diverted off into various tributories for different purchases, some local and some further afield. These different routes can also be described like a huge funnel of money, which has lots of holes in it. These holes can be considered as leakage from the local economy into other geographical areas and experiecne has shown us that the more money that a locality can retain i.e. that doesn’t leak away, allows it to become wealthier. Obvious but how many of us think about it like that.

Work carried out by the New Economics Foundation has discovered that the difference in retained wealth between buying from a local company, shop or farm rather than a national owned brand like Marks & Spencer or Hilton hotel can involve a factor of four. This means that if you buy local produce, some 80% of the sales value flows back into the local economy, whilst spending your money with a nationally owned brand, or say Aamazon will mean that only 20% goes back into the local economy, normally the wages of the staff.

This simple fact was greeted with some amazement by everybody present and Mike then explained the rationale behind the 80%/20% values and true enough the facts spoke for themselves. He likened companies to Bathtubs – comfortable local businesses , Vacuum Cleaners – like supermarket who hoover up all the local businesses in sight and Dustbins – where all of the spend is swallowed up into a big hole.

Mike continued with this theme and looked at the effect on the Triple Bottom Line – Economic, Social and Environmental – by the multiplier effect over the life of say four "rounds " of ones money. It left all of us thinking where do we spend our cash and the resultant effect this has on local economies:

This effect was then transferred to the Triple Bottom Line matrix and what this meant with the different purchasers taking for example a Supermaket and a local corner shop:

This discussion about the positives and negatives of each element could have gone on for quite a long time, with people taking up different points of view, although some people were beginning to feel quote guilty about their way of life. All in all it showed that we have a long way to go to change the way we live, work and sustain ourselves if we are to build vibrant, wealthy and resilient lives in the new economic paradigm.

Many thanks Mike for leading a very interesting and animated discussion. It opened up a lots of eyes as to what we need to think about when we make our purchasing decisions and can help ourselves and our communities dramatically by buying locally. It begs the question that our local councillors need to know about this sort of economics before they discuss giving planning permission for Supermarkets and out of town Retail Parks. It also underlined the fact that local prosperity can come from many sources, the main one being to keep spending local.

©William Barron

Transition Derby

September 30^{th 2011}