Commons inspire and connect. To take them into account requires a fundamentally different approach in perception and action. Commons are based on communities that set their own rules and cultivate their skills and values. Based on these always-evolving, conflict-ridden processes, communities integrate themselves into the bigger picture. In a culture of commons, inclusion is more important than exclusion, cooperation more important than competition, autonomy more important than control. Rejecting the monopolization of information, wealth, and power gives rise to diversity again and again. Nature appears as a common wealth that must be carefully stewarded, and not an ever-available property to be exploited.

Read the full Manifesto in English (Strengthen the Commons: Now!),  German (Streiten für Gemeingüter: Jetzt!), and Spanish (Fortalecer los Bienes Comunes: Ahora!).

My main takeaways from reading the executive summary and introduction of the report:

• Local food enterprises can scale.
• The analyzed enterprises put considerable investment into achieving social goals beyond private profit.
• Food is one of the most important entry points for local economy building.

Triple Pundit published a more detailed summary.

[P]eople systematically and predictably behave in ways that are much more cooperative than would be predicted by the game theoretical impact. [original post]

I discovered this quote by Yochai Benkler on People and Place, a (relatively) new online magazine. The first issue was on Resilience Thinking and the current one is on “One Person, One Share” of the Atmosphere.

Social capital refers to those stocks of social trust, norms and networks that people can draw upon to solve common problems. But harnessing the power of these seemingly invisible networks to achieve sustainable development goals such as in public health, well being or environment is an elusive undertaking. All too often their power for supporting development is seriously underestimated. However, the downside is that misguided networking efforts can creates relational demands that sap people’s time and energy. So there is good reason to study networks, and determine the best way to manage them. The articles below offer three different perspectives of networking.

A related article I have to yet read fully is Network Capital: an Expression of Social Capital in the Network Society, which introduces the idea of network capital as a type of social capital:

This article deals with an emerging type of social capital which is labeled as ‘network capital’. It is formed from collaborative practices emerging from e-enabled human networks. It is proposed that network capital is a specific type of social capital in the Network Society, and that it holds significant value for the advancement of human development around the world.

There is the license issued by the proper authorities, and this is very important. But just as important, or perhaps even more so, is the license to operate that is granted by the local community, because this is where you’ll be living each day. (…) The operation is fundamentally integrated into community and at any time,  if the community does not grant us its license to operate, it can halt production, whether on the railroad, at the port or in the mine itself.

It is great to see that a mining operation has sought to build a very inclusive and long-term partnership including the local community, civil society, government and researchers. The following are a few questions that came to mind reading the report. The process seems to still be ongoing and parts of the model are not yet implemented, but it promises to be a great experiment that might be able to serve as a model for other companies to do business differently.

The model presented in Part 3 reminds me strongly of an approach I helped develop in FAO: Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD).  One of the things we struggled with was to figure out how (and who) to facilitate and coordinate such a process for the local population and other partners to feel fully integrated and to develop a long term partnership between the actors. I’d be curious to find out how this was done in this process? Do the Centre of Sustainability Studies of the Getulio Vargas Foundation and the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund play a role in the facilitation? Was facilitation needed? If yes, is this facilitator only involved in the beginning of the process? When is the time to leave the partnership alone?

The report talks less about the other two dimensions of sustainability (economic viability and environmental stewardship) than it does about social integration and partnership building. While there is a provision to develop indicators for sustainable development, these do not seem to have been developed and agreed upon yet. Also, it would be interesting to see what Alcoa as a company wants to achieve with regards to reducing the impact of their activities on the ecosystem of the region.

In the PNTD discussions we realized that one can easily encounter a situation where the interests of all stakeholders (private investor, local community and government) can converge to use the natural resources of a territory without taking higher level principles of environmental protection into account that would guarantee the overall resilience of the ecosystem, potentially leading to overuse and degradation. By placing so much weight on integration with the local stakeholders, does the project lose sight of these overarching goals? How are these principles structurally embedded in the process? Some legal and regulatory frameworks are mentioned in the report, but how seriously are they taken in the implementation of the process by the local actors?

Equally, even though the overall long term benefits of creating a true partnership are very much highlighted, it does not mention the costs of the overall process. Can mining ever be environmentally sustainable (i.e. can be replaced what we take from the earth) or is it just about minimizing the negative impacts? If the damage can be reduced to a minimum, such as to make mining really worth it from a sustainability standpoint, how scalable are projects like these considering the time and funding needs to get them set up and implemented? Is this replicable across extractive industries and in other places where the local views of the concessionaire may not be as positive? Is there a risk that projects like this remain individual projects used to satisfy the public’s wish for buying from or investing in a socially responsible business? How can tis experience be used to change the organizational culture of the participating companies? What are Alcoa’s lessons from this process and how will that influence other ongoing and planned operations?

It is my hope that the partnership will put out more information for those of us interested to follow and learn from this process.

UPDATE: Some more and updated information an be found on Alcoa’s website.

Genuine not Generous: The Enterprise of the Future goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and reflects genuine concern for society in all actions and decisions.

Holger’s questions are:

Are we ready to guide our clients into that future? Do we have the skills, attitudes, knowledge, tools? Do our consulting organizations work along these principles? Or are we repeating old patterns? Are we ready?

Not only change facilitators, but any professional advising organizations on their strategic direction has to ask herself if we are changing with our clients.

Join the discussion.

What is a sustainable lifestyle? What will our daily lives become if we agree to change some of our routines? How do we reduce our environmental impact without lowering our living standards? Observations show that growing material wealth and levels of people satisfaction are increasingly uncoupled. Could the pursuit of more sustainable lifestyles also lead to better quality and more satisfaction?

via Sustainable Everyday Project » Collaborative Services; discovered via People and Place and World Changing.

Download the report here.

The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks. The new food system will use less energy, and the energy it uses will come from renewable sources. We can begin the transition to the new system immediately through a process of planned, graduated, rapid change. The unplanned alternative-reconstruction from scratch after collapse-would be chaotic and tragic.

via REPORT: The Food and Farming Transition | Post Carbon Institute.

A commentary on the report was published on Treehugger:

While the report clearly articulates the trouble confronting a food system that has developed an addition to cheap oil, it also intelligently details what the US can do to survive when the drug is withdrawn, as it soon will be.

The full report can be found here.

The Global Green New Deal (GGND) would be part of the broader counter-cyclical response to the crisis and comprise three main elements:

• Financial support to developing countries to prevent contraction of their economies. (…)
• National stimulus packages in developed and developing countries aiming at reviving and greening national economies. (…)
• International policy coordination to ensure that the developed countries’ stimulus packages not only are effective to create jobs in developed countries but that these will also facilitate generating strong developmental impacts in developing countries. (…)