Local Futures – Planet Local Summit, A celebration of the worldwide localisation movement

Localisation is bringing the economy home – back to a human scale. It is the process of building economic structures that allow the goods and services a community needs to be produced locally and regionally whenever possible. It is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers by encouraging diversified production for domestic needs, instead of specialised production for export.

Localisation does not mean eliminating international trade, or reducing all economic activity to a village level. It’s about shifting power from transnational corporations to genuinely democratic institutions, while simultaneously building up regional self-reliance. This requires collaboration and information-sharing between regions and cultures, as well as international solidarity between civic society groups.

Localising economies can strengthen community cohesion and lead to greater human health and material wellbeing, while reducing pollution and the degradation of the natural world. From farmers’ markets and community gardens to credit unions, from local governance and alternative learning institutions to small business alliances and co-ops, local economies create networks of place-based relationships that affirm our innate desire for connection to each other and to the earth.

It’s the economics of happiness.