LOCAL LIVING ECONOMIES
JUDY WICKS
As a pioneer of the local living economy movement, Judy Wicks believes community self-reliance isn’t just a utopian vision, but our very survival. "The corporate-controlled global economic system, based on the
"The solution is clear — we must decentralize business ownership, food production, and energy production into self-reliant local economies."
JUDY WICKS |
continual growth of large corporations and long distance shipping, is using up more natural resources than the earth can restore and contributing to global warming," Wicks says. "The solution is clear — we must decentralize business ownership, food production, and energy production into self-reliant local economies."
For Wicks, this vision grew from the business she founded in 1983, White Dog Café, and its mission to serve customers, community, employees and nature. Food is purchased from local farms where animals are raised on sustainably grown pasture and produce. Long distance purchasing is limited to what is not available locally. Operations are powered by electricity from wind power generated in Pennsylvania.
After achieving success with the café, Wicks had an epiphany. "It wasn’t enough to have good business practices within one’s own company," Wicks says. "We had to work cooperatively with other businesses to build a whole local economy based on these values." Taking what she learned to a higher level, Wicks started the White Dog Foundation, which uses 20% of the Café’s profits to build a local living economy, including connecting local farmers with other restaurants.
David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, came to SVN as a Visionary Advisor after meeting Wicks at a conference sponsored by Yes! magazine and the Positive Futures Network, which Korten co-founded to actively engage people in creating a just, sustainable and compassionate world.
At SVN, Wicks and Korten teamed up with Michael Shuman, author of Going Local, and Laury Hammel, owner of the Longfellow Clubs and a longtime activist in founding business organizations, such as BSR and its New England predecessor.
Wicks and Hammel co-founded the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) at the 2001 SVN Fall Conference, and currently serve as its co-chairs. Says Korten, who serves on the BALLE board along with Shuman, "with over 50 local networks and more than 15,000 members across North America, BALLE is starting to change the economic story that shapes business and consumer behavior, as well as government policy, by building awareness of the implications of each choice we make between a global corporation and a local business."
Idea 11: CLEAN TECHNOLOGY →
