Jonathan Porritt wants a Plan B for the Forest of Dean

In an interesting article for the Forest and Wye Review, environmentalist  Jonathan Porritt calls for an alternative approach to economic development, a Plan B for the Forest of Dean:

“We know that in the Forest of Dean and Cinderford the need for economic development is critical and local people who stand up and argue passionately for economic development in their community have every right to do so.

“When we can find ways of bringing that kind of development into an area like this it’s good.

“But – and it’s a big but – is this really the best way of meeting those objectives to improve the economic livelihoods and the social wellbeing of people in this part of Gloucestershire?

“Is it the best possible option on the table to do all that?"

In '  Porritt wrote several years ago about the need to reform capitalism to meet today's challenges

“Market-based, properly regulated capitalism is still capable of meeting today’s daunting challenges … [but] we will need to engineer tomorrow’s world, step by step with great determination. It won’t just happen by chance,”.

There is a 'Business Plan B' and several years ago, it was delivered by hand to the Legal and Democratic Services deoartment of the Forest of Dean District Council. It was developed by a pioneer of the properly regulated capitalism Porritt prescribes. "Plan B". described a business strategy for social benefit which had by then, been deployed successfully in international development:

"Capitalism is the most powerful economic engine ever devised, yet it came up short with its classical, inherent profit-motive as being presumed to be the driving force. Under that presumption, all is good in the name of profit became the prevailing winds of international economies — thereby giving carte blanche to the notion that greed is good because it is what has driven capitalism. The 1996 paper merely took exception with the assumption that personal profit, greed, and the desire to amass as much money and property on a personal level as possible are inherent and therefore necessary aspects of any capitalist endeavour. While it is in fact very normal for that to be the case, it simply does not follow that it must be the case."

“Traditional capitalism is an insufficient economic model allowing monetary outcomes as the bottom line with little regard to social needs. Bottom line must be taken one step further by at least some companies, past profit, to people. How profits are used is equally as important as creation of profits. Where profits can be brought to bear by willing individuals and companies to social benefit, so much the better. Moreover, this activity must be recognized and supported at government policy level as a badly needed, essential, and entirely legitimate enterprise activity.”

In 2004, it became an operational model of business which relocated to the Forest of Dean the following year.

Operating as a 'Community Benefit Society' this business would operate in the free market, with 50% of surplus revenue invrested in a Communidty Development Finance Institution such that is could deliiver seed capital for other organisations who might opt to create profit for themselves or ideally for the benefit of the community. 

It also adheres to the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cutural Rights which includes a Living Wage.

A key point in the 1996 paper was the need for information in the creation of sustainable local economies

"In order for economic development to take place in any given location, the very first thing required, before anything else can possibly happen, is information. This information includes first and foremost where to look for the necessary resources to do anything. If new businesses are needed, knowing they are needed and finding funding for them are two very different things. The first step is to locate possible capital resources in order to move forward, and this step is no more and no less than information. Once resources are located, the next step is what terms and conditions are involved in obtaining those resources -- more information. Once this is known, paperwork must be completed, business plans made, market research and due diligence conducted, and all of this compiled and forwarded to the appropriate parties. Again, nothing more than information. In fact, most of the work involved between identifying a need and solving the problem is information acquisition and management: getting and developing information."

"Top-notch education is leaving the confines of physical campus and four walls. A student in remote Zaire, given an Internet connection, can become a Duke-educated Master of Business Administration, while remaining mostly in his or her home village to the village's benefit. The prospect of such decentralized localization of education and economic activity allows a great deal of autonomy, freedom and self-determinism in the village's own character and identity. It need not be a risk to cultural heritage and integrity to benefit economically; the means by which such benefit will occur, how local citizens can have food, shelter, health care, and a basic sustaining human standard of existence can be determined at the local village level and then communicated at the regional, national, and global level simultaneously at virtually no cost via the Internet and a web site. It is this basic level of human sustenance, coupled with self-sustaining enterprise to provide this basic level of support, that I refer to as sustainable development -- which is just another way of saying "people-centered" economic development."

So, as the "Plan B" reasoned, why not create new businesses that not only deliver this information need, but create profit that can be reinvested to benefit the entire community.  Plan B warned that a new 'digital divide' between urban and rural communities would result from inferior broadband service for years to come. It also warned of uprisings by those economically excluded.

When ACRE delivered a workshop on Big Society at The Main Place in Coleford, they too were given a copy of Plan B.

Recently ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) has received close to £1.4 million from the Big Lottery Fund to lead a nationwide partnership of eight organisations that will help and inspire rural communities across the UK to set up social enterprises.

The Forest of Dean could be the focus of one such initiative.

What it will mean in practical terms is that funding will be available to local groups who wish to create their own enterprises. Enterprtises to create local renewable energy projects,for example A craft business needing support to bring their product to market, Community owned shops and businesses serving the needs of tourism. .

In Russia at the time of their own economic crisis in 1999, this bottom up approach had been able to seed the creation of around 10,000 micro enterprises over a period of 5 years,, with the community bank becomeing self sustaining in the second year of operation. The business survival rate in the first year was close to 100%.      .

The impact was described in a 2004 interview.

"At first, the idea seemed heresy - but not for long, simply because it made sense and it didn't step on the toes of any existing enterprises that were in business to enrich relatively few people. None of them were asked to change anything, but it left open the possibility of more forward-thinking people to step in and do business differently. Even now, I am astonished that the idea struck such a deep and sympathetic chord in so many people so quickly - especially in our top business schools, where one might have thought that they were all in it for the money, for personal wealth, with little regard to social benefit or the poorest of the poor."

In 2006, our focus was on the urgent case for people's wellbing in Ukraine: 

"'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether." 

In 2009, the Economics for Ecology conference in Sumy gave opportunity to reflect on what had happened to lead to a crisis:

"Possibly this has escaped immediate attention in Ukraine, but, economists in the US as of the end of 2008 openly confessed that they do not know what to do.  So, we invented three trillion dollars, lent it to ourselves, and are trying to salvage a broken system so far by reestablishing the broken system with imaginary money.

Now there are, honestly, no answers.  It is all just guesswork, and not more than that.  What is not guesswork is that the broken – again – capitalist system, be it traditional economics theories in the West or hybrid communism/capitalism in China, is sitting in a world where the existence of human beings is at grave risk, and it's no longer alarmist to say so.

The question at hand is what to do next, and how to do it.  We all get to invent whatever new economics system that comes next, because we must."

Today the meme has reached big business, with Sir Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington talking about a Plan B. It doesn't sound too different to what was described 10 years ago, by those who actually put business for social purpose  into practice..