Building local wealth and resilient circular economies
Scotland has a huge opportunity to establish resilient local economies through forthcoming legislation on Community Wealth Building. Securing the principles of Community Wealth Building in law could create vibrant local economies which retain wealth in local areas and can displace the predominately extractive economic system we currently have with one which builds local wealth.
The five principles of Community Wealth Building are:
- Plural ownership of the economy
- Making financial power work for local places
- Fair employment and just labour markets
- Progressive procurement of goods and services
- Socially productive use of land and property
Community Wealth Building provides the opportunity to place land reform and community ownership at the heart of the wellbeing economy.
We will demonstrate to government what successful Community Wealth Building looks like through the work of our members. We want any legislation to empower communities to expand existing good practice, enhancing existing community wealth building and fostering new community acquisitions and development projects.
Community Wealth Building can:
- Help create more housing, services and jobs and retain and grow local populations
- Help address inequality and devolve economic power to local areas
- Build capacity, confidence and resources within local communities to take on further assets or land
- Foster and expand local wellbeing economies
- Further land reform by encouraging community wealth, creating the conditions of empowerment which make community landownership more likely. This in turn creates more local wealth and less extractive land use
