Article by By Richard Douthwaite "So far, the main actions open to people keen to stop the United States and Britain invading Iraq have been limited to street protests, writing letters to editors, signing petitions on the Internet or voting on a BBC website. None of these seem likely to achieve very much but there's another avenue to make one's views felt which, if enough people took it up, could be very effective indeed."

Recent events, at home and abroad, force us to question globalisation and the increasing influence of trans-national corporations. In this increasingly turbulent world, we have come to depend on ever more complex and fragile de-localised supply systems to provide, quite literally, our daily bread - and we only begin to realise how complex they have become once they start to break down. We must now question which aspects of our lives can we still trust to multi-national supply chains and which aspects are better sourced locally.

Switching from American to more locally produced goods not only wakes up the large corporations by hitting them where it hurts - in their pockets, it has a number of additional benefits;

1. Meeting climate change targets Trade related transport has now become one of the fastest growing sources of damaging greenhouse gas emissions. Selective re-localisation of supply chains can reduce transportation of goods; significantly reducing associated climate change emissions and other external costs.
2. Added value Re-localisation has the additional benefit that it provides assistance to small-scale local producers and family firms through the 'added value' of produce sold more directly to consumers. In agriculture, for example, this will help keep family farming viable, thus helping prevent the widespread corporatisation of the countryside.
3. Supporting the local economy Yet another important benefit is that re-localised systems keep money circulating within a healthy local economy. Supermarkets drain money away from any locality on a daily basis down the wires.
4. Increasing local employment Re-establishment of local supply chains will increase employment locally and preserve or re-introduce of key skills base within the local area.
5. Provide a more robust supply chain. Our de-localised, post-industrial western lifestyle has become increasingly fragile, not least through its dependence on large amounts of low price fossil fuels. In more localised systems however; such as those Britain had in the past or those in less over-developed parts of the world, there is much more inherent resilience and robustness. Meeting local needs with local resources is an inherently more stable system because:
   things do not travel so far

• so need less preservatives and packing
• they are based around the use of locally available materials
• they are made with local skills the people involved know each other
• they more fully understand the technologies they use
• the systems are not driven excessively hard to compete
• the system is not dependent on large amounts of imported energy

It's only when the system goes wrong do we even notice how fragile it all has become. So perhaps it is the robust nature of locally based systems which is their most attractive feature, particularly if we aim to provide a secure lifestyle in this increasingly turbulent world.

Back