Localise West Midlands

Where are you based?

Our offices are based in Birmingham, in the Friends of the Earth Warehouse , a community building for environmental and voluntary sector organisations.

What kind of organisation are you (eg. academic, business, NGO etc)?

We describe ourselves as a not-for-profit think-tank, campaign group and consultancy.

What is your broad area of expertise?

We promote localisation (local trade, money flow and decision-making) as a tool to achieve social, environmental and economic benefits.

Our thinking is that a more localised approach makes economic development and government systems more sensitive to local autonomy, culture, well-being and the responsible use of finite resources, and can help cut CO2 emissions and build social capital.

Many of our active members came initially from a background of promoting local food and of environmental campaigning, and we are keen to promote a similar local sourcing approach in other sectors on the back of the public awareness of localisation in the food sector.

Although LWM was set up through opposition to the more damaging excesses of the current, globalised economic model, we are keen to maintain an objective, evidence-based approach, with localisation being seen as one tool to reach a sustainable and equitable future, rather than an ideological solution.

Our West Midlands focus was intended to make use of a region's balance of urban and rural, and also to encourage accountability amongst regional bodies. However, we also look beyond the region and are keen to make links with localists across the world in search of equity and cooperation.

Give a range of the projects you are currently working on

Current projects include:

• Work for Birmingham Strategic Partnership on a carbon footprinting tool for use in partners' procurement and other sustainable procurement activity.
• Research and campaigning on prosperity and inflation indicators that reflect regional and demographic variances within the UK.
• Research on localisation activity in various sectors, including food, retail, local finance and energy, with the aim of producing evidence, guidance and recommendations to support localised economic activity within the region.

What aspect of your work with relevance to the food-climate change issue would you like to feature?  

Localisation research (food and retail sectors)

Describe the work in more detail - how it started, what stage it is at, who has/have been involved and their different roles

By localisation, we mean mechanisms to purchase from local suppliers, sell to local markets, ensure that money flow circulates locally and use local employment. Local means the nearest appropriate source.

Localise West Midlands plans to research, map and disseminate regional examples of localisation activity or policy that can be mainstreamed across the region, or provide lessons for the region to implement elsewhere. As background this will also include a general analysis of localisation barriers and opportunities in each sector covered. Sectors will include: energy, food, retail, local finance, housing, and regeneration initiatives.

Research results will be used to:

• Provide a broad picture of localisation in the region, to direct LWM's further work.
• Identify the practical social, environmental and economic benefits of localisation.
• Discover what best practice is replicable and how to replicate it.
• Identify policy mismatches and recommendations for legislative/policy changes.
• Produce recommendations for local/regional/national decision-makers and support agencies.
• Produce tools and guidance for all sections of the supply chain.
• Identify areas for further academic or Observatory research: eg analysis of existing regional trade flows; or calculating regional capacity.
• Aid collaboration with similar organisations outside the West Midlands and in other countries.

It is not our intention to record every economic venture involving localisation, but to record trends, collective or co-operative activity, innovation, solutions to known problems – anything where something replicable and successful is being developed. The work is about encouraging a general trend towards local supply chains and money flow where this increases efficiencies and benefits, rather than taking a prescriptive approach regardless of economies of scale, convenience and choice.

This project has been on LWM's work plan for over a year but, as we are a small organisation, was postponed late in 2006 while we concentrated on other work. It is not as easily fundable as much of our work, although might be easier if we could find an academic partner.

What do you see as the big questions for the food climate research community at the moment?

1. I think the whole question of global equity and how we must, where possible in our research, look beyond impacts within the UK. While action on climate change is, in itself, a positive for people across the world, it could be done in a way that causes economic damage in poorer countries; or it could be economically beneficial. So it is important that we liaise with academic and activist interests in other, poorer countries for mutual benefit and cooperation.
2. Can we make food supply chains work towards contraction and convergence?
3. The whole-system CO2 impacts of growing biofuels instead of food need to be understood; likewise a full analysis of livestock farming in its very different forms.

What are the big questions you feel YOU are seeking to answer at the moment?

How to persuade policy-makers and leaders that unless we fundamentally shift our direction of travel away from economic neoliberalism, we cannot have much impact on reducing climate change or other resource pressures – when the neoliberal 'ideology' is so strongly rooted in historic interests and power bases, unwilling to accept the need for change. Would this be a good moment to mention turkeys and Christmas?

Is there any expertise you feel you lack and would you welcome help/collaboration with others?

We would welcome help and collaboration from any interested partners, and suspect an academic partner could be beneficial. Otherwise, no specific expertise currently but FCRN news often brings relevant items our way; we'll circulate something on the localisation research when it has progressed to a suitable stage of its life.

What are your plans for the immediate future as regards this work?

Seeking delivery partners and funding over the summer 2007.

What are the milestones might we look out for (e.g. report publication; launch event; conference, etc.)?

We will publicise progress on the localisation research as the project develops. There will be a conference or launch event for the resulting guides and materials, but as yet it is too early days to give dates. As a rough guide, we would expect significant progress in Spring 2008.

What are the insights / skills / data (big or small) you can offer to the rest of the research world on food and climate change?

When the localisation research is complete we'll have some qualitative information on localisation in the West Midlands' food, retail and energy sectors – what works and what policy changes might be needed to support localisation. We can offer some advice on policy that supports localisation and have a reasonable networking knowledge of the West Midlands region.

Contact details:

Localise West Midlands
The Warehouse, 54–57 Allison Street
Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 5TH

Tel: 0121 685 1155 Email: info@localisewestmidlands.org.uk
Web: www.localisewestmidlands.org.uk

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