Recap: Transitie NL & the REconomy: How to hack an economy from below?

At this event ‘REconomy’ was introduced to the audience along with Transition Towns. This was done so in the characteristically interactive manner by which Lynn, part of the Transitie NL core group and promotor of the REconomy network sets up her workshops.

The REconomy is a network of communities set up to transform their local economies by supporting new forms of entrepreneurship and novel business models that are more suitable to support sustainable practices in the long run. Doing so the REconomy network is yet another inspirational example of the Transitions Towns network to suggest powerful ways to make transition to sustainable society tangible and more feasible by any citizens initiatives everywhere.

The Workshop

Overall, the workshop was a very cosy session where lots of dedicated people shared their insights, inspirations and a bit of themselves with one another. The vibe was good, resulting into a situation where the timing had to be guarded closely, also because Lynn from Transitie NL had to catch the train back home.

For the set-up of the workshop we organized the room in a circle, so we could all sit together in a way that everybody could see anyone who had the opportunity speak at any given moment of the workshop. 

We kicked off with a short introduction of the Otherways ‘New Economy’ program the Transitie NL & the REconomy event is a part of. Following this Lynnn invited the audience to each stand up share why they had an interest in this workshop in particular. Anyone who felt affinity with whatever was said was invited to show it by standing up as well. It resulted in a fun sight to be seen.

She proceeded to explain the fundamentals of Transition Towns and the REconomy (see below). Even if the presentation part of the evening was longer than expected we still had enough time to focus on the interactive parts of the evening. 

The interactive part of the evening was focussed around the idea that people should contribute to the Transition movement in a way that suits their talents best. In this way people are invited to contribute from that space in themselves that is most easily inspired and that gives the most intrinsic rewards.

To do this we were invited to reflect on our personal strengths guided by a categorization of four fields of skills. We than proceeded to reflect each with one other person on the skills we chose. After this we quickly moved on to the mapping of transition inspired initiatives in Wageningen on a map. Here we discovered that there are a few locations that thrive with energy and initiatives, but that there is also much space left to be covered still.

In the last round of activities we came together in groups of three to discuss with each other how our individual strengths could contribute to the Transition Movement. This was a real good end point of the evening.

Transition Towns & the Reconomy

The Transition Towns Network has been around for over 10 years already! It has been a very successful catalyst of change at a local level by bringing people together in many places. The network is a social movement powered by civilians that come together with a shared interest to make sustainability a reality from below.

The Transition Towns Network recognizes that:

-  Peak Oil is a reality we soon need to deal with (contrary to earlier forecasts the readily harvestable oil really is going down fast as consumption rates are still sky high)

-  Climate Change is a reality we already need to mitigate and otherwise adapt to (all de the developments we are witnessing as of late show that climate change is happening faster than any scenario has considered, at its current rate climate change is happening over the course of decades and not centuries) .

With this in mind citizen’s initiatives everywhere were and are busy working on implementing solar energy, local food exchange and production networks, recycling initiatives and local currencies and much more.

The Transitions network had a peak in exposure and growth in 2013. With the REconomy network the Transition Towns is on track to revive itself with some of the insights concerning transition as they present themselves now in 2017.

These new insights are the product of the continued development of economic theory to support transition from below and which is informed by the practices employed by such networks of which Transition Towns is a substantial part. As said before the key focus is to transform their local economies by supporting new forms of entrepreneurship and novel business models that are more suitable to support sustainable practices in the long run.

Otherwise: New Economy

Last, but not least, the ‘Transitie NL & the REconomy: How to hack an economy from below?’ took place as a part of the Otherways: New Economy program. Though the Alternative Trade Mandate event, which took place in February was already organized with the same intention as this one, the Otherways: New Economy is a new program of Otherwise Foundation. This is why we chose for it to be launched during the event.

The Otherwise: New Economy program shares substantial affinity with the Transition Towns Network in that the underlying premises  are a recognition of a need to make a shift to a new economic model. The purpose of the program than is to expose people to novel ideas about how to radically transform the economy in both its theoretical foundations as well as its modes of organization  in ways that allow for an economy fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

The event was the perfect moment to introduce this program and we are sure it will be a space where lots of challenging and interesting ideas will be shared.