Transition Culture

An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent

Transition Culture has moved

I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.

Archive for “REconomy Project” category

Showing results 21 - 25 of 29 for the category: REconomy Project.


5 Dec 2012

A November Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition

Let’s start this month’s bumper round-up (which contains some of the finest short films about Transition among many many other things) with the news that Transition Network has just been named as the winner of the highly prestigious European Economic and Social Committee’s Civil Society Prize.  This is great recognition for the work of the REconomy Project and so many people in hundreds of European local communities who are engaging their local civil society in developing low carbon futures and livelihoods which promote wellbeing for all in the community.  There are more than 500 Transition initiative community groups in 23 European countries (more than 1000 groups worldwide) who are working on the “transition” to a low-carbon, socially-just future.

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9 Nov 2012

Fiona Ward introduces the REconomy Project

Fiona Ward of the REconomy Project recently gave a webinar for Transition US about REconomy, and answered questions from participants in the US about how this might be of use to them in the creation of more resilient local economies.  Here it is.

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Discussion: Comments Off on Fiona Ward introduces the REconomy Project

Categories: REconomy Project, Resilience, Social enterprise


7 Nov 2012

From today’s Guardian Sustainable Business section: ‘Community action alleviates climate change gloom’

In his recent piece on climate change on the network, Jo Confino wrote of the dark place he found himself in after a few weeks immersed in the latest news on sustainability – his climate change “dark night of the soul” if you like.  For the past six years I have been part of an experiment known as Transition, which encourages people to do just what Confino suggests: to sit with the pain of this awareness, while also pointing to a path beyond it.

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26 Oct 2012

Might Costa’s withdrawal from Totnes signal the beginning of the end for our collective love affair with brands?

Yesterday was a day that produced the most extraordinary news.  For the last 8 months or so, the No To Costa campaign in Totnes, supported by Transition Town Totnes, among others, has been campaigning to stop Costa Coffee from opening a branch in Totnes.  Communities always lose battles like that don’t they?  That’s certainly the experience in most places.  But yesterday, Costa Coffee, a huge company with nearly 1,400 outlets, announced that “we had an open and constructive discussion and as a result … we have carefully considered the points made and decided not to open on Totnes high street”.  Its MD Chris Rogers, much to his credit, said “Costa has recognised the strength of feeling in Totnes against national brands and taken into account the specific circumstances of Totnes”. Extraordinary. Here it is on yesterday’s ITV News.

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17 Oct 2012

New paper identifies the networking impact of Transition Network in the community energy field

In the context of the fascinating week of posts looking discussing Transition Network over at the Social Reporters’ blog, it was fascinating to read an important new study by Gill Seyfang, Jung Jin Park and Adrian Smith from University of East Anglia about community energy.  ‘Community Energy in the UK’ is the first independent UK-wide survey of community energy projects (you can download it here).  One of the most interesting things to emerge from the paper is the role Transition Network plays in the field, in spite of being a very small organisation, and it offers some insights into why that might be.  

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