The Keep Britain Tidy group organised this ‘Despite The Cuts’ national conference today (21 March) in Manchester, bringing together a wide-ranging audience around new ways of community development in a climate of austerity and cuts in grants. There was a rich range of speakers and workshop presenters, and the organisers plan to publish the discussions as an ebook later. http://www.keepbritaintidy.org
One interesting discussion this afternoon was on whether ‘One Planet’ thinking would be useful in exploring a root cause analysis of citizen-led actions by small community and voluntary organisations. In terms of local environmental projects, for example, we are seeing a trend where ‘waste’ increasingly has a cash value. This could be an income stream for local groups, similar to the benefits already gained by separating out and weighing the aluminium cans from community litter pick events. ‘Waste’ clothing is now worth £2 a kilo, and scrap cars £150.
So perhaps rising world commodity prices due to our current Three Planet living will (to a small extent) help small community and voluntary groups in this new age of austerity. I look forward to seeing the discussions today turn to useful projects tomorrow.