Building community wealth, from the ground up.

In September this year, the Scottish Government announced their Programme for Government. The inclusion of a long awaited Community Wealth Building Bill has reignited conversations around the opportunity that legislation could bring for Scotland and its people by enshrining into law new ways to build and retain wealth in our places.

Community wealth building (CWB) practices enable us to rethink and rewire our local economies around the people and places that they serve. Using CWB, anchor institutions working in collaboration can cement local economic development practices which enable a deeper understanding of how wealth leaks out of our economies, and how it can be recaptured to benefit places. Land and the question of who owns and benefits from the wealth it holds, is key to community wealth building. Land in Scotland is particularly topical, with conversations around land reform, land ownership and the burgeoning natural capital market of national importance.

In a new report for the Scottish Land Commission, the Centre of Local Economic Strategies (CLES) highlights different mechanisms which can secure value from natural resources and transposes the key lessons from this into the consideration of natural capital. Traditionally CWB is conceptualised as being operationalised across five pillars, and the “land” pillar is, understandably, of key consideration here. Often the CWB pillars are viewed as siloed activities, however, taking a holistic understanding of their intersection is vital as we develop a nuanced conversation over CWB legislation and its importance across various sectors of economic activity. The research points very clearly to the intersection of multiple pillars of activity when considering the value from natural resources – land, finance and ownership.

The report highlights many instances where we can take lessons from how other natural resources have been managed. The report case studies highlight the need to ensure that natural capital investment is not something done to, or around, our people and places, but instead something in which they can actively participate and ideally co-produce and own. Furthermore, the research identified key principles which could be utilised to ensure natural capital projects are delivered to benefit local people and their places. These principles are:

• organisational purpose
• future proofing
• creative use of law and policy
• transparency
• internal democracy
• local voice.

When taken together, they provide the underpinning of an approach which would build community wealth, from the ground up.

In a recently published blog, the Commission highlighted that aligning policy and finance is essential to stop communities from feeling disenfranchised from their local places and unable to participate in the benefits which could flow from natural capital. In fact, as highlighted in a recent summary of a Development Trust Association Scotland Debates session on natural capital, there is a keen desire from communities to see greater regulation alongside an increase in collaboration and community ownership of land in Scotland. CLES’ research identifies similar findings based on analysing how other natural resources have been managed in different contexts.

The report concludes “As the conversation around land reform develops in Scotland, there is an opportunity to challenge the prevailing assumption that the private sector provides the main solution for managing natural resources. There are clearly other options available, which may spread benefits more widely and offer greater opportunities for local involvement. Bucking the trend of the concentration of ownership, wealth and power, and the unequal distribution of benefits to those living on, or near these resources, ought to be a key consideration when taking forward the conversation of securing value from natural resources.”

Scotland has a unique opportunity to use CWB legislation for the benefit of our people and places, to deliver local economies which retain wealth. Whether the legislation will go so far as to support the land reform agenda, or ensuring local value from natural capital remains to be seen. Either way, we shouldn’t stop calling for it.