There are some very interesting aspects to the Equal Care Co-op, including ‘Teams’, sociocratic decision-making and an internal payments system that could be described as a cross between mutual credit, timebanking, tokenising, and recognition of informal labour, including emotional labour and care work. Read more

We’ve blogged before about the great work the Big Solar Co-op are doing, bringing solar into communities. Here Jon Halle explores the potential for solar to provide some protection against energy price rises for small businesses and community-based organisations. Read more

A new essay on the economics of the pandemic suggests that the recent inflation is a sign that that failure is accelerating towards us. It’s an important reminder for us to ask ourselves how ready we are to both cope and help others in a crumbling economy. Read more

Here’s a recipe for savoury muffins using wild garlic and nettle tops that can be foraged in many places at this time of year. Read more

We were interviewing the President of Fairbnb as a co-operative alternative to Airbnb. However, things have taken a bit of a turn since we started talking, and now they’re using the platform to help Ukrainian refugees. Read more

We’d like to think / hope so, as climate change, environmental damage and fossil fuel depletion make huge supply chains unviable. Most wood turning, for the European market at least, is done in China and the Far East. But how long can this continue – the transporting of almost everything we need in the West from the other side of the world? It’s too damaging to global ecology, and it involves virtual slave labour. Read more

Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together to form a global moneyless trading network – the ‘Credit Commons’. Here we’re looking at savings and investments in a mutual credit world, as well as the importance of physical location. Read more

It looks as though heat pumps are going to provide a lot more of our heating in the future – although there has been some controversy about how well they work in old buildings. Heat pump specialist John Cantor answers some of those concerns. Read more

This is the fifth in a series of articles looking at the development of Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together to form a global moneyless trading network – the ‘Credit Commons’. Here we’re looking at community groups and individual consumers. Read more

We thought you might like this extraordinary defence of Deep Adaptation by Matthew Slater. Last year, he and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Skeena Rathor, authored a chapter in Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos; last month it was reviewed by newcomer Chris Saltmarsh, the champion of Jeremy Corbyn’s Green New Deal proposals and author of ‘Burnt’. Read more

18,000 empty planes will fly across Europe in early 2022. These flights will release 422,280 tonnes of greenhouse gases. Neither the EU nor Lufthansa seems likely to back down. Read more

This is the fourth in a series of articles looking at the development of Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together to form a global moneyless trading network – the ‘Credit Commons’. Here we’re looking at local authorities and anchor institutions Read more

Apple juice is in some ways more difficult to make than cider, and indeed it can scarcely be regarded as a traditional product at all. Until the recognition late in the 19th century that fermentation was caused by yeast converting sugar into alcohol, the difference between juice and cider was somewhat obscure and of little practical importance in any case. Read more

Third in a series of articles looking at the development of Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together to form a global moneyless trading network – the ‘Credit Commons’. Read more

We cover ground-source heat pumps more than air-source heat pumps in our topic introduction, so here’s some additional information about air-source heat pumps from our advisor John Cantor: Read more

of Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together in a global trading network. Here we provide a basic explanation of the Credit Commons Protocol. Read more

Sometimes, I wish I didn’t know the backstory to some foods, so I could happily buy them at the local shops and not think twice. But I do and here is my list of foods I won’t be buying again plus others that will require careful buying choices. Read more

Members of the Lowimpact.org co-op are involved with Mutual Credit Services (MCS), whose mission is to help build local mutual credit ‘clubs’ in the UK and overseas, and to link them together in a global trading network. We’re often asked about the current state of play, and so we’ve put together a series of 6 articles to explain what progress we’ve made. Read more

A while ago, we interviewed Pat Conaty, author, academic and stalwart of system change activism. We talked about how to grow the ‘co-operative commonwealth’ and about what constitutes the ‘commons’ in the 21st century. Pat is now part of the Synergia Institute, who have put together a MOOC for those of you involved with social and environmental change, and frustrated at the lack of real change we can see around us. Read more

This is a review of Simon Fairlie’s new book, Going to Seed, out on Feb 10th – his ‘counterculture memoir’ – although at times I’ll unapologetically veer into (hopefully relevant) political rambling. Read more