BioRegionalism

Our take

Our vision arises out of the philosophy of bioregionalism in which natural factors, such as local ecology and climate, rather than politics and trade, determine the way people live. 

At BioRegional, however, we have been keen to engage with the market on its own terms and to link ourselves back to the local environment and the earth’s natural nutrient and energy cycles.  We value technology and the marketplace, but recognise that these can only bring long term benefits when they are linked to natural cycles – i.e. when we work with, rather than against, nature. If not, we will continue to cause environmental damage and store up long term economic and health problems for ourselves.

Our current culture and government policies are guided by concepts such as democracy, human rights and economics; but these are ultimately meaningless unless we recognise our fundamental dependence on the living part of our planet. 
 

Resources

Even if we live in large cities renewable resources are all around us. We import huge quantities of virgin wood pulp, yet we could meet a large proportion of our needs from the millions of tonnes of high-grade waste paper we send to landfill. London, for instance, is permeated and surrounded by woodlands that could be managed sustainably for a variety of products. Even street trees, managed as a sustainable forest, can provide a renewable energy supply. Other resources include solar energy falling on the city, sewage which is full of nutrients, and glass and plastic in the waste-stream.

Since 1994, BioRegional has been working to create sustainable products and services based on using local renewable and waste resources. Our partners include major companies, community groups and a local prison. The products and services developed within our approach and described across this site are working examples of thinking globally and acting locally within a market economy, and aimed at reducing our ecological footprint.

Using local renewable and waste resources wisely allows us to create communities that locally recycle many of the materials and nutrients required to support them, much like natural eco-systems. This ties in with the UK government’s Proximity Principle, advocating local recycling. The Laundry, our closed loop office paper recycling and buy-back scheme, is one working example. Converting wastes from one activity into resources for another using the principle of “industrial ecology” will also be an important strategy in building a sustainable future.  For example we can use waste arising locally from hemp textile production into wall partitions for the construction industry.

Localisation

Localisation of production and consumption is a key theme in our work.  Local production cuts down on unnecessary transport, supports local economic development and re-establishes a direct link between people and their living environment.

To create more locally self-sustaining communities in compact cities, we also need to reconsider the scale and organisation of our production systems. Local and regional scale, rather than global scale, technologies can form the basis of a new industrial revolution.

There are many opportunities for bulky commodity products, which are expensive to transport, to be produced locally on a decentralised basis. We can set up co-ordinated networks of local producers, responsive to local needs – bioregional networks - as we have done for charcoal supply in the UK.

As we move to more locally self-sustaining communities, we will see the balance of international trade moving away from low value commodities to high value added products, allowing countries to generate foreign exchange with low environmental impact.

Governance

Although we see sustainability being delivered via products and services – that is via a sustainable market economy – we will also need strong international governance to ensure that the market operates with sustainability principles and creates a level global playing field.

A market defined by sustainability criteria will automatically support more local production – where the benefits of globalisation and Comparative Advantage are balanced by those of BioRegional Advantage.