In a packed launch party at the Northampton Brewery November 30th, Pioneer Valley Local First unveiled its new Local Business Guide / Building Sustainable Communities, a free guide to over 200 local and independently owned businesses in our region. PV Local First is hoping to encourage Pioneer Valley residents to "Think Local First" and support local businesses when they buy goods and services.

The well designed guide lists local businesses by the types of products and services they offer. It opens with the "Top Ten Reasons to Shop Local First," including that shopping locally promotes greater recirculation of money in the Valley, keeping our local economy stronger, that small local businesses are the source of most new jobs, and that local businesses often make more local purchases that require less transportation. The group also notes that small local businesses often set up shop in existing buildings in our town centers, decreasing sprawl.

PV Local First is gathering a growing number of member businesses and nonprofits, with backers as diverse as Hampden Bank, the century old regional financial institution that began in Springfield, MA, and CISA (Communities Involved in Sustaining Agriculture), the originators of the highly successful "Be A Local Hero / buy locally grown" farm marketing campaign. PV Local First is our area's member network of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), which describes itself as "North America's fastest growing network of socially responsible businesses, comprised of 79 community networks with over 21,000 independent business members across the U.S. and Canada."

What will it take to sustain our communities, our regions, our country over the long run?  That’s the question we tackle here at Sustenance, with news reports and analysis, links to important websites, articles and resources, and, coming soon, regular audio interviews. 

Over the long run, for Sustenance, we hope to help build a new politics of sustainability.  To that end, we will be sharing with you the new practical experiments and innovative thinking emerging in:

• local and organic agriculture,
• alternative energy and energy efficiency,
• sustainable economics, oriented towards the satisfaction of real human need, not the exponential expansion of desire and consumption,
• energy efficient housing,
• healthcare for all, with a focus on ideas like “single payer” healthcare that are not getting an adequate hearing,
• manufacturing, with a focus on green industry, a restoration of the American manufacturing economy, and the production of durable and recyclable goods,
• transportation, with a focus on public transit and low carbon-footprint vehicles, and
• water, keeping it a clean and publicly shared resource protected for generations to come.

But most of all we will be discussing what it might take to link these innovations in a new culture and politics of sustainability that can transform our communities, our regions and our country.

Sustenance is based in the Pioneer Valley region of western Massachusetts -- the towns of the Connecticut River valley in our state. We have a particular interest in the practice and politics of sustainability in this region, and in the Connecticut River valley to our north and south. But we won't confine our interest and reporting to this region or even to this country. If all politics is local, all politics is now global as well. Wherever you are, we'd like to hear from you.

To send a comment, or to subscribe to our email updates, email us at:  publisher@sustenancetoday.org.

-- Rudy Perkins, publisher

 

 

© 2009 by Rudy Perkins • Site first published 7/5/09 • Photo credits and copyright unless otherwise noted: Rudy Perkins. Sustenance opening percussion theme composed and performed by Hollie Marron and Deb Reed.

Site last modified 11/30/09

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