Community wealth building is the key to making Canada’s energy transition an inclusive project rooted in the local, rather than a technocratic solution disengaged from people’s everyday lives, say sustainability experts and practitioners.
“Local ownership, democratic control, and a balanced distribution of wealth” are the key components of community wealth building, which should play “a critical role in advancing Canada’s net-zero objectives,” write Martin Boucher, research chair of sustainability at NorQuest College in Edmonton, and Max Lacey-Barnacle, research fellow in just transitions at the University of Sussex (UK), in a recent article in Policy Options.
As Canada moves forward on its net-zero emissions goals, important financial scaffolding is in place, including “$964 million for renewable energy and grid modernization projects and $14.9 billion for public transit projects, including zero-emission transit vehicles,” the two sustainability experts write.
However, ensuring that the energy transition translates into fully inclusive, resilient, sustainable communities remains a challenge.
“Despite some clear overlaps, net-zero initiatives and community wealth building often operate in silos,” the authors warn, adding that “an integrated approach” is key to achieving both objectives.
The pressing need to build community wealth is reflected in the Salvation Army’s annual Canadian Poverty and Socio-Economic Analysis, published in September, which found one in four parents testifying that they eat less so that their children or other family members get enough. Within this group, 90% said they had to cut back on groceries to pay other bills, and 85% said they were buying less nutritious food because it was cheaper.
“While not yet a household term among policymakers,” the driving principle behind community wealth building is “straightforward,” Boucher and Lacey-Barnacle write.
“Rather than relying on external investments or top-down economic development, [the] approach emphasizes the importance of locally-rooted structures such as cooperatives, social enterprises, businesses, and anchor institutions like colleges and universities, local government, and hospitals.”
Community bonds are an essential instrument in severing local reliance on external funding. These interest-bearing loans issued by non-profits to fund local projects are slowly “gaining traction” in Canada, especially in the affordable housing sector, reports CBC News.
Habitat for Humanity Guelph Wellington in southwestern Ontario used the model to raise roughly $4.5 million for two affordable housing projects. The first, a 32-unit townhouse project, broke ground about a year ago, The Canadian Press reported at the time.
While community wealth builds communities in a very bricks-and-mortar sense, the financing model also works in more subtle ways to stitch a neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods, together.
“With the high cost of living—and with fewer Canadians donating to charity—asking supporters to buy a bond can be easier than asking them to make a cash donation,” writes the CBC.
Ryan Collins-Swartz, co-executive director at Toronto-based Tapestry Community Capital, a not-for-profit that helps other non-profits set up community bond campaigns, told CBC the under-40 demographic to which he belongs doesn’t typically have a lot of cash for charitable donations.
“But with a little bit of money that we have saved up, we’re looking to be allies to causes and social movements and things that we believe in.”
Fully realizing the efforts of local development organizations to advance the energy transition as a social movement—one that integrates net-zero efforts with efforts to build community wealth—will require “comprehensive policy support” at both federal and provincial levels, write Boucher and Lacey-Barnacle.
Measures to “formally harmonize” Canada’s net-zero policies with community wealth building “could include streamlined permitting for community-scale renewable energy installations and financial incentives for community investment,” they add.
