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Community currency enhances community value | Totnes

Listening to Nigel Topping speaking about Totnes currency. In Totnes, Devon, they have issued their own community currency, with a view to keeping their money in the community. All sorts of challenges, and issues, but it is receiving growing acceptance.

The Totnes Pound was launched as an initiative of Transition Town Totnes Economics and Livelihoods group in March 2007[2]. The group argues that “Economic localisation is considered to be a key aspect of the transition process, and local currency systems provide the opportunity to strengthen the local economy whilst preventing money from leaking out”[3].

Their near term plans are interesing, yet large in potential:

  1. Issue a totnes 5 pound note, including full security features
  2. move from being sterling backed, to being carbon backed

The notion of community, yet with such scale, brings new meaning to think globally, act locally. in fact, it makes me wonder if there is not a direct application to social lending, social investing, by encouraging the same goals of keeping in the community, yet offerring greater scale.

3 thoughts on “Community currency enhances community value | Totnes”

  1. Pingback: Guillaume’s blog » Blog Archive » The Bankwatch: "Community currency enhances community value"

  2. Community currencies are a 25 year old global movement that is beginning to mature as we learn and apply the lessons from thousands of experiments on every continent. Many systems have not sustained themselves over time, a few have. As we begin to apply the principles of better design, planning and organisation we will begin to see these systems move into the mainstream to provide some of the answers to financial instability, community breakdown and unsustainable practices.

  3. Jct: When I visited Europe in 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights of accommodations with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
    It’s only a matter of time until all systems based on the Time Standard of Money will use the internet to intertrade globally. I did.
    We need the United Nations Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture. Barter Timebanks are economic lifeboats.
    See my banking systems engineering analysis at http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers with an index of articles at http://johnturmel.com/kotp.htm

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