Complementary Currencies and Co-Production

That Friday afternoon, my energy was definitely waning after a long week spent with friends from overseas.  I was hoping to just make it through the afternoon, and as soon as Becky Booth began explaining the history of complementary currencies, I was hooked and wide awake!  It was one of the most interesting presentations we have had, outlining the incredible innovation and outside-the-box thinking that is possible in terms of developing alternative economic systems – something that is more and more necessary in light of recent financial crises!  Becky is the Programmes Director and co-founder of Spice, a social enterprise that designs and develops community credit systems which encourage active participation and engagement of community members.

What the heck does all this mean, exactly?  Well, complementary currencies have arisen throughout history usually in response to the collapse of conventional currencies, or to address specific problems in society.  Becky gave us an example of one currency started by the local government in Curitiba, Brazil, which was used both to promote recycling and reduce local unemployment.  People received ‘tokens’ for bringing in a bag of recycling.  This token was then good for one bus ride into town, where there were more jobs.

Another example is the Brixton pound (http://brixtonpound.org/).  The purpose of this currency is to promote local consumption by Brixton (an eclectic area in South-East London) community members, and to encourage the currency to circulate locally thus improving the local economy.  This pound can only be spent at participating local shops, and can be gotten and traded in one-for-one for the British pound sterling £.

Along the same lines, co-production is the concept of a non-market economy, or a ‘core’ economy, in which people provide services to each other with no money exchanging hands.  Co-production is an approach that re-invigorates and rebuilds the core economy and realises its potential as key to the sustainable and effective delivery of public services.  Community currencies are tools that can help embedd co-production within services and communities.  This system has been gaining a lot of attention of late, especially in light of the Tory’s ‘Big Society’ manifesto in which citizens are expected to self-manage and organize to tackle society’s problems.

Under this broad umbrella, Spice works with organisations and communities to design and implement person-to-agency time credit systems that support the engagement of the many in service delivery.  In this form, people receive credits for volunteering hours, and may then spend these time credits at participating local shops and services.  The fundamental quality of this system is that it does not replace and thus undermine the traditional cash-for-goods system, but rather complements it.  This system, known as timebanking, is another tool that helps to embedd co-production within communities.

Ok, enough for now, but it’s hard to stop writing about something so interesting!  Find out more at http://justaddspice.org/