Sustainability is more than an end. It is about extending the human species’ stay on the earth and improving the quality of that existence. Sustainable communities foster commitment to place, build resilience to stress, act as stewards, and forge peaceful connections both within and beyond the community. A community is unsustainable if it consumes resources faster than they can be renewed, produces more wastes than natural systems can process or relies upon distant sources for its basic needs.

Learn more about our national peer network of organizations working to build Local Living Economies all across this country: Business Alliance for Local Living Economies | www.livingeconomies.org

Interested in more Local Living Economy Examples and Models? See the Conservation Economy Framework from Eco Trust | http://www.conservationeconomy.net/pattern_map/flash/index.htm

The importance of buying from local businesses and farms

David Korten talks about the importance of Local Living Economies: People Centered Development Forum | http://www.pcdf.org/

Institute for Local Self-Reliance | http://www.newrules.org/

American Farmland Trust

Land Stewardship Project

E.F. Schumacher Society | http://www.schumachersociety.org/

A study done in one Vermont town that showed their number one export to be...cash! | http://www.vtlivablewage.org/jobgapstudy.html

Community Corporations

National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (They have a series of publications on alternative forms of corporate ownership. "A Third Way: Innovation in Community-Owned Enterprise" by Jeff Shavelson is particularly good) | http://www.ncesa.org/

The Mondragon Model has been widely praised as an extremely successful business organisation in part because of its' democratic methods in organisation, job creation, promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and commitment to the development of its social environment. Mondragon Corporation Cooperative

Business and Environmental Sustainability

GreenBiz.com | http://www.greenbiz.com/

Natural Capitalism | http://www.natcap.org/

This Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates how much productive land and water you need to support what you use and what you discard. After answering 15 easy questions you'll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on this planet. | http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

Livable Jobs

The Livable Jobs Toolkit is for businesses:

• Interested in attracting/keeping employees
• With small, medium or large budgets
• Seeking new ways to compensate employees

The toolkit is a workbook to help businesses create a work/life-friendly workplace, offer an attractive package of combined wages, benefits, and workplace practices and remain profitable at the same time.

http://www.vbsr.org/pdf/Toolkit.pdf

Online Magazines and Web Portals

Tidepool Environmental News | http://www.tidepool.org/

Sustainable Communities Network | http://www.sustainable.org/

Positive Futures Network | http://www.yesmagazine.org/

Green@Work Magazine | http://www.greenatworkmag.com/

New Village

Earth Island Institute | http://www.earthisland.org/

Measuring What Matters

Redefining Progress | http://www.rprogress.org/

Northwest Environment Watch | http://www.rprogress.org/

Conscious Consumerism

Green Pages Online | http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages/

Center for a New American Dream

Responsible Shopper | http://www.responsibleshopper.org/

Local Currencies

Ithaca Hours | http://www.ithacahours.org/

Book Recommendations

Going Local by Michael Shuman

The Hometown Advantage by Stacy Mitchell

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawkin and Amory and Hunter Lovins

When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten

Ripples from the Zambezi by Ernesto Sirolli

Biomimicry by Janine Beynus

The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs

Cannibals with Forks by John Elkington

The Natural Step for Business by Brian Natrass and Mary Altomare