Promoting resource efficiency through eco-localism
Although governments have agreed to limit the global temperature increase to 2 ̊C to avoid irreparable damage, if present trends are continuing that limit will be reached already by 2035 (Global Apollo Programme). It seems that technology is ready, and more and more initiatives foster governments to turn research and development as well as organisational and regulatory efforts into the right direction. However, all these efforts are in vain if a key component, the human factor is missing. The road to environmental sustainability lies in the creation of local, self-reliant, community-based economies. This is eco-localism, the economics of the local community. Its goal is to establish a healthy community economy, which requires the preservation of the ecosystem on which it depends as well as the subordination of the economy to society and the local community. Cities can address the impacts of an ecological crisis 1)by changing their physical infrastructures and service systems and 2)as the most local forms of governance, by changing the attitudes of their residents and support eco-localism.By empowering local groups as well as the city administration and by matchmaking grass-root ecological initiatives with large-scale resource efficiency interventions, Urban Green Labs sets up models on how empowered ecological groups and top-down interventions can mutually reinforce each other to make cities more resilient and healthier, while also reducing their ecological footprint.