Video Interview: Michelle Long at the New Economics Institute Strategies for a New Economy Conference
Recorded live at the New Economics Institute Strategies for a New Economy Conference on June 9, 2012, BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) Executive Director Michelle Long speaks about the importance of investing in local business to advance the New Economy Movement. "There's good research that talks about when complex systems become corrupted, they have an almost impossible time re-imagining themselves," says Long. "They can do business-as-usual plus a little recycling, but they can't fundamentally re-envision their work from the ground up, and that the way you can have wholesale transformation is to find or create a safe space outside the dominant system where something new can be created. So at BALLE, we've very focused on nurturing those safe spaces."
Visit the Strategies for a New Economy Conference webpage for more information, including videos, resources, and a Storify timeline of tweets from the conference: http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/conference
For information on the New Economics Institute, please contact:
Carina Millstone
857.284.2915
carinamillstone@neweconomicsinstitute.org
About The New Economics Institute The New Economics Institute is a US organization that combines vision, theory, action, and communication to effect a transition to a new economy -- an economy that gives priority to supporting human wellbeing and Earth’s natural systems. The organization is the successor organization to the 30-year old,well-respected E.F. Schumacher Institute. The Institute is headed by newly appointed President and CEO, Dr. Robert K. Massie and currently has offices in New York City, NY, and Great Barrington, MA. The New Economics Institute’s multidisciplinary approach employs research, applied theory, public campaigns, and educational events to describe an alternative socio-economic system that is capable of addressing the enormous challenges of our times. NEI current projects include the well-known BerkShares Local Currency Program, the Community Land Trust Program, and the Global Transition Map to a New Economy. The New Economics Institute Board of Directors include Gar Alperovitz, Jessica Brackman, John Fullerton, Neva Goodwin, Hildegarde Hannum, Eric Harris-Braun, Dan Levinson, Bob Massie, Richard Norgaard, David Orr, Will Raap, Gus Speth, Peter Victor, Stewart Wallis, Timothy Wirth and Susan Witt. About Michelle Long Michelle Long is the executive director of BALLE. Its first co-director, she transitioned to serve on the BALLE board starting in 2003 and later returned as executive director in 2009. Founded in 2002, BALLE is amplifying and accelerating the enormous awakening energy directed toward local economies. Seeing local, independently owned businesses as the key to solving our communities’ toughest challenges and to creating real prosperity, BALLE connects visionary local leaders so they can find inspiration and support. Through intense collaboration BALLE identifies and promotes the most innovative business models for creating healthier, sustainable, and prosperous communities. With a growing network of 22,000 local entrepreneurs spanning 80 communities, BALLE is leveraging the collective voice of this movement to drive new investment, scale the best solutions, and harness the power of local, independently owned business to transform the communities where we work and live. Before going to BALLE, Michelle co-founded and was executive director of Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, Washington—one of BALLE's first member business networks. Its membership, now comprised of 700 locally owned businesses, has made Bellingham the nation's top EPA-certified green-power community, a leader in green building, in fostering hundreds of new relationships between farmers and food buyers, and in shifting the purchasing behavior of three out of five households toward choosing independent retailers and services first. NPR's Marketplace called Bellingham the “epicenter of a new economic model,” and the National Resources Defense Council named Bellingham the number one small city in the nation in urban progress toward sustainability. Michelle was named one of the West Coast's "top five leading ladies of sustainability" by the Sustainable Industries Journal. A regular keynote speaker, she is also the co-author of Local First: A How-to Guide and the author of the new Building a Community of Businesses: BALLE Business Network How-to Kit.
