How Community Wealth Building can turn local action into radical, economy-wide change
How do you make real change happen? That is a question many of us struggle with. Theories, models and change frameworks abound, but practical examples of systemic change are rare, especially when they are supported by data. This is where Community Wealth Building, an approach championed in my adopted homeland of Scotland, comes in. I was keen to find out more and to understand whether CWB can be a vehicle for real change, both locally and nationally.
This Substack series is informed by the research for my upcoming book, Changing Stories, Finding Hope, which looks at the way negative – and flawed - narratives shape our perception of the world we live in and our ability to imagine and create a more positive future. For more background please read - or listen to - my introductory Substack.
On the 25th of March 2026, Scotland became the first country to pass a Community Wealth Building (CWB) act aimed at reducing economic and wealth inequality. The act will require Scottish Councils to create plans to implement activity which broadly tracks across the 5 pillars of CWB, which I describe below, within their communities. It is a landmark act that will give more agency to communities and strengthen local economies in the process.
If you are a regular reader to Changing Stories, you’ll know that I am pretty critical of our singular focus on economic growth. In a nutshell, I don’t believe we should measure the success of our societies and our economies through their ability to deliver growth. Our focus should be on wellbeing within planetary boundaries, whether or not that requires GDP growth.
However, critiquing the growth paradigm and calling for its replacement is one thing. Offering a credible alternative is a much greater challenge. The Global Justice Report I wrote about recently provides a comprehensive and credible framework, but one that remains very high level. What is missing from the story are practical, implementable approaches we can deliver right now.
From Transition to Community Wealth Building
Back in the noughties I became involved in the Transition Towns movement, which aimed to address the challenges of climate change and energy dependence through local community action. By giving communities agency, and empowering people to take action on local issues, including food production, transport and energy provision, things started happening that previously were seen to be the remit of politicians. In the town of Lewes where I lived at the time, we created an energy service company, facilitated access to local food producers and even launched a local currency, the Lewes Pound, which promoted local trade and ran from 2008 to 2025.
The Transition Towns movement, co-created by Rob Hopkins, one of the most inspiring change-makers I have had the pleasure to work with, is approaching its 20th anniversary with close to 1000 transition groups still active globally.
Community Wealth Building has taken on some of the characteristics of the Transition Movement, by highlighting the importance of community action to deliver tangible change at the grassroots level, with one important difference: the active engagement of the public sector. Where Transition Towns relied largely on volunteers, CWB is enabled by anchor institutions. These may be councils, the NHS or other large organisations with a big footprint (economic, social or physical) in their communities. By forming partnerships, these organisations can channel activity which supports local places and people.
Let’s get concrete: What exactly is Community Wealth Building? To find out, I recently spoke to Naomi Mason who is Head of Scotland for CLES (Centre for Local Economies) the think-tank behind the development of CWB in the UK.
She explains to me that the goal of CWB is to change who owns wealth, who benefits from growth, and to understand where money flows. Specifically, it seeks to ensure that more wealth is channelled into communities rather than leaking out of those communities into the pockets of distant multinational companies and their shareholders. It seeks to do this by focusing on five pillars, which CLES has summarised below:
Progressive procurement: Use public spending to support local suppliers, small and medium businesses, co-operatives and social enterprises where possible.
Plural ownership: Grow co-operatives, municipal enterprises, community businesses and social enterprises alongside private firms.
Fair employment: Promote Real Living Wage, secure work, progression opportunities and good labour standards.
Land and assets for community benefit: Use land, property and regeneration powers to create long-term local value.
Local finance and investments: Use pensions, lending, grants and investment tools to support local priorities.
At its core lie partnerships with key institutions that are rooted in their places. These institutions may be the largest local employers, procure lots of goods and services or have a large physical asset footprint. They may be instrumental in delivering local services, such as healthcare, transport, enterprise and skills development, which can ensure that action is coordinated across the delivery partners.
While its origins lie in Cleveland, Ohio, the most concrete example of CWB and its benefits is the English town of Preston, where CWB has resulted in £70 million of anchor institution spend returned to the community and 4,500 jobs created. A paper published in The Lancet found that these changes also led to an increase in average wages, a reduction in depression, and improved life satisfaction. The town that was once known as one of the most deprived urban areas in England was named most improved city in 2018 and 2019 and the “Best Place To Live” in the north of England.
What has made this possible? Talking to Naomi about a variety of CWB examples, five things stand out:
The clear focus on local wealth generation and distribution. For instance, it doesn’t try to fix climate change, but understands that healthier local economies can fix a number of ills, as the Preston example shows.
Giving communities agency, a belief that they have their future in their own hands. In Naomi’s words, “If places believe they can have impact, they will have impact”.
Community wealth is a broad church which crosses partisan lines. Progressives like the focus on equality, while conservatives are keen to support local business. In a time of heightened polarisation, this is much needed.
Putting partnerships at the core of delivery to ensure that joined up action adds the most value to the local community.
In these times of financial constraints, no additional budget is required to deliver CWB. Instead, the emphasis is on taking a different approach to achieve a shared goal.
Ultimately, it is a real, tangible and practical approach. In Naomi’s words, “Community Wealth Building is a practical solution that has proven its worth. That creates hope, and with hope, anything is possible.”
CWB can become one of the ways through which we can move beyond our singular focus on GDP growth towards achieving wellbeing within planetary boundaries. As you can probably tell, I am pretty excited about the important step the Scottish Parliament has taken and will keep a keen eye on how my adopted homeland uses this as a platform to achieve meaningful change across many local communities.
In doing so, I hope it can deliver economy-wide change, one community at a time.
Click here for a handy short guide on CWB.
This week’s photo is from a wonderful sight we were treated to: a mother woodpecker teaching her offspring to feed.
