Week Programme

Building Local, Circular Economies to Challenge Corporate Consumerism
Tired of big corp consumerism? Discover how local, sustainable businesses can fight back.
Online session run by Spend Green

In the session, attendees will be introduced to Spend Green, an online platform about to launch in the Bournemouth, designed to help the community move away from the corporate consumerism model. By supporting local, sustainable businesses, Spend Green focuses on creating circular economies that reduce waste, promote ethical consumption, and strengthen local communities.

The session covers:

• The foundational principles behind Spend Green and its impact on building resilient local economies.
• How this model can be replicated across the UK to challenge big corporations and offer consumers ethical alternatives.
• The role of digital platforms and community engagement in promoting sustainable practices.
• The challenges and opportunities in promoting local solutions in a globally connected, corporate-dominated world.

Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how a local, circular economy could support sustainable consumerism and the opportunities to implement similar models in their communities.

The session will be hosted by Liz Christou, who has a background in problem-solving within the corporate environment, using structured methodologies to address complex challenges. This approach led to the creation of my book, “Spend Green and Save the World”, which evolved into Spend Green—a platform designed to offer a local, tangible solution to the problems caused by large corporate consumerism. Her work blends corporate expertise with a passion for sustainability, driving community-led initiatives to help reshape consumer behaviour and promote ethical consumption. 

Finance With A Human Face
Online session run by Shared Interest

An introductory talk to Shared Interest highlighting, their pioneering co-operative model, which has remained since they were founded in 1990.  Followed by examples of some of the co-operatives they have supported with finance. 

The session will be hosted be Sally Seddon,  Partnership Manager for Shared Interest. Her areas of focus are currently climate change, gender equality and technical assistance but her work encompasses all areas of the organisations strategic direction. Sally has been working at Shared Interest since 2008. 

How a Universal Basic Income can help to liberate citizens, producers and consumers from the corporate stranglehold’
Online session with UBI Lab Network

Up to now, no UBI (Universal Basic Income) has been implemented anywhere in the world, but there has been Basic Income pilots and Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) trials which have some characteristics of UBI.

There is empirical evidence from these experiments that cash recipients start new businesses to respond to needs in their communities and become more entrepreneurial and innovative in their activities. We will explore whether UBI should be paid in a local rather than a national currency in order to promote ethical consumption and strengthen local communities. There are good conceptual reasons to assume that a UBI will facilitate the democratisation of organisations including corporations. This is described as the ability of UBI recipients to say NO. We will discuss these questions in small groups and summarize our group findings in a plenary.

The session will be hosted by Reinhard Huss, who has worked in clinical medicine, research, public and global health throughout his career including years long assignments in Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, Germany and UK. Through his academic career he has taught at and led programmes for the University of Heidelberg and Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds. He developed a passion for “economic justice for sustainable health” during his public health work and has dedicated his retirement life to the promotion of Universal Basic Income (UBI). He now is the coordinator for the UBI lab Leeds, a member of the UBI Lab Network, the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE).

Changing the Financial System with Community Saving
Online workshop with Kin Coop

Kin Coop will look at a history of community saving clubs and introduce their online platform for people to join together to save and how this challenges the current financial system and norms. Along the way they will explore how our attitudes to money can be overturned.

They will introduce an old savings model, that is based on grassroots savings clubs keeping money in the community and not handing it over to corporates or banks.

Speakers:

• Rob Callender – co-founder of Kin Cooperative, a not-for-profit community-based financial platform and network. He is also a senior yoga instructor, and a movement organiser and activist focused on debt, ecology, and mutual aid.
• Ben Mango – one of the original members of Kin Cooperative and it’s website developer. Ben is an environmental and social justice activist.