Network society, knowledge economy, collaborative digital platforms, intelligent local communities, proximity economies, innovation and creativity in new value chains and their respective territorial articulation, this is a task that is, from now on, within our reach.
One of the applications of this sequel has to do with smart local communities and their respective proximity economies.
There are currently many entries to introduce smart local communities (CLI). One of these inputs, perhaps the most important at this stage, concerns the circular economy. For this to happen, it is essential to gather some basic conditions or characteristics of available and potential intelligence.
Let's see, schematically, some of these characteristics:
– CLIs are 4C communities: CLIs are 4C, knowledge, collaborative, circular and creative communities.
– CLIs are communities of linear risk and circular opportunity: CLIs are communities that aim to reduce linear inflows in the life cycle of their reference products and seize the opportunity to reintroduce recovered and recycled waste into the production process.
– CLIs are 5R regenerative communities: CLIs are 5R communities of reduction, recycling, repair, reinvention and reuse of resources and waste.
– CLIs are communities of access and service rather than ownership and ownership: CLIs are communities that progressively replace ownership of a good with access to the service that that good provides; this dematerialization saves resources and increases circularity.
– CLI are communities with a longer life cycle: CLI are closed-loop communities, against planned obsolescence, and for the recovery and reintroduction of resources and materials.
– CLIs are communities that link city and countryside: CLIs are communities that link city and countryside through biophysical and ecological infrastructure, green corridor networks, rehabilitation of habitats and ecosystems, and provision of ecosystem services.
– CLIs are more dematerialized and distributed communities: CLIs are more digitalized and distributed communities, with more flow and less population stock, but with more distance solutions through imaginative articulation between online and offline communities.
– CLI are communities that internalize externalities: CLI are communities that assess the impacts of their external effects, mitigating negative effects and promoting convergence and taking advantage of positive effects.
– CLIs are territorially and cooperatively based communities: CLIs are communities that, in their collective actions, privilege integrated local and territorial operations where cooperation between agents and the role of the actor-network are decisive.
– CLIs are communities of circularity, certification and reputation: CLIs are communities where brand images respect and value circularity, the certification of processes and procedures and the reputation of their good practices.
Smart Local Communities and Proximity Economies
Local communities are therefore obliged to take an intelligence test if they want to be direct actors in their own development process. One of these most fruitful creative experiences concerns the formation of multi-local platforms made in generically encompassed in the designation of proximity economies.
The following examples better illustrate what I have just said:
– Platform for the condominium of villages
– Platform for local and rural accommodation
– Platform for organic food and its circuits
– Platform for the production and management of institutional food
– Platform for circular economy and waste management
– Platform for outpatient care and outreach services
– Platform for local energy production
– Platform for Occasional Markets
– Cohousing platform for the senior community
– Employment and professional training platform
– Platform for the defense and protection of disabled citizens
– Platform for the promotion of therapeutic communities
– Platform for the defense and promotion of natural and cultural heritage
– Shared mobility platform
– Platform of educational communities for young people
– Content production and communication platform
– Platform for organizing voluntary work
– Agricultural land platform, cooperation and agro-rural extension
– Platform for small repairs, traditional crafts and handicrafts
As will easily be recognised, proximity economies go far beyond the concept of the circular economy. This concept is not new, it is closely associated with the area of industrial ecology and product life cycle. An immense challenge that involves technology, innovation and imagination for new business models.
Moving from a linear economy to a circular economy implies that the waste produced by economic activities is nil and that we are creative enough to identify profitable and truly circular business models.
Thus, this transition to the circular economy involves major changes and implies the ability to think about product design in an ecological way and the possibility of promoting new industrial symbiosis, the need to identify new businesses associated with the rental and repair of equipment instead of their own purchase, knowledge of new business models at a financial level, so that it is possible for investors to invest and lend capital to these activities with stocks and profitability different from those usually considered as good business and, above all, an incentive system that induces agents to move from the linear to the circular economy.
But the essence of proximity economies is to discover, practice and implement, starting with the pertinent information in each of the platforms mentioned, then the design of the multi-site meta-platform (data center) that makes the whole interactive universe rotate and, finally, the network and agglomeration economies that articulate all the aforementioned areas and activities.
On the other hand, the organization of work is undergoing rapid change and moving at a rapid pace downstream towards what will be the quaternary sector, employment and work more intermittent, but, for that very reason, much more interactive, intense and collaborative. It is precisely here that the multi-site platforms are located and will be most useful made in.
Final Notes
There are several challenges that companies face in the transition to the circular and creative economy, namely, the adoption of new technologies, new design solutions, new materials and reformulation of value chains and new business models more based on access and usufruct and less in possession.
The urgency of the transition has never been more evident. Linear business models can be profitable in the short term, but over time they expose companies to increasing market, operational, regulatory and business risks.
Through circular and creative business models, companies can accelerate their growth, improve their competitiveness and mitigate different types of risks. That is why this is one of the main challenges of the decade 2020-2030 and of the European Ecological Pact.
But this is also the time to imagine and reinvent a solidary and collaborative society in a virtuous triangle that will bring together the economy of public goods, the economy of private goods and the economy of common goods.
In this context, proximity economies will be a new central place and, in essence, an investment in more and better humanity, in more and better neighbourhoods, taking advantage of available technologies.
This list of multi-site platforms made in is, in itself, very eloquent, as it reveals the complexity of the task that lies ahead, from the outset a substantial change in the values that inspire and guide us, then a change in the equation that links us to territory and technology, finally , the great transformation towards the collaborative society and the economy of common goods.
It's a big task, but it's the only one worth undertaking.
Author António Covas is a Retired Full Professor at the University of Algarve
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