The holiday season is a great time to reflect on our consumer choices, and how it both impacts and benefits our community. As we make note of local events this week — from Shop Bowen Island to Makers and Bakers to Children’s Shopping Day at the Nook — our participation gives us the opportunity, at a neighbourhood level, to strengthen our island’s circular economy.
Buying local is just one part of transitioning from a linear to a circular economy. The goals of a circular economy includes reducing waste and pollution, including greenhouse gases, and attempts to keep products and materials in circulation.
In short, it consists of embracing five familiar consumer habits: reducing, reusing, refurbishing, repairing, and recycling.
Shifting to a circular economy requires a high level of collaboration between businesses, communities and government to ensure services and infrastructure exist to support projects designed to reduce waste operating in the economy.
The Community Economic Development Committee (CEDC) will be doing a deep dive into how to grow our island’s circular economy at the next Business Summit scheduled in Spring 2025. The CEDC hopes to bring together businesses to raise awareness and take inventory of the resources, expertise and goods we have on island, and then create a network to help identify synergies.
How can our local businesses work better together to reduce waste and grow local services? How can we encourage the circulation of goods at the neighbourhood level? What does local government need to do to ensure we have the infrastructure and services needed to grow this new economy?
We do invite everyone this holiday season to consider how your consumer choices impact our community, and how shopping local is just the beginning. As you move forward with your holiday shopping this season, consider how your consumer habits can benefit our local economy.
The CEDC looks forward to reaching out to local businesses in the new year with more information on our upcoming Business Summit.
