Financing alternative economies in regional sustainability transitions

With growing environmental and social challenges, our current socio-economic paradigm based on the extraction of finite environmental resources has come under close scrutiny. In particular community economies increasingly subscribe to imperatives of sustainability to tackle these aforementioned human-induced crises, by increased local and collaborative sourcing, and deliberately pursue non-capitalist objectives. They can thus be viewed as drivers of regional sustainability transitions that improve the livelihoods across all societal classes from a social, economic and environmental perspective. Through the conceptual lens of Diverse Economies this research sheds light on alternative economic practices of community economies within the urban environments of Luxembourg and Germany. Prior research hints to the fact that such projects outside the (financialized) capitalist realm require new forms of tailored financing with patient capital, but stand in stark contrast to the capitalist project financing logics applied in international financial centers. Access to capital in global financial markets seems to be unavailable due to community economies’ averaging small economic size and orientation towards a common good rather than on financial returns. This research renders visible alternative economic practices of CE, in particular investigating the aspect of financing. With a diversion from a sole capitalist purpose, the deliberate usage of alternative financing practices is assumed and interpreted, how a plurality of ‘alternative’ activities can support regional sustainability transitions. The PhD project is part of the FNR-CORE Project AltFin: https://altfin.uni.lu/