COMMUNITY SUPPORTED MANUFACTURING (CSM)

Community Supported Manufacturing (CSM), is a prominent feature of the Relocalization strategy, and is discussed in detail in the forthcoming book by Julian Darley, David Room, Richard Heinberg and Celine Rich entitled, Relocalize Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil (New Society, 2006).

 Many of the goods and services we currently rely on for our daily needs are almost totally dependent on oil. Not only do our products travel thousands of miles to get to our doors, requiring massive supplies of cheap energy in the shipping process, they also contain oil. Everything from plastics, household appliances, to processed foods is derived in some way from petroleum products.

This reliance on oil has caused many problems and has many future implications. We are already facing climate change and environmental degradation from the emissions produced in the shipping process. Cultural erosion and a loss of community are occurring as we increasingly rely on global corporations that employ cheap labour, working in substandard conditions, to supply us with low cost basic goods. If these problems are not enough, when this cheap energy supply is no longer available, we will have no way of acquiring the goods we have come to depend on.

Post Carbon Institute offers a solution to these many difficult challenges. The concept of Community Supported Manufacturing, means taking back the means of production in a socially and environmentally responsible way. It means we must return to a reliance on local production systems as the primary source of our basic goods. It means we have to resurrect the traditional production and distribution knowledge that has been eroded by our dependence and support of global corporations. It means that communities must work together to overhaul their infrastructure in order to support community based manufacturing.

CSM is an extension of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, where local production is basically extended from the farm to the workshop.  These production systems will likely have multilayered ownership, where municipalities, co-operatives, family businesses and local firms mutually support each other. The primary focus of CSM is to Relocalize production and manufacturing, in order to reduce the environmental damage and the cultural erosion that has occured from our reliance on a cheap energy source, that may soon be unavailable.

Given that the relocalizion of production means a reversal of decades of global economic policy and the rebuilding of regional supply lines, it is obvious that we can only sketch the outlines here. The details will be developed over time and will require much research as we return to self-reliance.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CSM, OR TO TEACH OTHERS ABOUT THE CONCEPT: 

Download a powerpoint presentation on community supported manufacturing CSM Powerpoint presentation V0.9.