Cities are changing to become increasingly inhospitable to locally owned businesses. In this 20-minute talk, ILSR’s Olivia LaVecchia discusses what’s causing the problem, why it matters — and six policy strategies that cities are using to address it.… Read More
On February 13, ILSR’s John Farrell participated in a debate on the value of small-scale distributed generation at the annual meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Washington, D.C. with utility-scale renewable energy advocate Brian Potts. We’ve attached the slides from the John’s side of the debate, media coverage of the debate … Read More
The Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2017 was the fourth national forum sponsored by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and BioCycle. See the presentations that the speakers brought with them to the events.… Read More
On November 30, 2016, members of ILSR’s Composting Makes Sense team attended the Maryland Food Recovery Summit. Brenda Platt was a vital part of organizing the summit, along with Hilary Miller and Kaley Laleker from the Maryland Department of the Environment. The Maryland Secretary of the Environment, Ben Grumbles, opened the day with a Mark Twain … Read More
On Monday, December 5th from 12:00-1:00PM CST, John Farrell will be delivering a webinar, titled “Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?” Conventional wisdom suggest the biggest wind and solar power plants will be cheapest, but where they deliver power, and who owns them, matters more. In this webinar, John Farrell will present the findings from his … Read More
On October 18th, John Farrell delivered a keynote presentation to the annual gathering of the BioCycle Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling (REFOR16) in Orlando, Florida. In this presentation, Farrell details how microgrids are a realistic piece of our renewable energy future and the intersection of biogas and other renewable energy technologies, such as solar and wind energy.… Read More
On September 27th, Brenda Platt presented “Composting to Build Local Equity” at the San Diego Food System Alliance’s Food Waste Summit 2 in San Diego. Brenda outlined the benefits of composting and the importance of a distributed infrastructure in order to build local soils, local businesses, local jobs, and local equity. Her remarks set the stage … Read More
On Monday, September 26th, Institute for Local Self-Reliance co-founder Neil Seldman will present at Ralph Nader’s Breaking Through Power Conference in Washington D.C. His presentation: “Community Business is Revolutionary” will be at 11:10AM at Carnegie Institution of Washington. Tickets for one-day passes are only $10 and can be purchased through TicketMaster. Here is the description of the event … Read More
For too long, public policy has rigged the market to favor big corporations and undermine small, locally owned businesses, especially those launched by women and people of color. In this video of a panel session at the CommonBound conference, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and other leaders discuss how, now, local businesses and activists across the country are working to change the rules to instead support community enterprises.… Read More
