Slow Money. Transition Towns. Social Enterprise. The Triple Bottom Line. All of these ideas have been around for varying amounts of time, and many more similar movements have sprung out of the big -isms in recent years. The point is, they are growing in popularity. More people are concerned about the environment, and more are trying to do something about it.
What’s cool is when these movements and the people involved in them start using their passion and ideas to make economic decisions – for example, the preference to support independent growers of most staples like coffee, tea and sugar led to massive growth in the number of fair trade products on grocery store shelves. People are asking for and purchasing this stuff because it feels good to do good, and give money to products you believe in. You can think about the explosive growth in organic foods in same way – more people wanting to eat healthy and support sustainable agriculture and more companies producing and supplying the food.
In Ontario right now, we can put retirement (RRSP eligible) money into renewable energy co-ops, meaning that all of those people who want to do good for the environment, the overall well-being of their local communities and their savings accounts, can. That’s potentially a lot of money. Building off what the Slow Money principles are trying to achieve, all that money can be invested not only in farms and sustainable food companies, but also in on-farm renewable energy projects with fixed 20-year returns.
Solar has jumped ahead of the pack so far – almost all of the applications received for the Feed-in Tariff and Community Energy Partnership Program were for solar photovoltaic projects. Highly visible, easy to understand and relatively easy to install, having a solar panel on your roof is a great way to feel that you’re making a difference by being ‘off the grid’. However, it’s just as important to our electric grid that we also develop stable power sources – those that don’t stop producing when the sun stops shining or the wind stops blowing, like on-farm biogas which can run nearly 24/7.
Investors who want to make a direct impact on their food production system (cash to farmers, more organic fertilizer, clean heat for greenhouses), their local environment (actual greenhouse gas reductions, waste diversion, renewable power production) and their local community’s economy should think about community-owned biogas. It makes sense right now, and it’s an easy way to increase project returns while reducing NIMBYism towards renewable power projects.
Small scale, distributed generation is the way we’re moving. Another movement is driving the growth of another relatively new industry. There’s a lot of biogas potential in Ontario, why not grab a piece and feel good about doing good?
photo credit: Oxfam International
