Neither our communities nor our ecosystems are well served by an economic system that incentivizes perpetual growth, wealth concentration, and the exploitation of land and people. Communities everywhere are responding to these converging economic and ecological crises with a grassroots transformation of our economy that is rapidly re-localizing production, reducing resource consumption, and rebuilding the relationships that make our communities thrive.

However, as new solutions for resilience emerge, many are running into entrenched legal barriers: laws originally designed to protect people from the ills of industrialism are now preventing many communities from growing and selling their own food, investing in local businesses, creating sustainable housing options, and cooperatively owning land and businesses.    

Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) exists to bridge the gap in legal expertise needed to transition from destructive economic systems to innovative and cooperative alternatives. Our 10 programs work together in identifying key leverage points in our existing economic and legal systems, removing strategic legal barriers, and creating replicable models for community resilience. We work to:

• Envision more just and resilient economic and legal systems;

• Identify and advocate for public policies that remove legal barriers to resilient communities while maintaining and strengthening worker, consumer and environmental protections;

• Empower community-based entrepreneurs and innovators to create replicable legal structures that will form the blueprints of the new economy;

• Educate communities and law-makers about the potential of new economic strategies; and

• Train the next generation of community-based lawyers to meet the burgeoning legal needs of resilient communities everywhere.

See our New Economy in Practice page to see how we embody this change in our own organizational structure and processes.