I read that a small village in Wales, Llangattock, had won a prize from British Gas to improve their energy efficiency. The whole story is a little more complex, it involved seed funding, community organization and a contest. It is a good example of how small community led, but large organization incented, change can create positive change. Here is a report about that uses Llangattock as an example of community led change in the wake of what these authors believe - "it is clear that both centralised state activity and unfettered markets are flawed when it come to achieving deeply embedded social change". Full report here:
http://tinyurl.com/3exoqvf
The key phrase here is "flawed", i.e. central activity and markets are not totally dismissed, but they are not sufficient nor perhaps even structured appropriately.
The story of the Green Valleys project in Llangattock demonstrates that a diversity of efforts, ranging from high tech - solar PV and micro-hydro to low tech revivals such as traditional woodlands managment can achieve remarkable results. Here is their web site for you to explore:
http://www.llangattockgreenvalleys.org/
I was also intrigued by mention of a 'small machinery ring' as a future activity. I did a google search and found this description of the Lothian Machinery ring. Their purpose is to share expensive farm machinery since such machinery forms a large and fixed capital cost in farming.
