Transition Town Culture: The next step in building Sustainable Communities with Jane Buchan

The Local Economic Development Program in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, in partnership WPIRG, and supported by The Working Centre, SiG@Waterloo and REEP, is proud to present the following guest speaker:

Jane Buchan on Transition Town Culture: The next step for building Sustainable Communities

You may have heard the buzz around local food that has arisen in recent years, but what would some of the broader “localizing” changes we could be making look like? There is a global movement of relocalization and sustainability transitions known as the ‘transition town’ movement.

‘Transition towns’ provide an accessible and easily adaptable model for rural and urban relocalization. It involves building resilience into local communities by 'powering down' and 'skilling up'. Transition town culture fosters the assessment of local and regional vulnerabilities and suggests initiatives that will lessen the impact of climate extremes, fossil-fuel energy adversity, and global economic instability.

Speaker Biography

Jane Buchan, is a native Ontarian who now lives in Vermont. She is the author of Transformation in Canada's Deep South, a book on Ontario’s innovations in small-scale organic agriculture, restorative justice practices, and grassroots actions to address government safety-net cutbacks. Jane has taken the transition-town facilitator training to increase her usefulness in the ‘TT’ movement and she is a regular participant in the Hardwick area initiatives to create a resilient future that includes food and energy security.