Globalise what is useful. Localise what matters.

If Covid reminded us of anything it was the importance of the nearby. The connection with other people and our immediate environments. Whether that was through loneliness, or the impact of a broken global supply chains. Without flourishing local communities we are exposed to all sorts of risks, everything from mental health to food and medicine.

From the Eighties to Naughties we embarked on an unprecedented drive to globalise. It was the golden age of expansion, “white space growth” fuelled an insatiable appetite for more. “Disproportionate Growth” was an unintended terminological prophecy. The global South became profit growth engines for multinationals trying to mitigate stagnating western economies.

Globalisation is however not ubiquitously evil. Much like a Shakespearian villain there are always two sides. It has become de rigueur to vilify the corporate expansion of those 30 years and to point out the problems it has caused. This pointing is usually done wearing clothes and using devices made 1000’s of km away. However, globalisation also brought us access to health care, technology and resources thought impossible as little as 50 years ago.

That said, “video killed the radio star” in many other spaces: entertainment, local manufacturing, regional and local economies, and artisanal endeavours. All challenged by the great unseen weapon of global supply chains.

We can generously blame our ignorance for this, but the incredible affordability of goods, and commensurate corporate profits simply did not account for negative externalities. There is no free lunch, and this simple truth was forgotten as we sought to commodify the world. We externalised costs, we externalised people, we externalised environmental impacts all in the name of the quarterly profit announcement.

“Disproportionate Growth” was indeed disproportionate, but instead of being beyond the growth of the surrounding pack, it was beyond the reasonable growth of our needs, our economies and our environment.

The challenges we now face as a species and planet are inseparable from the challenges to future business performance and growth. They are global, long term and highly complex. They vary from street to street, never mind from country to country. We need to realign globalisation to be in service of people, communities and environments, instead of abstract financial measures which externalise real costs.

It is time to globalise what is useful, and to localise what matters.

I'd love to start a dialogue here. I'll be following his up with additional articles but would love to get inputs to inform the way forward.

What do you think is useful, and what matters?