Community Wealth Building
Community Wealth Building is fundamental to transitioning to a wellbeing economy delivering sustainable economic, social, and environmental development that enhances the prosperity of all of Scotland’s people and places on an equitable basis.
It is getting increasing recognition as critical to Scotland’s future, but what it looks like in practice is not widely understood.
What is Community Wealth Building?
Community Wealth Building is a transformative approach to making local economies work for local people. The core principle is to move away from top-down, extractive models where wealth is taken from a place. Instead, it focuses on ‘bottom-up’ action where communities are enabled to generate, retain, and circulate economic, social, and environmental wealth for the benefit of everyone who lives there.
This is Community Wealth Building
We launched – This is Community Wealth Building – a series of stories showing the work of grassroots community organisations pioneering Community Wealth Building across Scotland, and the intermediary networks supporting them.
We are calling for:
1.
Community organisations to be recognised as essential partners and established leaders in the design and delivery of Community Wealth Building.
2.
Secure, long-term investment and resources for the community sector to build on their foundational work and unlock their full potential.
3.
Decision-making power devolved to the most local level, ensuring the Community Wealth Building Bill is implemented from the ground up, not top-down.
Why is it one of our priorities?
The community sector are already established leaders of CWB, pioneering this approach from the ground up. As this is translated into policies, communities throughout Scotland need to be front and centre in shaping what Community Wealth Building looks like, and – critically – drawing substantial benefits from CWB in practice that will sustain them and their places, both now and for the generations to come.
What is currently happening?
The Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026 seeks to ensure consistent implementation of the CWB model of economic development across Scotland. It does this by requiring public bodies to work together to use their economic levers to deliver sustainable growth and promote resilience in our local economies.
The Act presents an unprecedented opportunity to provide the support and recognition that community organisations need to thrive, ensuring they have a seat at the decision-making table and are included in procurement and planning processes.
Further Reading
Programme for Government – gov.scot
Our response to the Community Wealth Building Bill Call for Views
Our response to the consultation on Building Community Wealth in Scotland in April 2023.