''Distributed economies'' (DE) is a term that was coined by Allan Johansson et al. in 2005.
[Johansson A, Kisch P, Mirata M., 2005]
Distributed economies - A new engine for innovation
. Journal of Cleaner Production 2005;13:971-9
Definition
There is no official definition for DE, but it could be described as a regional approach to promote innovation by
small and medium-sized enterprises
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by many national agencies and international organiza ...
, as well as
sustainable development
Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...
. The concept is illustrated in the figure below, that shows centralised,
decentralised and distributed economies respectively.
Features
The relations in DE are much more
complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
than those in a centralised economy. This feature makes the whole economy more
stable
A stable is a building in which working animals are kept, especially horses or oxen. The building is usually divided into stalls, and may include storage for equipment and feed.
Styles
There are many different types of stables in use tod ...
– leaf nodes no longer rely on just one central node. It also resembles
ecological networks, making it a good practical example of
industrial ecology
Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...
.
A big advantage of DE is that it enables entities within the network to work much more with regional/local natural resources, finances,
human capital
Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...
, knowledge, technology, and so on. It also makes the entities more flexible to respond to the local
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
*Marketing, the act of sat ...
needs and thus generating a bigger innovation drive. By doing this, they become a better reflection of their social environment and in that way they can improve
quality of life
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
.
The whole concept of DE is not at all a new invention – this is how most
pre-industrial
Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time befor ...
economies were organised. However,
information technology
Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...
has opened new doors for the concept:
information can be shared much more easily and small-scale production facilities (
rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data.
Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing ...
) are becoming cheaper.
The DE concept works well with the development of
fab lab
A fab lab (''fabrication laboratory'') is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and variou ...
s.
Not all industries are fit for DE; for example, many chemical processes only become economically feasible & efficient on a large scale. On the other hand,
bio-energy and consumer products are interesting candidates.
See also
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
DeLabs - Learning Labs for Distributed EconomiesDE at The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden
{{DEFAULTSORT:Distributed Economy
Economic systems
Network theory