If there is no Greenlinks Directory for your local area, we can help you start one
How the process works

1. Any geographically defined locality in UK (city, county, community, bio-region) can purchase, at very low cost, their own Greenlinks online database in which to build their own directory of local information, with start-up support from the Greenlinks team.

2. A local team of volunteers (and paid workers depending on local funding) drive each local initiative. Their initial role is to use their local knowledge and research, to identify local businesses/organisations and encourage them to submit their details for a free entry.

Then, the team promotes the database-driven website, which has an online form and sections on food, waste, energy, transport, agriculture, gardens and countryside, building and DIY, tourism and leisure.
Someone in each team will be appointed to monitor new applications/entries and approve them according to a set of simple criteria.

3.Once the process gets started, information-gathering becomes increasingly self-generated by local businesses themselves.

4. As their directory starts to build, the local project team focus on public awareness-raising, using press, local radio, etc. and public events, which include a ‘trade fair’ where businesses in the directories are invited to take stalls to promote their goods and services. The marketing is crucial to the success of each local directory. Their success depends on them being widely used.

5. This ‘one-stop-shop’ approach has already proved a powerful method of joint promotion.

6. Each online directory is ‘live’ and available for public use from day one, and on reaching about 300 entries, printed paper versions can be produced for local distribution in TICs, health food shops etc. Advertising fees can cover printing costs, costs for negotiating advertising space, plus admin, design and artwork, need to be found in other ways.

7. All the local directories are linked, and benefit from the wider coverage and the Greenlinks 'brand'.

8. Training seminars and support for each local area is available at reasonable rates.

This model has been piloted very successfully in Herefordshire and the systems developed and lessons learnt can now be made available more widely. The pilot has shown that this methodology is simple and cost effective to apply. In addition, raising the profile & increasing the market for sustainable products will encourage producers to improve practices as well as consumers to change to using sustainable products and services.

Overview
The process aims to provide a practical mechanism for creating more sustainable communities across the UK.

This ‘co-operative’ promotional tool in which sustainable (and often small) businesses are featured, can create greater awareness and increased incentives for all businesses which operate in a locality to think about their ‘green’ credentials.
Local businesses servicing their community need marketing assistance in the face of large corporate competition, and shopping locally can bring very significant benefits to a local economy (New Economics Foundation Research) as well as to the environment; community interaction energy efficiency, reduced transport etc.