5 Reasons to Support Small, Local Businesses

Here's why buying from and investing with local independent businesses helps save the world.

1.  Buying Locally is Good for the Environment

To (over)simplify a complex issue: the environmental problems we face today exist because we consume resources and create waste at unsustainable rates.  The cause of this phenomenon is not simply that we consume too many resources - though we do - but also that we consume them in a highly inefficient manner.  Food travels thousands of miles before it reaches the plate; our toys, gadgets, appliances, and clothes are manufactured half way around the world (Did you know that a globally sourced cotton t-shirt can travel over 16,000 miles before it is worn? Ever even considered the carbon footprint of your t-shirt? Check out: Dirt-to-Shirt).
If we were all to consumer more consciously and intelligently we could alleviate much of the environmental strain our consumption pattern puts on the earth.  Local products and food, sourced locally, travel considerably less distance to reach the consumer.  And local products made by small-scale manufacturers are generally of higher quality and need to be replaced less often. Walmart may be cheap but it's for a reason.  Finally, small independent businesses are inextricably linked to the community in which they exist and therefore have a greater responsibility to its local environment than global or national corporations.  Local business owners have strong incentives to act responsibly, and don't have national share-holds to encourage them to consider the bottom-line above all else.
Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth and co-founder of 350.org, sees the development of vibrant local communities and business networks as the key to preventing a full environmental meltdown in the next century.  So support a local independent business next time you go shopping - the earth will thank you!

2.  Small Businesses Help Create Good Quality Jobs

Small businesses are vitally important to the American economy.  They represent 99.7% of all employer firms in America and in the past 17 years, small businesses have generated 65% of the new jobs nationwide.  Yet, local governments dedicate their resources to attracting big-box stores to their towns because they promise hundreds or thousands of jobs.  While they may seem, on the surface to create employment, these stores - like Walmart, RiteAid, or Target - suck business away from independent family owned businesses and export capital out of the community causing on average the loss of 1.5 jobs for every job they create, and a decrease in the communities wealth. 
Bringing capital and demand back to community-based businesses allows for the employment of more people in higher-quality jobs with better hours, benefits and working conditions.

3.  When you Buy and Invest Locally you Know where your Money is Going

Money is power.  The implications of that statement are many-fold but I wish to discuss just one facet: the power that money gives us, as citizens and consumers.  In some ways this relationship is very obvious and straight forward: we can give money to non-profits or charities that we're passionate about,  and to campaigns we believe in.  However, as consumers, our choices about where we distribute our business is equally important.  Every dollar we spend at a business gives that business another dollar to spend as it chooses.  
Large corporations have complicated convoluted business structures, with their fingers in diverse projects across the globe. This is not to say that these projects are necessarily bad or undeserving of your money, but do you know what they are? -- Did you know that JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America have been the leading funders worldwide of coal since 2005? Or that Amazon.com is a founding member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - a group that has funded and backed laws in several states to encourage Global Warming denial in public schools?
Small local businesses are much easier to keep track of. The majority of every dollar spend at an independent business goes right back to the community. It's easy to see the projects that your local businesses are sponsoring, and if you don't like them, move your business elsewhere. Similarly, when you invest in a local bank or credit union, you can be sure that your money is being used to support people and businesses in your community, not being payed as bonuses to executives or invested in oil futures.
The influence that your money has may not seem significant in the grand sceme of things, but it should not be taken lightly. We cannot control other people, we cannot control multi-national corporations, we cannot single handedly pass laws, we don't have the power to being or end wars, but we do control to whom and to what projects our money goes next. Buying and investing local ensures that the power our money gives us is being used for good.

4. Local Businesses are the Laboratories of Capitalism

Small local businesses that are rooted in their communities exist to serve those communities.  Yes, they function to make profit, but their ability to make that profit is directly dependent upon the businesses ability to provide goods and services desired by its community.  For this reason small businesses are sources of great innovation.  In order to compete they must find ways to serve their community in way that the bigger businesses cannot.  This results in creative problem solving.  Whether it be clever new ways to reduce the carbon footprint of lawn-care, or providing a communal space for bakers or chefs without the ability to foot the start-up cost of a professional kitchen - local businesses and entrepreneurs are devising creative manners to serve their communities everyday.
State governments have been called "laboratories of democracy" because they are able to develop localized, creative legislations that solve tricky problems more swiftly and at a lower cost than the nation government could.  These new solutions can then be adopted by other states and sometimes even the nation at large - think Massachusetts health care reform and "ObamaCare".  This is exactly how local businesses serve us.  They are able to experiment with creative and innovative ways to serve social good while still making profit with less risk than large companies could.  By sharing these ideas and solutions, social good can be spread on the coat tails economic prosperity.

5.  Make your Neighborhood, Community, City a Place you, and others, Want to Be

Every community has it's own energy and spirit.  No neighborhood is really a Target, CVS, and Wells Fargot kind-of-place.  Endorse the businesses that make your area special.  Support your cities unique creative minds, and individual irreplaceable people!

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So think about where you spend your money - find the unique and innovative independent local businesses near you.  Be a localist and Think Local First.