In March, the Scottish Government introduced the world’s first Community Wealth Building Bill – making Scotland the first nation to attempt to hardwire this emerging economic framework into law. It is an ambitious move, and rightly so.

If implemented with conviction, community wealth building (CWB) can advance economic, policy, strategy and development to confront Scotland’s deepest economic failures head-on: persistent inequality; unacceptable numbers of children living in poverty; and an investment model that too often benefits shareholders far away rather than local communities.

But for this agenda to realise its full potential, Scotland’s approach must be grounded in the rich traditions from which CWB actually descends. Although often presented as a recent invention originating in the USA in the early 2000s, its lineage stretches far further back – rooted in economic democracy and bold, asset-based economic and social movements from around the world. 

More recently pioneered by The Democracy Collaborative in the US and globally, and then taken forward by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) in the UK, it seeks to build power from the ground up through democratic ownership, empowering communities through greater levels of self-determination and participation. In practice CWB is centred on five pillars which seek to create new patterns of wealth and investment:

These pillars form the foundation on which Scotland’s own community wealth building journey has begun to take shape.

Inspired by the ‘Cleveland Model’ pursued in the US in the mid-2000s, Preston became the first place in the UK to begin developing a CWB approach in 2013. By 2020, North Ayrshire Council had taken the lead in Scotland by committing to become the country’s first CWB council. 

Since then, interest in CWB has grown across Scotland. Councils and regions have embraced a local economic model that shifts physical and financial assets into the hands of communities with new patterns of wealth, ownership and control.

Alongside growing appetite at local levels, the Scottish Government has taken steps towards recognising the importance of a CWB approach to local economic development. After committing to bringing forward a Community Wealth Building Bill in the Programme for Government 2021-2022, the Scottish Government finally published the Bill in March this year.  

 The legislation makes provision for CWB in three key ways:

The Scottish Parliament agreed to the general principles of the Bill on 20 November 2025, and the Bill is currently at the second stage of the process. The second stage allows MSPs to submit amendments, which will then be debated in early 2026. 

The Bill marks a welcome shift to embed CWB as a core component of economic development by enhancing legal duties. However, in Future Economy Scotland’s new report, ‘From Ambition to Action: Scaling Up Community Wealth Building in Scotland’, we highlight some areas in which the Bill could potentially fall short. In particular, we note that: 

While legislation is important, CWB is about practice, and while the Bill supports a more cohesive approach throughout Scotland, the core aim of legislation should be to unlock the potential of local strategies to maximise impact. It is therefore imperative that legislation is not harnessed as a vehicle to counterproductively centralise decision-making around local CWB strategies. 

Advancing CWB in Scotland requires three main components, each of which are mutually interdependent. 

1. Practice: This is the ‘show’ of community wealth building. With more action and success, it can build momentum, interest and additional take up. Importantly, this is not confined to council-level achievements in advancing the approach. Indeed, a range of organisations have adopted CWB and woven it into their activities and strategies, covering aspects of the five pillar model.

2. Networks and movement building: CWB remains a relatively new concept and as such, a key part of securing wider change rests with the networks of organisations, activists and campaigners who come together to share, learn and advocate for community wealth building. In Scotland, this includes local and national networks. Among the range of organisations advocating for this sits the CWB Centre of Excellence run by the Economic Development Association of Scotland (EDAS), a community of practice run by The Scottish Local Authorities' Economic Development (SLAED), and the Improvement Service. 

3. Policy and legislation: Alongside the practice, and the networks and movement building, policy can create the conditions by which aspects of the five pillars can be advanced. This can sit at a national level, for example, future progress made by Scottish Government legislation, as well as public sector agencies, including national enterprise agencies. At a regional level, many regional economic development bodies and enterprise agencies, such as South of Scotland Enterprise, contribute to CWB policy. Moreover, think tanks, such as CLES, and representative bodies, like Community Land Scotland and Community Energy Scotland, play a key role in advancing policy approaches.

While the Bill creates a vital enabling legislative framework, it does not in and of itself ensure the delivery of CWB across Scotland. No single piece of legislation can do so. As such, our new report sets out a series of key recommendations to advance CWB beyond the Bill, centred on enhancing the five pillars. 

These include using devolved levers to ambitiously expand progressive procurement, grow plural ownership of the economy, democratise land ownership, strengthen local community finance, and advance Fair Work and just labour markets. 

Rewiring our approach to local economic development through legislative change is an important step. If true to the missions and values of CWB, the Community Wealth Building Bill could not only mark a defining directional change in Scotland’s approach to economic development – it could also set a precedent that extends beyond Scotland’s borders. 

To enact lasting and systemic change, policy and legislative developments must sit alongside practice, and networks and movements, as interlocking components of community wealth building. 

Passing legislation does not in and of itself ensure the delivery of CWB across Scotland. As our new report notes, achieving this will be a longer journey, centring and interlacing CWB into relevant future decision-making and policy at community, local government and national levels. 

To read the new report in full, click here.