In early 2026, Scotland enacted the world’s first law dedicated to community wealth building—an economic approach designed to ensure wealth generated in local places stays in those places.
Rather than allowing profits, contracts, and investment to flow outward to distant corporations or financial centres, the legislation embeds a framework that prioritises local ownership, fair work, community assets, and inclusive finance.
The law signals a profound shift in how economic success is understood. Instead of focusing solely on growth measured through national statistics, community wealth building asks deeper questions: Who benefits from economic activity? Where does wealth circulate? And how resilient are our communities when global shocks occur?
What Community Wealth Building Means in Practice
Community wealth building is not a single programme but a system-level redesign of local economies. Scotland’s framework rests on five core pillars:Public spending that favours local and social enterprisesFair work, decent wages, and strong local labour marketsLand and property used for community benefit Inclusive ownership such as cooperatives and employee-owned firms.
Finance that supports local investment rather than extractionBy placing legal duties on ministers, councils, and public bodies, Scotland has attempted to move community wealth building from good intention to structural obligation.
Why Scotland Chose This Path
The policy emerged from long-standing concern about persistent regional inequality, fragile local economies, and systems that allow wealth to be extracted from poorer communities.
Community wealth building offered a practical way to re-anchor economic power locally while still operating within a modern market economy.
Supporters see the law as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to align economic development with social justice, sustainability, and community resilience.
Critics caution that legislation alone cannot transform economies without sustained funding, institutional capability, and political commitment.
Could This Work in Aotearoa New Zealand?
For Aotearoa New Zealand, the question is not only economic but constitutional, cultural, and historical. Many elements of community wealth building already resonate locally:
wellbeing-focused public policy, strong cooperative traditions, growing Māori economic development, regional investment strategies, and the need for climate-resilient economies.
These parallels suggest compatibility.But Aotearoa also carries a defining foundation that must shape any such model—Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The Central Role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Te Tiriti is not simply a historical agreement; it is a living constitutional relationship that affirms Māori authority, partnership with the Crown, active protection of rights and resources, and equitable participation in economic life.
Because community wealth building is fundamentally about who controls land, labour, capital, and decision-making, it intersects directly with Tiriti obligations.
A Tiriti-centred approach would mean:
Recognising iwi and hapū not as stakeholders, but as partners in economic governance
Addressing historic land dispossession alongside future community ownership
Using local economic development as a pathway toward restorative economic justice
Embedding shared decision-making rather than consultation alone
In this sense, Te Tiriti does not complicate community wealth building—it gives it depth, legitimacy, and direction.
Potential Benefits for New Zealand Communities
If shaped through genuine Tiriti partnership, a community wealth building framework could:
Strengthen iwi and community economic sovereignty
Keep public money circulating within local regions
Improve job security, wages, and working conditions
Expand cooperative, Māori, and social enterprise ownership
Support climate-resilient local economies
Reduce long-standing social and regional inequality
Most importantly, it could shift the national conversation from “How fast is the economy growing?” to “Who is the economy growing for?”
Challenges and Open Questions
A community wealth building law in Aotearoa would also face significant hurdles:
Legal complexity within a highly centralised state system
The need for long-term funding and institutional capabilitySecuring cross-party political durability
Ensuring Tiriti partnership is genuine rather than symbolicThese are not small challenges. They point to a deeper national question about the kind of future Aotearoa seeks to build.
Looking Ahead
Scotland’s new law does not offer a perfect template. But it demonstrates something powerful:
economic systems can be deliberately reshaped to serve communities rather than extract from them.
For Aotearoa New Zealand, the real opportunity may lie not in copying Scotland, but in weaving community wealth building together with Te Tiriti o Waitangi—creating an economy grounded in rangatiratanga, wellbeing, sustainability, and shared prosperity.
Such a shift would ask us to imagine an economy where wealth is not merely produced, but justly held, collectively governed, and sustained for generations to come.
Whether there is political appetite for this vision remains uncertain.But the conversation has begun—and the future it points toward is one that many communities across Aotearoa are already working to create.
