Helping you FLOURISH

for all businesses, individuals and initiatives

Greener Huntly is a project of the Huntly Greenspace Collective, a dynamic community of individuals, businesses, and groups. Our shared love for green spaces and its transformative potential is what connects us.

For us, land is the means as well as the end. We generate profit and other resources through using what nature provides, and use these resources to regenerate the land where nature and people live in harmony. If you are a business, individual or community group that relies on nature, land or outdoor space for your products, services or activities then our collective can help you thrive.

Did you know that 50% of people would like a say in how their local green spaces are managed? We want make that happen; we give our members a voice and let them make decisions around what will happen with the local green spaces.

Our community is built on diversity and chaos. The more members that join, the more resilient and productive we become. Find out below how we do things. It is a little different. For good reasons.

Emergence occurs when a complex group has properties or behaviours that its individual parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Similarly, we believe that the Huntly Greenspace Collective can only provide our quality and range in products and services because of our members.

Because the benefit to us is the simple fact that you are a member, we do not charge membership fees. We can offer clients quality work because of our member businesses and their collaborative approach. In return we provide our members by directing work to them, and through supports, access to the shared tools, land, expertise and more. And most importantly, we support one another.

Building local community wealth

Ìn all we do as a collective, we want to build community wealth and ensure that this wealth goes to the places the community wants to see it. To us, that means we need to be able to trade. So instead of setting up a community group or charity, we set up a business. More specifically a collective. One that is open to anyone from the community including other land based businesses.

Keep profits local

We believe in keeping the pound circulating within our community.

By working together and supporting the creation and growth of green and fair local businesses, we aim to ensure that profits stay here, rather than flowing to distant corporations with shareholders that have little interest in what happens in Huntly.

Fair pay for these businesses and comprehensive support are central to our purpose.

Open member policy

Everything we own is owned by our members.

Anyone can become a member simply by joining our conversation. This includes businesses and initiatives.

Members make decisions around our shared values, how we operate, and how profits are spent.

Fair working conditions

As our collective grows, so will opportunities for meaningful employment. These jobs will offer flexibility, fair wages, and supportive working conditions.

Some people enjoy being self employed, giving them flexibility and ownership. Others prefer a regular predictable working environment. We stay responsive to what people prefer, providing both employment and business to business contracts.

Care for the environment and the community

For us, price isn’t the only factor when choosing products and services. Our member businesses adhere to high standards in environmental sustainability, fair employment practices, and local sourcing. We apply these same principles when seeking external suppliers, ensuring our decisions align with our values.

Share what you have and use it wisely

And finally, the green spaces. Every asset we have access to, including land, is used to maximise benefits for both the community and the environment. What particular benefits we focus on depends on what our members tell us. So becoming part of our chat gives you the power to shape a greener future for Huntly.

Our members, their collaboration and conversation, are the essence of the collective. In the same way a woodland is a complex, ever changing mixture of innate and living things that live together in a community. To develop such a community, we embrace structural complexity. This ecological principle teaches us that sustainable, self-organised systems require complexity - the range of unique elements within the system. And they require chaos - unpredictable co-evolution driven by changes in the environment.

The more members, and the more diversity in our type of members, the more complexity. And removing hierarchy allows for the required degree of chaos. Our directors are just there to ensure that support is given where needed. The result? According to ecological experts, it will be an ever changing yet robust system that can weather changes.

how we do things

We are a social - not for personal profit - company limited by guarantee. We have an asset lock in place. We are governed by our members, who decide on the framework in which we operate. This includes our company objects, governance, membership, and our shared values.

Because of this legal setup, the HGS Collective is eligible for certain funding and for donations, while also being able to generate profit and attract investment commercially.

Grant-funded projects will always directly benefit one of the existing or new community projects of the HGS Collective. Any profit made through trade will either be used to grow the collective or will be used to fund one of the existing or new community projects, elevating the scope and impact of grant funding.

All community and commercial projects help us achieve our company purpose.

company Purpose and objects

The purpose of the company is to build community wealth to further the regeneration of land and communities.

To make this happen we strive to:

1) attract assets and grow social capital that furthers local, sustainable enterprise in land and nature based sectors - helping to contribute to plural ownership of the local economy.

2) attract investment, contracts and trade that generates work opportunities in land and nature based sectors - in order to contribute to fair employment and a just labour market.

3) attract, support and create a local supply chain around local land and nature based sectors - in order to contribute to progressive procurement of goods and services.