Creating an Abundance Inventory

In the first lesson, you started an Abundance Inventory. In the lessons since, you’ve seen how the Sunshine Coast turned what it already had into a working system, and how to spot the benefits a project can bring home. Now it’s time to build your inventory properly.

An Abundance Inventory is a plain, honest list of everything your community, region or organization already has that could create value. It is the starting point for everything else in this course. Every module that follows, from the cost of dependence to your OPPORTUNITY business case, draws on it. A strong inventory makes the rest of the course easier. A thin one leaves you guessing.

Why an inventory comes first

Most communities start with a list of problems: what’s missing, what’s broken, what costs too much. Problem lists are useful, but they keep attention on scarcity. They also tend to lead to answers that come from outside, such as a grant, a consultant or a company that arrives with a solution.

An inventory turns the starting point around. It asks what is already here, who holds it, and what it could become. The answer is almost always more than people expected. That is the shift from scarcity to abundance, and it’s where ownership begins. You can’t own the value of something you haven’t noticed.

What counts as abundance

Abundance is anything that can be turned into lasting value for people in your place. It is wider than money and wider than natural resources. Some of it is obvious, like a forest, a harbour or a farm. Much of it is quiet: a skilled crew, a trusted elder, an empty building, a stream of waste that no one has thought to use.

To search widely, we use the COASTAL framework. It names seven forms of abundance that exist in every community. The Sunshine Coast is our working model, which is why the framework carries its name, but the seven forms are the same everywhere.

• Community and Culture. Stories, languages, traditions, festivals, history, and the relationships that hold people together.
• Organisations and Governance. Councils, Nations, cooperatives, businesses, societies, schools, and the rules and agreements that shape decisions.
• Agriculture and Food. Farmland, gardens, fisheries, orchards, seed, local growers, kitchens and markets.
• Skills and Health. The knowledge, trades, training and wellbeing of your people, including the skills that are underused.
• Tourism and Experience. What draws visitors and what your people are proud to share, from landscapes to events to ways of life.
• Assets and Resources. Buildings, equipment, land, materials, energy, waste streams and infrastructure, owned or available.
• Land and Sea. Forests, soil, water, coastline, climate, wildlife and the natural systems everything else depends on.

Step 1: Set your boundary

Decide what place or group your inventory covers. It might be a town, a Nation’s territory, a valley, a region, a neighbourhood or an organization. Write it down in one sentence.

Keep it small enough that you can find the information, and large enough that real opportunities could fit inside it. If you’re not sure, start with the place you know best. You can widen it later.

Step 2: Walk the seven forms

Go through the seven COASTAL forms one at a time. For each, write as many items as you can in five to ten minutes. Don’t judge or filter yet. A rough list is better than a careful empty page.

To prompt yourself, ask these questions for each form.

• What do we have a lot of?
• What do we already do well?
• What do people travel here for, or ask us about?
• What do we throw away, burn, bury or give away for free?
• What sits unused, empty or underused?
• What do we buy from outside that we could make, grow or do ourselves?

That last question is especially useful. Dependence and abundance are often two sides of the same thing. When a community imports something it could produce, the missing supply chain is usually an opportunity.

Step 3: Look for abundance hidden as waste

Waste is one of the richest and least noticed forms of abundance. Make a short list of everything your place pays to get rid of.

Think about food scraps, wood waste, farm residues, shells, old buildings, used materials, surplus heat, wastewater and unused land. Then ask what each could become and who might need it.

On the Sunshine Coast, organic and wood waste that was once buried or burned became soil, compost and mulch. Old houses that were headed for demolition became homes. The pattern is the same everywhere: where there’s a cost to dispose of something, there may be a value in using it.

Step 4: Gather what you don’t know

Your own knowledge will only get you part of the way. Fill the gaps in three ways.

• Talk to people. Ask elders, farmers, tradespeople, teachers, business owners, youth, council staff and long-time residents. A good question is, “What do we have here that most people overlook?” Listen for what comes up repeatedly.
• Walk the place. Spend time on the ground. Look at what’s empty, what’s overflowing, what’s growing and what’s being thrown away.
• Check the records. Look at local plans, waste and water reports, land and business registries, tourism numbers and previous studies. These often hold facts that turn a hunch into a case.

When you work with a Nation or community, ask first and be clear about how the information will be used. Some knowledge belongs to the people who hold it and isn’t yours to list or share. Record only what you have been given permission to record.

Step 5: Record each item properly

For every item on your list, write a short entry with four parts.

• What it is. A plain description in a sentence.
• Where it is and how much. A rough location and size or quantity, even if it’s an estimate.
• Who holds it. Who owns, controls or cares for it. This will matter later when we talk about ownership.
• What it could become. One or two ideas for value it could create.

Keep each entry short. You’re building a working document, not a report.

Step 6: Test what you’ve found

Not everything on your list is equally promising. Test each item with five questions.

• Is it real? Can you show that it exists and roughly how much there is?
• Is it reliable? Will it be there year after year, or only once?
• Is it accessible? Can your community actually reach it, or is it controlled by someone else?
• Is there demand? Is there someone who would pay for it, use it or benefit from it?
• Does it fit our values? Would we be proud of the way it’s used?

Give each item a score from one to five on each question. Add them up. You aren’t looking for perfect scores. You’re looking for the items that rise to the top.

Step 7: Look for connections

Now step back and look at your list as a whole. Draw lines between items that could feed each other.

Food waste could feed compost. Compost could rebuild soil. Soil could grow food. Heat from one operation could warm a greenhouse. A skilled crew could work on a building project. A visitor interest could support a local experience.

The strongest opportunities usually come from connections, not single items. One enterprise creates the conditions for the next. If you can find a loop where the output of one thing becomes the input of another, you’ve found something worth exploring.

Step 8: Choose your short list

Pick the top three to five opportunities from your tested and connected list. For each, write one sentence that begins, “We could…” and ends with who would benefit.

Then choose one as your lead opportunity. This is the one you’ll carry through the course and build into your OPPORTUNITY business case. It doesn’t have to be the biggest. It should be the one with strong scores, real connections, clear community benefits and people who are ready to act.

Common mistakes

• Starting with solutions. If you jump to an answer before you’ve listed what you have, you’ll miss better options.
• Listing only the obvious. Natural resources are easy to see. Skills, culture, relationships and waste streams are easier to miss.
• Ignoring who holds it. An asset you can’t access isn’t yet an opportunity for your community.
• Doing it alone. An inventory built by one person reflects one view. Invite others in, and expect your list to change.
• Treating it as finished. Your inventory will keep growing. Come back to it as you move through the course.