As part of the Edge 50 list, Apolitical is publishing a series of articles exploring a selection of these bold initiatives to learn more about the stories and strategies behind them.

Created by Apolitical in partnership with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation, this list is an invitation to look beyond the usual playbook and ask what becomes possible when governments are willing to think boldly about today’s biggest problems.

Apolitical spoke to Gwen Patrick, Financial Innovation Lead, at Shorefast, a Canadian charity based on Fogo Island that works to build strong, resilient local economies.

When money flows into a community through tourism or trade, much of it returns to suppliers, owners and intermediaries outside the local area. Shorefast's Economic Nutrition Label borrows a familiar idea, the food nutrition label, and applies it to spending, showing exactly where each dollar goes and how much stays local. It turns an abstract problem into something governments can see, measure and act on.

What is Shorefast, and what were you trying to make visible about local economies when you first developed the Economic Nutrition Label?

Shorefast is a registered Canadian charity based on Fogo Island in Newfoundland and Labrador. It was founded to build economic resiliency on Fogo Island by creating a secondary industry (hospitality) alongside the existing fishing economy. We’ve since created the Shorefast Institute for Place-Based Economies to share learnings and resources to support other places in building economic stewardship capacity across the country and beyond.

One of the major ways we contribute to economic resiliency on Fogo Island is through the creation of new business. Instead of a business having a charity arm, we are a charity that has five businesses on Fogo Island. Our biggest local impact through those businesses is how and where we spend money in our operations. In every spending decision, we think about how we can source products and labour as close to Fogo Island as possible, keeping investment recirculating in the community, and investing in the local assets on Fogo Island.

Our biggest business is the Fogo Island Inn. In the construction and continued operation of the Inn, our focus is to source as close to Fogo Island as possible, creating local economic spinoff and strong relationships with suppliers. If we could not source from home, we go to our closest communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, then Canada, and then international trading partners aligned with our objectives.

While you can see and experience the benefits of this sourcing model when you visit the Inn, we wanted to provide a tangible metric that shows guests how the Inn’s spending makes an impact using real data. Modern supply chains have become incredibly complex, and we wanted a way to make this complexity clear, simple, understandable and actionable.

Nutrition labels became our inspiration. They take something very complex and turn it into something someone can easily use to align purchases with their health goals. We asked: What if we could take that design and turn it into a way for someone to align purchases with their local economic health goals? That is how Economic Nutrition was created.

Using clear nutrition-inspired labels suggests that people will act differently if spending is more transparent. In what ways did that assumption turn out to be true?

We have been using Economic Nutrition in our own businesses since 2015 and launched a pilot in summer 2025, broadening access for 13 organisations across Canada.

We have seen three major behavioural shifts:

The first is increased trust with stakeholders. That includes guests, customers, employees, donors, partners, government partners and financial institutions. Transparency in our work has led to repeat partnerships and deeper engagement over time. A valuable outcome of this financial information has been our relationship with various financial institutions. We have used Economic Nutrition to show alignment with programmes focused on improved social and economic outcomes, which has helped us access better rates and get referrals to a broader network of funding.

The second is that it has reinforced our own spending behaviour as we have grown as an organisation, and as a community-focused business, helping us highlight how we differentiate from other operators in the market. For example, in the hospitality sector, the average labour spend is around 30%. At the Inn, we spend more than 50% on labour, as this represents the true cost of compensating staff.

The third is employee confidence. Many employees do not normally see financial statements or accounting information. Or if they do, it is very complicated to understand and relate to. Even for someone like me, a Certified Public Accountant and former financial statement auditor, financial statements can be hard to internalise. The information in the Economic Nutrition certification mark is intentionally designed to make it user-friendly and easy to comprehend. Staff recognise that their own sourcing choices for the organisation impact the whole and start to consider geography and economic spinoff in the evaluation process when making purchase decisions.

“Economic Nutrition gives employees a quick, easy tool to understand where money is going and talk about it with confidence.”

From the pilot, we are already hearing anecdotal stories of similar shifts in spending behaviour and identifying supplier gaps, such as a lack of Canadian tech suppliers.

Can you walk me through what an Economic Nutrition Label actually shows? What information is the most powerful in helping people understand where their money goes?

The standard label shows an organisation’s spend for a fiscal period. For very large organisations, it can also apply to a specific programme, project or business unit. At the top of the label, it shows where the money goes geographically. It shows how much stays in your local community, how much stays in your province or region, how much stays in the country, and how much goes internationally. The bottom half shows what the money pays for. It is intended to be a quick snapshot of a financial statement, but using language and categories that are easier to understand. We use high-level but accurate expense categories so someone with basic familiarity with the organisation can understand what the spending relates to.

We have a framework that helps organisations determine how to classify those expenses. There is some judgement involved because you are working to identify what spending categories will be understandable to the widest audience.

The most transformative part has been the top section showing where money goes geographically. Many organisations already know roughly what money pays for internally. However, when combined with where the money flows geographically, organisations begin to identify supplier gaps, build internal visuals and create action plans to change sourcing behaviour. Most businesses don’t yet track their spending that way, so that geographic visibility becomes very powerful. From the user perspective, they have the information to understand how their purchase is, in turn, invested by the business.

On Fogo Island, the label has helped retain a significant share of visitor spending locally. What design choices or trade-offs contributed to that success?

The label you see today is not where we started. There have been several changes to make sure it can scale beyond our own organisations. The biggest decision was simplicity. As we worked with other organisations, there were requests to add more sections, more visuals or more detailed categories. Those things are valuable, and we do provide additional services like dashboards and custom analysis. But part of the success of nutrition labels is their clear simplicity and standardisation. We wanted the certification mark to remain simple so organisations can confidently say they meet a clear standard.

What would you say is the most challenging thing about applying the Economic Nutrition Label to public spending?

Interestingly, it has not been a huge step to move into the public sector. Public organisations are already very used to transparency. Their spending is published, budgets are scrutinised, and financial statements are public. In some ways, the bigger hurdle has been private businesses because it may be the first time they (or anyone) have shared this type of financial information publicly.

Public officials often raise concerns about drawing attention to politically sensitive areas of spending. A common example in Canada is labour spending and scrutiny of public sector wages. Even if the percentage is not unusually high, a label that highlights it clearly can attract attention. We have developed several pathways to address this, including providing industry benchmarks highlighting that labour is often a high percentage of sourcing. Organisations can use these references in their communications when releasing their own certification mark.

Another approach is cohort releases. In our pilot, two municipalities will release their labels alongside 10 to 15 other organisations in their community. When the data appears together, it provides context and helps with communication.

Our certification programme also includes guidance on communication and supplier planning. Once organisations have the data, we help them think about supplier gaps, partnerships and how to communicate the results responsibly.

In terms of measuring impact, what signals do you look for to understand the impact the label is having?

Economic Nutrition is a project within the Shorefast Institute, a newly launched network that works with communities to build economic stewardship capacity in their own places. We are developing a broader impact framework that looks at indicators of a community stewarding its own economy. One indicator will be financial flows: where money comes from, how it moves through a place and how it leaves. Economic Nutrition contributes directly to this goal, helping organisations gain a better understanding of how their spending (sourcing) directly contributes to their own place’s economy and cash flows.

For the certified organisations we work with, we are tracking changes in purchasing behaviour. We compare spending patterns over time and against benchmarks. We also look at whether organisations shift suppliers after identifying gaps. If the label reveals a missing supplier locally, did organisations collaborate to address that gap? We will also examine customer behaviour. For example, did customers change purchasing decisions after seeing information on the label?

Another important point is that the goal is not to reach 100% local spending. That is a misconception. The goal is to understand your contribution to the health of your local economy and the economies you are connected to. When you buy outside your region, the question becomes whether that supplier aligns with your economic or environmental goals as well.

What advice would you give to public officials or local governments who might be inspired to try something similar?

Start with curiosity.

Look at what data you already track. Do you have a geography or place-based lens when looking at supplier data? Do you record vendor addresses in your accounting system? Do you know where your suppliers are located? What supply chain gaps exist in your region? Ask what barriers exist for SMEs or social enterprises trying to work with your organisation. What barriers exist for building a stronger local supply chain? Having answers to those questions makes the transition to tracking and visualising spending through a place lens much smoother.

The second step is recognising that the process can be more complex than it first appears. For example, what counts as a local business? Is a local franchise local or national? Some international chains have a local store presence. Understanding who has the capacity to make (or change) supplier investment decisions is sometimes more challenging and requires a longer timeline to activate.

We developed a framework to help organisations navigate those questions and provide support as they navigate through challenges.

We run our Economic Nutrition certification process in a cohort model. Programme applications for the 2026 cohort are opening soon for organisations across Canada, and we plan to expand internationally starting in 2027. So, I would encourage municipalities or government organisations from all parts of the Country to reach out. We want Economic Nutrition to reach every place in Canada and help communities understand and steward their economies.