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Over the past few years, a new system of currency has appeared in our daily life: the
complementary community currency. Indeed, more than 5,000 complementary currencies have
been established lately. As its name suggests, it is a currency used in parallel with the national
currency within a given territory. Based on the principle of local production, sustainable and
social economy, the users are citizens of common life who choose to change their way of living
by adopting responsible acts. Local communities pool their efforts to recognize unmet needs
and to bring solution to create systems that benefit to local producers rather than mass retails.
This works attempts to clarify the different types of complementary community currencies and
to provide the key success factors of those initiatives. Many factors have been found by the
review of the scientific literature and several specific projects were interviewed to validate those
assumptions. It appears that different characteristics should be brought to light in order to offer
successful project depending on the type: either LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) or
local currency.
The qualitative analysis enables us to qualify the type and number of initiators, the size of the
network, the type of financing, the support of the public authorities as some characteristics
among others that will have to be discussed and appropriately chosen to make the project a real
success and to help it succeed in the long run

complementary currencies --- local production --- social economy --- sustainable economy --- success factors --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Economie sociale