Co-operation and sustainability

Today is the official start of International Year of Co-operatives and we wanted to start the way we want to continue – by participating. So we have continued on a theme that is close to our hearts - the idea that co-operation is central to developing a sustainable society a bit further. This ‘thinking’ is very much a work in progress and all comments, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

We have defined sustainability as being about “living and working in a safe, healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil and energy, where each of us and the natural world has the opportunity to flourish.” A definition that draws heavily from the Natural Step system conditions which call for a radical change in our use of resources extracted from the Earth and produced by society, a halt to the degradation of the environment, and ensuring that people have the capacity to meet their needs.

When you start looking at these issues there is a tendency to focus on particular technical solutions to specific problems – reducing carbon, waste, energy use etc. However, the bigger question is… can we do this when the demand for economic growth is insatiable? Some think we can, but many others argue that we can’t. We fall into the no we can’t camp and, that is why we see co-operatives as so important. It is often suggested that sustainability requires a steady state economy, with zero growth effectively. We defer to wiser heads on this but it does seem that perhaps it is not economic growth that is the problem but the blinkered, ideological focus on maximising it at whatever costs. This is why co-operation is so important. As Edgar Parnell said, for co-operatives “profit is not the purpose” (1)  – economic growth is not the driving force.

As with disputes over economics there are also disputes over politics. What political approach is needed if we are to achieve sustainability? There can be a tendency to think that the urgency of action requires a more authoritarian approach. I have heard the term ‘benign dictatorship’ used. Such arguments are born of a genuine concern for the direction that we are heading but seem misguided at best and dangerous at worst. Democratic engagement must, I think, be at the heart of a just society where everyone has the opportunity to flourish. This has to be more than voting once every few years for candidates that may or may not represent your views. Engagement needs to go much deeper and democratic member control is a crucial part of this, not only for itself but also in reinforcing the idea of democracy more widely. We appear to be at a critical time regarding this issue as ‘the markets’ seemingly bring down democratically elected governments, and direct policy that affects all of our lives.

Sustainability cannot come about by tweaking business as usual and co-operation offers an approach that embraces many of the core ideas that will be central – ethics, democracy, equality, responsibility. There is work to do in ensuring that co-operatives fully act on Principle 7 and really embrace the need to take action to tackle environmental problems. However, if the co-operative sector were to really expand then we would be much better placed to achieve sustainability.

If only it were that simple. As the current economic system sits opposed to sustainability, it also sits opposed to co-operation. There is a need for a ‘Great Transition’, and institutions need to be rethought and redesigned. The International Year of Co-operatives in 2012 provides an opportunity to really push this agenda, and to forge links with others, such as the Occupy movement. All this is crucial if we are going to find a way of living well and flourishing in a truly sustainable society.

(1) In his book ‘Co-operation – the beautiful idea’