2025: The Year of Cooperatives
All over the world we see extreme inequality, market failures and the imperative for new economic mindsets and frameworks. At The Solar Foundation, we are looking at the cooperative model combined with Web3 tools as a key focus for 2025, and asking how we might incorporate cooperative principles and practices in our mission to accelerate access to solar power and productive appliances for off-grid communities in Africa.
A Global Vision of Economic Democracy
We aren't alone in focusing on cooperatives: the United Nations has proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC2025), with the powerful theme "Cooperatives Build a Better World". This global recognition arrives at a critical moment when traditional economic models are increasingly questioned, and innovative approaches to economic organization are desperately needed.
The 2025 UN International Year of Cooperatives aims to showcase the transformative potential of cooperative enterprises. Far more than just a business model, cooperatives represent a profound reimagining of economic relationships, centered on collaboration, shared ownership, and community empowerment.
Key Focus Areas
The IYC2025 will highlight how cooperatives are crucial in addressing some of our most pressing global challenges:
- Social Inclusion: Cooperatives are powerful engines of economic empowerment, creating pathways for marginalized communities to participate actively in economic life.
- Sustainable Development: Aligned with the UN's 2030 Agenda, cooperatives are proving to be essential partners in achieving sustainable development goals.
- Addressing Global Challenges: From combating economic inequality to developing innovative responses to the climate crisis, cooperatives demonstrate a nimble and community-centered approach to complex problems.
The Foundational Principles of Cooperatives
At the heart of the cooperative movement are fundamental values such as cooperation, grassroots participation, equitable distribution of wealth and a culture of innovation. There are also core principles that distinguish cooperative enterprises from traditional business models; these principles often including the following:
- Open membership: A foundational principle that membership in the cooperative is voluntary and open to anyone who accepts the principles.
- Democratic organization: Embodying the "one member, one vote" principle, ensuring that every participant has an equal voice in organizational decision-making.
- Sovereignty of labor: Prioritizing the rights and dignity of workers, positioning human contribution as the central value of economic activity.
- Wage solidarity: Creating more equitable compensation structures that reduce internal economic disparities.
- Social transformation: Going beyond mere economic transactions by:
- Reinvesting surpluses to create new jobs
- Supporting local charities and community development projects
- Preserving and promoting cultural heritage
- Cooperation Among Cooperatives: Fostering network effects and mutual support across cooperative enterprises.
- Concern for Community: Maintaining a commitment to sustainable local and regional development.
- Continuous Education: Investing in member education and skills development.
- Autonomy and Independence: Maintaining self-governance and resisting external control that might compromise core values.
- Economic Participation: Ensuring members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their cooperative.
These principles transform cooperatives from mere economic entities into vehicles for social innovation, democratic practice, and collective empowerment.
A Bipartisan Model of Economic Hope
In the United States, cooperatives offer a rare opportunity to transcend polarization. As Nathan Schneider, a media studies professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and a leading thinker in cooperative economics, stated on a recent episode of the Everything Co-op Podcast: "This is a different kind of story that's not red vs. blue. It's about are you interested in community economic power?"
If you're interested in learning more about cooperatives — including digital platforms — and mutualism, and how Nathan believes that "the future of mutualism lies largely among the vibrant communities we find through online networks," be sure to read his November 13, 2024 article entitled: How to Restore Community Economies: Re-establishing the Right to Associate.
Global Success Stories
The cooperative model is a proven strategy with remarkable real-world implementations:
- Spain's Mondragon Corporation: A federation of worker cooperatives that has become one of the largest business groups in Spain employing approximately 70,000 workers in 81 autonomous cooperatives.
- Italy's Emilia-Romagna Region: A vibrant ecosystem of industrial cooperatives that demonstrates the scalability of this model.
- Norway: With a strong cooperative tradition in social housing, showing how co-ops can address fundamental community needs.
- United Kingdom: Home to nearly 7,000 independent cooperatives.
Across the European Union alone, approximately 250,000 cooperatives provide employment to 5.4 million people, illustrating the model's substantial economic significance.
Looking Forward: Cooperatives and Web3
As we enter 2025, the intersection of cooperative principles with emerging Web3 technologies presents exciting possibilities. Blockchain, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and smart contracts could provide powerful tools to enhance transparency, democratic decision-making, and equitable resource distribution within local communities.
At The Solar Foundation, we will be looking at digital cooperative models such as Fairbnb.coop, a member-owned cooperative dedicated to sustainable tourism where 50% of all platform fees are reinvested locally as decided by the cooperative membership. Can this or another digital cooperative model be used for energy independence in Africa? Likewise, is there a cooperative model for reliable, affordable and locally owned internet for off-grid communities in Sub-Saharan Africa? We'll be following Nathan Schneider who is writing books on this subject and developing general tools to help scale digital/platform cooperatives, listening to podcasts such as Everything Co-op and The Ownership Economy, and learning from people like Sara Horowitz of the Mutualist Society and Ashley Taylor of Radiical Systems.
