Last month Amanda joined a number of colleagues to discuss the difference that the SUSY project can make in developing an economy that works for everyone. 

The SUSY Twilight Session was described by one participant as having ‘tried to solve all the world’s problems in 2 hours’, but this wasn’t a negative statement, it was more in recognition of the scale and ambition of the work to create a fairer and more sustainable world that – to quote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – leaves no one behind.

Key aims...

The aims of the session were to learn about the social and solidarity economy and to discuss the role and impact of co-operatives in the SSE. We talked about the aims to create an economic system that puts people before profit and uses creative ways to challenge global injustices by providing decent work that is rewarding, fulfilling and empowering. The SSE should be based on a model of society that works through co-operation rather than competition, where there is a fair distribution of resources and that people are able to be empowered to take part democratically in decisions that affect both them, their communities and the planet as a whole.

The future...

We discussed how SSE organisations can take a variety of forms in the UK, such as Community Interest Companies (CIC) that have to pass a community benefit test and demonstrate their ‘social’ credentials. However, it was pointed out that there is some ambiguity around whether some ‘social enterprises’ are truly SSE organisations. At the College we consider that co-operatives play a special role in the SSE as they naturally contain all of the elements of the SSE definition due to the Co-operative Values and Principles that are embedded in the structure of the organisation from the outset. During the discussion it was suggested that some of the larger co-operative organisations have not been able to maintain a true representative structure in terms of democratically involving members, and that this was something some participants would like to see developed in the future.