Workshop - Fighting the Economic and Climatic Crises through Consumer Cooperation

Summary report

On 18th November, representatives from 20 different Asian, European, South and North American countries participated to the workshop organised by Consumer Cooperatives Worldwide (CCW) on the economic and climatic crises.

The first session, focused on the economic crisis, presented case studies from Japan, the United States and Italy. The main conclusions were the following:

• Strong need to go back to basics and be a true cooperative business

Reliability of products sold by consumer cooperatives must be unquestionable and attention to members' needs and expectations must remain high.

• Necessity to promote consumer cooperative loyalty as the main basis for business development

Consumer-members loyalty to their coop stores must be promoted and restored if it has been damaged. This loyalty is a strong drive for successful cooperative business.

• Cooperation between sectors is welcome as to share experiences

Cooperatives from different countries and sectors all have concrete answers to the economic crisis to share, such as cooperative mergers or store restructuring. Cooperation among cooperatives is hence valuable to face the current difficulties.

The second session, focused on the climatic crisis, draw the following conclusions from the European, Japanese and Swedish situations presented:

• Consumer cooperatives can be drivers for change towards sustainable production, distribution and consumption

Consumer cooperatives can work together with suppliers towards more sustainable production and consumption. They can promote sustainable consumption, not only by educating consumers but also by putting sustainable products on their shelves.

• Consumer cooperatives can do much at national level, but coordination and synergies at a broader scale are necessary.

Initiatives such as Euro Coop's Climate Change Project or Cooperatives Europes's ACT! Project are of the utmost importance as to develop initiatives outside areas of traditional influence and create synergies between co-operatives in different sectors.