How Cooperatives Contribute to Sustainable Consumption and Production

by UNSDN, http://unsdn.org/2018/06/22/how-cooperatives-contribute-to-sustainable-consumption-and-production/

Cooperatives are a powerful economic and social force, present in most countries of the world and in most sectors of the economy. The cooperative movement counts more than a billion members.

Achieving sustainable development means that we will have to rethink the ways in which we produce and consume goods and services. For our planet to sustain a growing population, it will be necessary to protect and use the limited natural resources our world has to offer responsibly.

How are cooperatives making change happen towards SDG12 - ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns? Here are a few examples from the field.

Coop Italy is a system of consumer cooperatives that operates the largest supermarket chain in the country. With environmental sustainability as a core activity of the cooperative, Coop Italy has committed to further developing its line of organic and Ecolabel-certified own brand products, using its own brand fruit cultivation methods to keep chemical residue below legal limits and monitoring the sustainability and resource use of its Coop brand production suppliers. On the consumer side, the cooperative educates shoppers by integrating the ideas of the three R’s (reduction, reuse, recycling) in all of its Coop brand product packaging, including using recycled materials, minimizing packaging and setting up refill stations.

The Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Cooperative (SCCC) of Japan combines good business practices with social and ecological principles and a vision of a community- and people-centred economy. SCCC began in 1965, when a Tokyo housewife organized 200 women to buy 300 bottles of milk. Seikatsu Club has since grown its buying activities to include production, distribution, consumption, disposal, social services, the environment and politics. The cooperative’s goal is to create a new lifestyle that protects the environment and overall health of the planet. One of SCCC’s mantras is “safe food at reasonable prices”. When the Club cannot find products of adequate quality to meet its ecological or social standards, it produces them itself, as has been the case for milk and soap. The cooperative emphasizes direct contact between producers and consumers to humanize the market, particularly in food production.

Non-sustainable farming techniques and post-harvest storing methods have resulted in the loss of large amounts of crops in South Africa. The IMAI Farming Cooperative is a women’s cooperative that has partnered with non-profits and government institutions to turn surplus fresh vegetable produce into pickles. Through this initiative the cooperative in- creases the incomes of its members by adding value to their products while also reducing food waste. The members chop surplus vegetables into small pieces and store them in an acidic solution to create different types of “atchar”, a kind of pickle for local consumption. IMAI Farming Cooperative also encourages organic farming as part of its activities.to include production, distribution, consumption, disposal, social services, the environment and politics. The cooperative’s goal is to create a new lifestyle that protects the environment and overall health of the planet. One of SCCC’s mantras is “safe food at reasonable prices”. When the Club cannot find products of adequate quality to meet its ecological or social standards, it produces them itself, as has been the case for milk and soap. The cooperative emphasizes direct contact between producers and consumers to humanize the market, particularly in food production.

Tourism is a sector where unsustainable consumption and production patterns can impact the environment, including food waste, damage to natural reserves, excessive water use and carbon footprint of air travel, among others. The Midcounties Cooperative travel business is the third largest travel agent in the UK and promotes sustainable tour- ism in collaboration with the Travel Foundation charity. In the last ten years, they have funded more than £10 million for sustainable tour- ism promoting local culture and products, income generating opportunities and environmental protection in different areas around the world. Their initiatives include establishing linkages between lo- cal farmers and all-inclusive hotels in Turkey that are sourcing their produce from sustainable producers; helping Mexican women set up their own businesses and sell their honey-based beauty products to hotels and tourists; and developing an educational map to inform tourists about the threatened marine bays around Fethiye in Turkey to help reduce the environmental impacts of boat trips and coast- al tourism on important habitats for turtles and other marine life.

In Togo, the Cooperative of Young Professional Producers of Organic Pineapple (CJPPAB) produces a special type of pineapple called pain de sucre (sugar bread) destined for the Italian market. The CJPPAB has 1,018 young members, of which 367 are women. The members produce 10,000 tonnes of pineapple in a year and use only organic farming practices without any application of chemicals. Assistance and training was provided by Coopermondo, the international development cooperation association of the Confederation of Italian Cooperatives, and the project received funding from six Italian cooperative banks and Federcasse, the apex organisation for cooperative banks in Italy. The cooperation between the cooperative movements in Togo and Italy allowed them to exchange experiences and resulted in new market opportunities for the Togolese farmers.

The speed by which people replace their old devices with new ones has created huge amounts of electrical and electronic equipment waste (e-waste). E-waste is the fastest growing waste stream, and it is hazardous, complex and costly to treat. Heaps of e-waste end up in landfills or are exported to and dumped in develop- ing countries. In Bolivia, formal mechanisms for waste management are limited, so most people store their old electronic equipment or leave it to be picked up by informal collectors. A group of solid waste pickers in La Paz (the Association of Recycling Collectors and Sorters of La Paz, ARALPAZ) formed a cooperative in 2006 to overcome the waste collection challenges. Their 40 members earn a better income through recycling in total about 194 tonnes of solid waste on a daily basis, including plastic, cardboard, metals, used clothing, glass and occasionally e-waste. The collectors do not focus on e-waste alone, because this requires more specialization and involves higher costs to collect and dissassemble. They sell the e-waste at an informal market and looking into supply it to recycling companies. The collective massing of other recyclable material has enabled individual waste pickers to accumulate sufficiently large volumes to sell directly to businesses and negotiate better prices.

In Switzerland, the major retail cooperative Coop has developed its own line of fair trade organic clothing called Coop Naturaline. In 2013, they adopted the Guideline on Textiles and Leather, which regulates the minimum social, ecological and toxicological requirements in both the cultivation of raw textile materials and their further processing and improves transparency in the supply chain. They advocate for reducing the use of chemicals, recycling old textiles and promoting the use of fairly traded organic cotton.

In India, the Chetna Organic cooperative has organized 15,279 cotton farmers into 978 farmer self-help groups which are clustered into 13 district cooperatives. An international supply chain coalition was created (ChetCo) linking the organic cotton cooperative farmers with 16 ethical textile brands, such as Loomstate in the US, to promote sustainable clothing production from seed to cloth. Chetna Organic trains farmers in applying eco-friendly production practices, such as the production of bio-inputs like organic com- posting and bio pesticides such as chili-garlic solution. The cooperative also promotes collective ownership of machinery that improves productivity, like tractors, tillers, seed cleaners and graders. Inefficient water use is an important challenge in Indian cotton production. Different measures are taken by the cooperative to protect natural resources, manage watersheds and harvest water for supplemental irrigation. The variety of seeds is also under threat with the dominance of GMO seeds in cotton production. Chetna Organic wants to protect local varieties from extinction and is working to preserve seed sovereignty. The establishment of seed banks is one of their strategies to collect and maintain local seeds.

Source: COPAC