GREEN OFFICE

[ THE IDEA EXCHANGE ]

BY FRANK RAYMOND CETERA

USHERING IN THE YEAR OF THE COOPERATIVE

CULTIVATING COOPERATION
United Nations has declared 2012 as the International Year of the Cooperative. IYC 2012 will draw attention to cooperatives as enterprises that contribute to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. Although cooperatives have been around for a long time, it was not until 1844 when the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, a consumer cooperative, drafted the Rochdale Principles that the modern cooperative movement started to flourish. These principles determine the basis for how cooperatives function and provide the foundation for putting cooperative values into practice, including voluntary and open membership; democratic member control; one member, one vote; member economic participation; autonomy and independence; education, training and information; cooperation among cooperatives and concern for community. Legally in New York state, the cooperative is typically a form of a corporation registered with the Department of State. The difference in operating a cooperative versus a noncooperative is in the bylaws, operating agreements and policies of the corporation. These very important documents will spell out for the owners important items such as mission and values, membership, board of directors configuration, patronage dividends and member meetings from the perspective of a cooperative corporation. Currently, a few other examples rise to the top internationally as models of successful and innovative cooperatives. The Mondragon Collective in the Basque region of Spain is perhaps the most famous. Mondragon is a federation of individual cooperatives comprising 256 companies, who worked to create employment based on solidarity in response to the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Begun in 1956, Mondragon now accounts for more than 14,755 million euros in annual revenue and employs more than 80,000 people. The United Steelworkers have seen the promise in the Mondragon approach and have announced plans to partner with the collective to set up manufacturing co-ops in North America. In Cleveland, Evergreen Cooperatives are a recently launched set of employee-owned, for-profit companies that focus on local development and hiring. Evergreen has received support from many anchor institutions, such as the Cleveland Foundation, the city of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. Cooperatives hold the promise of a brighter economic, environmental and social future for Central New York by keeping resources in local communities and supporting quality values in business operations. With more than 130 million people undertaking cooperative ownership in the U.S., CNY should seize the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon, and begin placing primary importance on decisions that support and develop cooperative businesses and the values they espouse.
Frank Raymond Cetera is a New York state-certified business adviser with the Onondaga Small Business Development Center at Onondaga Community College. He also administers the Green Core Company Program, which specializes in helping businesses operate sustainably through social, economic and environmental considerations.

nyone watching the evening news or reading their favorite independent Internet news source lately must be aware of recent world events showing the strong desire for a move toward a more democratic society, from Egypt and Tunisia to Wall Street right here in New York. The vision proposed is one of economic, social and environmental equity, which underscores the three pillars of green business. In the business world, there is a commonly known but infrequently used tool that can move our society and economy toward equilibrium the cooperative. This is accomplished through the cooperative characteristics of being user-owned, user-controlled and user-benefiting. Cooperatives exist in many varieties, all of which are present in Central New York. The Syracuse Real Food Co-op operates as a consumer cooperative grocery; Cooperative Federal and many other credit unions in the region are cooperatively operated financial institutions; the 377 Building on West Onondaga Street in Syracuse is a housing cooperative; Dairylea is an agricultural cooperative and Campus Construction Management is an employee-owned worker cooperative; the Village of Solvay Electric Department, a utility co-op, is the third-largest public power system in New York state, with 5,300 customers. To encourage action on cooperatives as a major socioeconomic issue, the

CNY BUSINESS EXCHANGE | DECEMBER 2011 JANUARY 2012

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