Co-operative News - Sweden

Co-operatives ROCK: Swedish co-op heavy metal bands

Emily Barker — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:26:58 +0000

The region of Värmland in Sweden has brought new meaning to the phrase ‘co-operatives rock’ – as over the last year, they have seen a big rise in a number of heavy metal bands deciding to become co-operatives.

In 2006 Sparzanza, a heavy metal band from the region, after almost ten years together, started to become tired of their current record label and decided to set up their own company.

With very little money, they stumbled upon the idea of setting up as a co-operative. Johann Carlsson, the bassist in the band, admitted: “I didn’t know anything, it was actually a coincidence – and we have learnt along the way.”

Johan explained: “even if we had started a different kind of company, we would still be a democracy, everyone in the band is equal to everyone else.”

By setting up as a co-op, every band member is involved in all the decisions and everything is shared, though he added with amusement: “there aren’t really any profits – if there are any profits left, we’ll share them.”

The band didn’t realise what impact this idea would have on the rest of the region. Influenced by Sparzanza, bands such as Eyes Wide Open, who reached number three in the local charts, also became co-ops. Anna Tyren from the local co-op agency, Värmland Kooperativen explained: “It is a very good way for artists to organise themselves, they get all the rights over the music, and share it together.”

As far as Värmland Kooperativen are aware, this is totally unique to their area. Leif Tyren, manager of the organisation said that when they went to the Quebec International Summit of Co-operatives, “no one from all over the world had heard of co-op bands.”

It was out of this that Headbang Entertainment was born, an idea by Eyes Wide Open to help new bands set up and develop as co-ops. The project has been widely praised and came second in a competition for best co-op idea in Sweden this year.

There are nearly 50 bands in the city of Karlstad, hometown to Eyes Wide Shut, who could end up working with Headbang. Anna said: “I think a lot of bands will be setting up as co-ops.”

Beyond Headbang Entertainment, the idea is spreading – Anna explained she was working with four new bands that want to set up as co-ops. To celebrate the new phenomenon, Värmland Kooperativen decided to set up a Co-operative Rock festival for four bands including Sparzanza and Eyes Wide Open.

The event was a success with over 600 attendees and a review in Sweden’s best selling rock magazine.

Anna added: “All of those bands who have started as a co-op, all of them have something that they would like to share with others and to build a better world in a way.”

As for Sparzanza who started the craze in 2006, they won best co-operative in the region this year for their work. When asked if he would recommend becoming a co-op to other bands, Johan replied: “I would, I really would.”

Do you know of any other co-operative bands? Send us your stories!

Big thanks to these co-ops

AnthonyMurray — Mon, 28 May 2012 14:10:07 +0000

The ICA would like to extend warm and sincere thanks to the following co-operatives from all around the world who have all donated to the ICA’s Global Appeal for the International Year of Co-operatives:

Belarussian Republican Union of Consumer Societies (BELKOOPSOYUZ) - BELARUS

Co-operative Central Bank Ltd. (CCB) - CYPRUS

SOK Corporation - FINLAND

Confederation Générale des Scop - FRANCE

Zentralverband deutscher Konsumgenossenschaften e.V. (ZdK) - GERMANY

Lega Nazionale delle Cooperative e Mutue (Legacoop) - ITALY

Lithuanian Union of Co-operative Societies (LITCOOPUNION) - LITHUANIA

Oikocredit, Ecumenical Development Co-operative Society U.A. - NETHERLANDS

National Auditing Union of Workers’ Co-operatives (NAUWC) - POLAND

National Union of Handicraft and Production Co-operatives of Romania (UCECOM) - ROMANIA

Riksbyggen (Co-operative Housing Union) - SWEDEN

Union of Sugar Beet Growers’ Production Co-operative (Pankobirlik) - TURKEY

Central Union of Consumer Societies of Ukraine (UKOOPSPILKA) - UKRAINE

Belarussian Republican Union of Consumer Societies (BELKOOPSOYUZ)

To find out how you can support the ICA’s appeal to raise public awareness of the International Year of Co-operatives visit our website.

We’ve come a long way together

AlisonGrant — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:44:12 +0000

Today marks ICMIF’s 90th anniversary.

On April, 25, 1922, 12 delegates from five insurance cooperatives met in the offices of the Lega Cooperativa in Rome. Mr Joseph Lemaire, Chief Executive of La Prévoyance Sociale in Belgium, had called the meeting of these cooperatives; all of whom were members of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). The organisations present were: La Prévoyance Sociale (now P&V Group), Belgium; Folket, and Samarbete (now Folksam), Sweden; La Centrale Arbeiders Verzekerings en Depositobank (now SNS Reaal), Netherlands; Lega Cooperativa insurance office (now Unipol Group), Italy and L’Assurance Ouvrière, France (We cannot find what happened to this organisation so any information or assistance from members on this would be gratefully received).

During the first meeting, the Chair, Joseph Lemaire, made the following resolution “By virtue of the principles of international solidarity brought together at the conference in Rome, the representatives of the cooperative or workers’ life and fire insurance companies resolve to form a study committee which will manage a permanent information service for member societies present and future. The mission of this committee is to give a report at the next conference on the constitution of an International body of workers’ cooperative societies for reinsurance.”

This ‘International body of workers’ cooperative societies for reinsurance’ is the organisation that we know today as the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) and the above five organisations were the original members. The original organisation was to be an ‘information service’ for its members with a focus on reinsurance. How appropriate it is therefore that our reinsurance group is meeting next week in Paris at the Meeting of Reinsurance Officials (MORO) with a record number of attendees. The founders would be delighted that reinsurance continues to be central to ICMIF’s work.

As with everything in life we all want to know where we came from. Tom Peters, a management guru, often mentions that you only need to look at the reason an organisation was founded to find its mission and values and these rarely change.

And so to commemorate our 90th birthday we have decided that this year we are developing an online timeline spanning our 90 years of service and collaboration with our members. We’ll share more about this later this year as we are still in the planning stages, but can share with you that the timeline will be interactive and inclusive for all members to both add to and learn from. We hope that you will get involved and also have some fun along the way!

And so to ICMIF today. Never have we been more relevant for the global insurance market. We remain committed and passionate in supporting our member organization’s reinsurance needs. However, we are now so much more than that. We have evolved because of our great relationships with our members and also by having great people working at the Federation.

We can’t possibly list the many invaluable contributions of everyone at ICMIF in this post but we can say that every member of the ICMIF team should be very proud of the work they do.

One example that we would like to share with you is that of Sabbir Patel, our Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, Development, and his team who have been working incredibly hard to support and help grow Takaful insurance and Microinsurance. What a fantastic mission for ICMIF! Sabbir has been featured twice during the last month in Insurance Day magazine who commended the value of Sabbir’s contribution to the sector and we couldn’t agree more. The articles are below for you to download and enjoy.

Also, our Vice President, Shared Intelligence, Faye Lageu has been invited to work with the United Nations to join an elite working group where she will share her expert knowledge of the use of Corporate Social Responsibility in our sector. This is a huge honour and we are thrilled for Faye who has her first meeting with the UN in June this year.

In our communications team our Vice President of Communications and Head of Digital, Mark McGee, has just submitted his final dissertation, signalling his completion of his Masters Degree in Digital Marketing Communications. Again, this is a huge achievement and one which ICMIF has been benefiting from since Mark started working towards this important goal. And finally we are delighted to report that we have upgraded our ICMIF TV studios and will now offer an even better interview environment for our members when they visit us in Cheshire, UK, and for that we must thank Andy Shaw, Vice President, Technology, for making this possible and on a very small budget.

We hope you will agree that ICMIF, its Secretariat and all our valued members have a lot to celebrate today. We truly have come a long way together.

Insurance Day Articles (English) (pdf, 3.12 MB)

Cooperative membership hits 1 billion worldwide

Ajay Jha — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:50:13 +0000

According to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute, approximately 1 billion people in 96 countries now belong to a cooperative.
The report’s author, Gary Gardner, writes that cooperatives are low-profile but powerful economic actors, with the world’s 300 largest ones generating revenues in 2008 of more than $1.6 trillion.

If these businesses were a national economy, they would rank ninth in the world—ahead of the economy of Spain. The report also reveals that 99% of cooperative businesses operate primarily within seven economic sectors namely Agriculture/Forestry, Banking/Credit Unions, Consumer/Retail, Insurance, Workers/Industrial, Health and Utilities.

The report also notes that the cooperative model surpasses the shareholder model in at least one area: the 1 billion member-owners of cooperatives worldwide exceed the 893 million direct and indirect shareholders of corporations.

If direct shareholders, who own stock as individuals, are considered alone, they are outnumbered three to one by cooperative member-owners. In fact, 13.8% of the world population is a member of at least one cooperative, in contrast to the 5% who are direct shareholders. Looking at national figures, some countries have a very high proportion of cooperative membership, for example: Ireland (approximately 70% of the population), Finland (60%), Austria (58%), Singapore (50%), Switzerland (46%), Sweden (45%), Norway (44%), and Canada (40%).

The report notes that cooperatives are particularly strongly represented in the financial realm. A 2010 World Bank report found that credit union branches account for 23 percent of bank branches worldwide and serve 870 million people, making them the second largest financial services network in the world.

The report goes on to say that cooperatives in the financial sector are valuable because they offer access to savings, loans, and other financial services to small and medium enterprises, particularly in rural areas, which lowers a key barrier to economic development in the poorest sectors of many economies. In fact, the report shows that 45% of the branches of financial coops are located in rural areas, compared with 26% of branches of commercial banks.

By designating 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives, the United Nations (UN) has placed a spotlight on the cooperative model. The report concludes by saying that governments and the civil sectors of many countries are active in promoting the cooperative model. In the United States, for example, the National Cooperative Development Act was introduced in Congress in late 2011 to stimulate further development of the cooperative sector by providing it with seed capital, training, and resources.

Sweden: The co-operative advantage in fighting poverty

AnthonyMurray — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:58:49 +0000

Billions of people live under the subsistence level. Millions die of poverty. The gaps between countries are growing. The United Nations has agreed the Millennium Development Goals to work for a radical reduction in poverty by the year 2015.

The Swedish Cooperative Centre ( SCC ) was founded in 1958 with the intention of expressing its solidarity from the simple idea of helping poor people to improve their lives. SCC is today one of the most important development agencies in Sweden.

The work is based on the principle 'help for self-help' with the vision for 'a world free from poverty and injustice'.

Self-organization by the poor is a pre-condition for successful anti-poverty work. Poor people need influence on their lives, not charity. Development comes about as a result of people taking initiatives and organizing themselves.

Cooperatives combine democracy and social responsibility with business development and economic activities. As other actors in the business world, cooperatives are exposed to competition. They need to be skilled and they need support from development agencies in building capacity.

SCC:s main working areas are around Rural Development, Housing and Habitat and Financial Services.

An incredible 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and many of them are farmers. Agriculture is vital if they want food on the table and earn a living from the harvest. SCC provides training and strengthens the farmers position in the market.

Adequate housing is a human right. SCC support local housing cooperatives in which the members themselves build their own houses and together manage their common areas.

Many poor people have no banking system to turn to in order to save and borrow money. SCC support the establishment of local cooperative savings and credit societies.

If cooperatives did not exist, they would have to be invented with the mission to contribute substantially to the reduction of poverty.

Fund-raising from cooperative members of SCC in Sweden is the most important source of income. The fund-raising activities stimulate active engagement and participation. The efforts have year after year broken records. It boosts the capacity to make a difference in fighting poverty.

SCC is active in the International Cooperative Alliance, for the moment in planning seminars and other activities in 2012, the International Year of Cooperatives. Hopefully the Year will increase the public awareness and knowledge of cooperatives and their potential.

This article forms part of a series of Welcome to 2012, the International Year of Co-operatives, messages. Click here to read more messages.

12th January 2012 : Marking the start of the International Year of Co-operatives

MirkoNodari — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:38:39 +0000

Co-operative enterprises are businesses done by their members, for their members and to their members. Simply put, co-operative enterprises are good for everyone.

Yet, in spite of the current global social and economical challenges, the role of co-operatives has been overlooked. In response to this, co-operatives set out to give a wake-up call once with the start of the new year.

On the 12th of January 2012 co-operatives want to unite their voices and mark the start of the International Year of Cooperatives. Only by co-operating we can be more powerful and achieve our goals. Only by being together we can change the future. So join us on 12th January and let everyone know that the International Year of Cooperatives has started.

There are plenty of simple ways to celebrate the start of the Year. It can be putting up an International Year poster, handing out stickers to your customers, sending a press release to your local media, writing a blog, making a tweet or having a co-operative lunch with your colleagues, friends and family. Sharing the news with everybody is essential!

Co-operatives all over Europe and across the world will be marking the start of the Year in their own ways for 12 January. Cooperatives Europe, the ICA and many other co-operative organisations across Europe and the world are encouraging all members to join in celebrating the co-operative movement and mark the start of the Year on 12 January. If you are interested contact us: several of the countries and national committees involved are offering to share resources, for example, sample press releases.

So why not join with the global movement on 12 January and celebrate the start of 2012?

Europe’s social franchisers – doomed to succeed

Johnson Toby — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:59:27 +0000

Research recently carried out by the European Social Franchising Network (ESFN) shows that Europe’s social franchises probably employ around 13,000 people – two-thirds of whom are disadvantaged or disabled. And they are growing fast. The ESFN conference held on 18th October 2011 in Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre on London’s South Bank celebrated this fact.

Social franchising has slowly built up quite a head of steam among policy-makers, and ESFN itself, established as a European Economic Interest Group in 2008, now has 31 member businesses. The conference attracted people from 11 countries – including not only many young social franchisors of the future, but also UK’s Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd. He said that we need social franchises more than ever to resolve social problems in a vital way, by giving people a voice and keeping government of the way. He pointed to the need for better links between social enterprises and the financial establishment, and looked forward to the launch of Big Society Capital with £600 million to invest. There will also be a £10 million technical assistance fund to help social enterprises become ready for investment.

Introducing the event, ESFN’s chair, Keith Richardson, positioned social franchising as being the tool to create a step change in the size of the social economy, taking it from being 10% of the economy to being 25%. Firstly, he said, it is essentially about a structured exchange of information for mutual benefit. Secondly, it is market-oriented: unlike other business development techniques, it lives or dies with the success of the businesses it creates. Its strength is that when the franchises own the franchisor, all the parties share the same interest in growth, because costs fall dramatically with scale. Mr Richardson hoped that through such solidarity, social enterprises created to preserve public services could avoid the fate of the employee-owned bus companies of the 80s, which were picked off one by one by larger firms.

Inspiring examples

The scene was set by inspiring examples from several countries. Elisabet Mattsson and Renate Goergen of Le Mat described their transnational model, in which hotel chains in Italy and Sweden share an umbrella. Alistair Wilson told how the School for Social Entrepreneurs has spread round the globe. Ewa Sadowska described how, after the fall of communism in Poland, her parents set up the Barka Foundation which settled in a disused collective farm and turned it into a home for people suffering from mental illness. This has grown into a system of 60 therapeutic, education, employment and housing initiatives across Poland. She herself has come to London to work with Polish immigrants who have fallen on hard times. Sven Huysmans described how FIETSenWERK (Bike & Work) provides 600 full-time equivalent jobs servicing bicycles at railway stations across Flanders.

The conference also heard from what is believed to be the largest social franchise, Komosie, which operates 140 enterprises in Flanders. Komosie started out renovating and retailing second-hand goods, but has since branched out into energy saving.

A 21st century model

The event discussed the theoretical foundations of the social franchising idea as well as its practical implementation and benefits. Keith Richardson, Chair of the ESFN, talked about how starlings manage to co-operate without having a boss because their self-interest is in harmony with the collective interest. Robin Murray of the Young Foundation gave hope to our new wave social franchisors by drawing up a 2 x 2 matrix: he set out the two dimensions of subsidiarity – top-down versus bottom-up – and openness – standardisation versus the ‘generative’ method of social franchising. The way forward in his view is to be generative, and to open up possibilities for new enterprises, rather than forcing them into straightjacket. This seems to describe exactly the way franchisers like Le Mat describe and think of themselves.
He also reframed the process that social franchising enables, talking about it not as scaling up (a mass-production concept) but as diffusion. “In the social economy we sometimes haven’t recognised the benefits of structure,” he said. “Social franchising means moving from implicit to explicit systems. I think social franchising can become a real model for the expansion of the social economy.”

Echoing Nick Hurd, he felt that policy had laid too much stress on new starts and not enough on helping existing firms to expand. A 21st-century model of how to expand would include not only demand-side measures such as a kitemark, common sales and marketing, lobbying and policy campaigning, but also supply-side measures like training, technology, systems, methods and supply chains. The goal should be to find a way of reaping the benefits of scale without losing the benefits of smallness.

New EU fund for social enterprises

In the workshop on the European Social Fund, Lloyd Broad from Birmingham city Council, to whom the UK government has delegated the management of transnationality and innovation in the ESF ‘England and Gibraltar’ programme, familiarised us with the recently published Commission proposals for the 2014-2020 period. The ESF has been given four thematic objectives – employment, lifelong learning, inclusion and – in the poorest ‘cohesion’ areas – administrative reform. At least 20% of funds should be allocated to inclusion, and 80% of the money should be concentrated on just four out of 18 ‘investment priorities’. Six of these fall under the heading of social inclusion, and ‘social economy and social enterprise’ is one of these six. Even if governments do not select it – and on the face of it this is unlikely – social enterprise activity can just as well be carried out within other investment priorities such as ‘active inclusion’ or ‘community-led local development’. The overall message is that social enterprise is firmly embedded in the future of the ESF.

The ESF will be worth about €84 billion between 2014 and 2020. But in addition to this, the Commission also proposes to reserve nearly a billion euro for a new programme called the Programme for Social Change and Innovation (PSCI). This brings together the existing Progress programme with EURES and the European Progress Microfinance Facility. It will carry on the existing mutual learning activities such as the social inclusion peer reviews and beef up the international labour exchange role of EURES. Particularly interesting to social franchisors is the intention to practically double the current investment into the EPMF and to open it out to include investment in social enterprises. Approximately €95 million is set aside for social enterprise investment in the seven-year programming period.

At this stage the regulations are not finally agreed. The European Parliament and Council will now consider them, and they should be finalised by the middle of 2012.

What do social enterprises want?

The day closed with a the panel discussion, in which Elisabet Mattsson put forward the priorities for improving the environment for social franchising: a solid legal basis, more and smarter finance, a five-year competence development plan in each country, a mentoring programme and better organisation through long-term networking. For Jürgen Blondeel of Komosie Europe’s biggest social franchise with 4,000 employees, the priorities are development finance for the franchisor for the initial period of 3-5 years and a learning network for franchisors and franchisees on finance and methodology.

From the side of the public authorities, Emmanuel Vallens of the European Commission’s Internal Market DG outlined the content of the forthcoming communication on the Social Business Initiative (SBI). The motive behind the Commission’s rediscovered interest in the social economy is to relaunch the European single market and bring it closer to citizens. This means it should promote not only competitiveness but also social inclusion. The first step in that is to make clear that social enterprise is not just about labour market inclusion, but a much broader concept embracing businesses that make a profit in order to create social value. The SBI will act in three areas:
• access to finance – streamlining the Structural Funds, creating a framework for social investment funds and spreading microfinance;
• visibility – better information about social enterprises, as well as better information to them;
• the regulatory environment – in such areas as legal statutes, public procurement and state aid.

Further information:
European Social Franchising Network: http://www.socialfranchising.coop
Guardian’s Social Enterprise Network article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2011/oct/10/social-franchising-effective-european-network
Online Q&A session: http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2011/oct/19/best-bits-social-franchising-social-enterprise

Co-op Week in Canada: Canadian co-operators prepare for 2012

DonnaBalkan — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:56:35 +0000

The United Nations International Year of Co-operatives doesn’t take place until 2012, but Canada’s co-operatives and credit unions are getting a head start this week.

October 16-22 is Co-op Week, an annual event aimed at recognizing the economic and social contributions of co-operatives, as well as the values and principles underlying the co-operative business model. The week includes International Credit Union Day – October 20 – which has been celebrated on the third Thursday of October since 1948.

The theme of this year’s Co-op Week is the same as the theme of the International Year: Co-operative Enterprises Build a Better World.

“In many ways, we have been preparing for the International Year since the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution proclaiming the year in December 2009,” said Carol Hunter, executive director of the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA). “But many co-operative organizations across Canada are using this week to promote the fact that the International Year is coming very soon and are holding events around the International Year theme.”

In his Co-op Week message to CCA, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the link between this year’s Co-op Week and the International Year.

"The theme of this year's celebration -- Co-operative Enterprises Build a Better World -- aligns with the theme of next year's United Nations International Year of Co-operatives and presents an opportunity to showcase the co-operative business model around the world," Prime Minister Harper wrote. “Co-operatives have helped many people and organizations find solutions to social and economic challenges in their communities, and this special week offers Canadians a chance to express their appreciation for the benefits that co-operatives provide."

To find out about some of the Co-op Week events taking place across Canada, go to s.coop/coopweek2011.

Exporting Co-operation

AnthonyMurray — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:06:22 +0000

Problems galore for Cameron's 'co-operative schools' proposal

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:00:00 +0000

“All over Britain, all over the world, something is happening which I find really exciting,” said Mr Cameron, when he announced his initiative to the Conservative Co-operative Movement. “People are coming together in new forms of collective activity — bespoke organisations designed to tackle entrenched social and economic problems.”