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You are here: Home / Our Projects / Global to Local / Planet Local / Local Business & Finance, Local Energy / Planet Local Initiatives

Evergreen Cooperative Initiative

USA

Evergreen CooperativesThe Evergreen Cooperative Initiative, in Cleveland, Ohio (USA), is an inspiring example of community-based economic revitalization in action. The overarching purpose of the Evergreen Initiative is to reduce poverty and inequality by building community wealth, democratizing ownership, and creating local green jobs for residents of one of the city’s high-unemployment, low-income neighborhoods.

From their website: “Rather than a trickle down strategy, [The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative] focuses on economic inclusion and building a local economy from the ground up; rather than offering public subsidy to induce corporations to bring what are often low-wage jobs into the city, the Evergreen strategy is catalyzing new businesses that are owned by their employees…”

Evergreen’s basic strategy is to create a network of worker-owned cooperatives, each meeting a specific procurement need (goods or services) of local ‘anchor institutions’, such as universities and hospitals. A local non-profit helps raise the initial capital needed to create the co-ops, provides technical assistance, and makes sure the community’s broader interests are represented in the cooperatives’ decisions. Once profitable, each new co-op contributes a portion of its surplus to an innovative revolving fund that helps capitalize the next wave of enterprises.

In the boom and bust context of corporate globalization, one of the initiative’s primary goals is to help stabilize the local economy. It achieves this by creating enterprises firmly rooted to their communities, both because they’re owned by workers who live their, and because the institutions they sell to are anchored locally in a way that large, footloose corporations are not. Since its founding in 2008, three successful cooperatives have been launched: a green laundry service company, Evergreen Laundry; a renewable energy service cooperative, Evergreen Energy Solutions; and a local food cooperative, Green City Growers.

To learn more, visit the Evergreen Cooperatives’ website.

Related


Evergreen Cooperative Initiative

Category: Local Business & Finance, Local Energy

Related

  • Global to Local
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      • Sacred Activism in a Post-Trump World Webinar
      • Talking Climate Webinar
      • People Power: Democracy and the Economy Webinar
      • Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change Webinar
      • Bringing the Food Economy Home Webinar
      • A World Without ‘Free’ Trade: What it would look like and how to get there
      • Beyond ‘Free Trade’ – Alternatives to Corporate Rule
      • Education: Promises, Myths & Realities Webinar
      • Debt and Speculation in the Global Economy Webinar
      • A New Activism Webinar
      • Climate Change or System Change Webinar
      • Going Local Webinar
    • Animation: Going Local: the solution-multiplier
    • Insane Trade Short Film and Factsheet
      • Insane Trade! & Factsheet Translated
    • Planet Local
      • Culture
      • Eco Communities
      • Ecology
      • Health
      • Local Business & Finance
      • Local Energy
      • Local Food, Farming & Fisheries
      • Local Policy & Community Rights
      • Place-based Education
      • Sharing & Repairing
      • Planet Local Short Film Series
        • 1 – Introduction: The New Local Food Movement
        • 2 – Diverse Farming Systems
        • 3 – Local Food Webs: Exploring Systems of Distribution
        • 4 – Local Food Processors: AKA Making Delicious Food
        • 5 – Challenges & Solutions
        • 6 – Ecovillages & Networks for New Farmers
        • 7 – And Finally… Here’s a Little More Inspiration
    • Local Bites Podcast
      • Unpacking Global Empire from an Indigenous Perspective with Tyson Yunkaporta & Helena Norberg-Hodge
      • More than Just the Vegetables
      • Food Sovereignty in the Global Economy
      • Transition, Tradition, and Trade
      • Not-for-Profit Businesses
      • Love, Values, and Wellbeing Economies
      • Growing a Farmers Market from the Ground Up
      • Beautiful Places: A Conversation with Wendell Berry
      • Creating the Framework for a New Economy
      • From GDP to GNH
      • Rebuilding Healthy Communities: The Growing Ecovillage Movement
      • Seeds of Resilience, Seeds of Sovereignty
      • Why Local Ownership Matters
      • Local Alternatives to Globalized Development: A View from India
      • How to Feed the World? A Political Agroecological Approach
      • Helena Norberg-Hodge on how corporate ‘free trade’ deals threaten local communities and economies worldwide
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