International Year of Cooperatives

This is going to be a good year! On December 18th, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2012 the Year of Cooperatives, and here we are, already in 2012. Black Star Co-op and other local co-op organizations, especially including the Austin Co-op Think Tank, will be using this opportunity to help educate people on cooperatives and how they meet the needs of the community, while also respecting their employees and the environment.

As the UN states on their official International Year of Cooperatives 2012 website, “Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility,” and I couldn’t agree more. In the past year, it has become increasingly clear that many people are looking for alternative economic models that are not focused solely on monetary profits, and I believe that the cooperative model is what they’re looking for. Co-ops produce not just monetary profit, but also profit of a more general kind. Whether it is in the form of benefits to the community, the environment, or their employees, co-ops have the ability to meet the needs of the market while still providing these other, non-monetary profits as well. For more information on co-ops, please check out the International Co-operative Alliance’s website.

Please keep an eye out for all the events that we’ll have throughout the year in conjunction with the Austin Co-op Think Tank, and I hope to see you at one of them!!

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/siteghost/sites/www.blackstar.coop/wp-content/themes/simplified2/sidebar.php on line 5