In leeds, england, members have developed a low-impact-living, affordable housing community (LILAC Co-operative), which demonstrates the three dimensions of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. It treads lightly on the earth, and its finances are structured to ensure that homes will remain affordable for future generations.

Publicising The Challenges of Sustainable Development

Co-operatives have a special responsibility to alert their members and the public to the challenges of sustainable development locally and globally and contributing to the efforts to promote it in an effective way. The Alliance's "blueprint for a Co-operative Decade" sets out "sustainability" as one of the priorities to be addressed in the years to come. It states that:

"Co-operatives have always set out to enable people to have access to goods and services without exploitation. this has meant trading in accordance with a set of values based on what we would today call sustainability. By placing human need at their center, co-operatives respond to today's crises of sustainability and deliver a distinctive form of 'shared value'. Quite simply, a co-operative is a collective pursuit of sustainability. Co-operatives seek to 'optimise' outcomes for a range of stakeholders, without seeking to 'maximise' the benefit for any single stakeholder. Building economic, social and environmental sustainability should therefore be one of the over-arching motivations and justifications for a growing co-operative sector. It offers an answer to the question of why co-operatives are necessary and beneficial, at this historical juncture."10

Setting Goals For Sustainable Development

The blueprint also sets goals for attaining sustainability in the three areas of economic, social and environmental sustainability and indicates how these goals might be achieved by possible or indicative actions. Co-operatives are encouraged to give consideration to all the blueprint's recommendations that, when implemented, will ensure that the Alliance's vision is achieved "for the co-operative form of business, by 2020, to become the acknowledged leader in economic, social and environmental sustainability, the model preferred by people, and the fastest growing form of enterprise". Building from the local base, co-operatives can support not just wider policies on sustainability issues but also practical support for practical sustainable development projects both locally and through international development projects.

The Gravity Of Global Environmental Problems

the concern of co-operatives to address the increasing gravity of global environmental problems was shown during debates at the Alliance's General Assembly in Cancun, Mexico in 2011, as were positive exemplar actions by co-operatives regionally and globally to tackle threats to the global environment such as global warming, carbon emissions, use of pesticides, and destruction of rain forests. this engagement with global environmental issues is appropriate and to be encouraged but needs to be matched with local environmental actions. for example, concern for climate change should lead to a commitment by all co-operatives to audit their carbon emissions and seek to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Also, any co-operative concerned about climate change and the destruction of rainforests needs to act locally too by ensuring that all timber used in construction and maintenance is certified as being sourced from sustainably managed forests.

Access To Health Care And Other Essential Services

Access to health care and medical services is not the only aspect of global health promotion. Access to clean water, sanitation services, electricity for food refrigeration, and decent housing that is safe, secure and pest free is also vital for human health. Concern for community and the contribution co-operatives can make to wider civil society through supporting the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals will also be important in the future.

Open Source Software

Co-operatives should consider how best to support the development and use of open source It software to ensure that software that meets the needs of co-operatives is available to them at reasonable cost. this is particularly important for banking and insurance co-operatives and credit unions in emerging economies, but also for other co-operative sectors too.

Collaboration With Other Organisations

Co-operatives alone cannot attain the goal of the sustainable development of their communities; they have to enter into agreements with and collaborate with other organisations, including governments. Such collaboration is indispensable given the huge global challenges of achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Co-operatives need to collaborate with community organisations, private companies, volunteer groups, charities, and local, regional and national governments. In doing so they need to consider how to ensure that they can engage in collaborative ventures that promote sustainable development in accordance with the 4th Principle; that is, freely and on terms which ensure democratic control by their members is preserved, and that their co-operative's autonomy and independence is maintained.

Promoting Global Peace And Social Cohesion

Co-operatives have always played a significant role in promoting global peace and social cohesion. Application of the Co-operative values and Principles by co-operatives create a unique capacity to contribute to global peace and prosperity. All co-operatives should give consideration to the contribution they can make in their local communities and beyond to peace, social solidarity, social justice, and prosperity for all.

Helping To Build Civil Society

All co-operatives should consider and develop the capacity they have to make a significant contribution to building civil society by the successful application of this 7th Principle. They do so by contributing to the sustainable development of their local communities and, more widely, to the sustainable development of the national, regional and global communities of which they are part. Engaging members from local communities in co-operative enterprises creates new, engaged and responsible activists who drive the development of the co-operative movement forward into the future but who also, in a tradition that reaches back to the founders of this great global co-operative movement, become engaged in a much wider range of progressive organisations. Co-operatives have always made, and continue to make, a major contribution to the progress of civil society and democratic renewal.