Annual Conference 2007

Co-operation and Sustainability

1-2 September 2007

Ruskin College, Oxford

The focus for our 2007 conference was co-operation as a sustainable model of business enterprise. This includes not only economic, social and environmental considerations, but also issues of governance in terms of the long term survival and health of co-operatives as genuinely member-led organisations, especially at a time of consolidation and the creation of very large-scale co-operatives and mutuals.

Mary Mellor from Northumbria University and Molly Scott Cato from UWIC in Cardiff shared the first session, exploring how green economics and sustainability link with issues of ownership and control.

Margaret Cliff, General Secretary of Country Market Ltd., outlined the extent of trading underpinned by this nationwide network of local, co-operative producer markets.