When citizens take collaborative action to meet the needs of their community, they are participating in the social economy. Co-operatives, community-based social services, local non-profit organizations, and charitable foundations are all examples of social economies that emphasize mutual benefit rather than the accumulation of profit. While such groups often participate in market-based activities to achieve their goals, they also pose an alternative to the capitalist market economy. Contributors to Scaling Up investigated innovative social economies in British Columbia and Alberta and discovered that achieving a social good through collective, grassroots enterprise resulted in a sustainable way of satisfying human needs that was also, by extension, environmentally responsible. As these case studies illustrate, organizations that are capable of harnessing the power of a social economy generally demonstrate a commitment to three outcomes: greater social justice, financial self-sufficiency, and environmental sustainability. Within the matrix of these three allied principles lie new strategic directions for the politics of sustainability.

Whether they were examining attainable and affordable housing initiatives, co-operative approaches to the provision of social services, local credit unions, farmers’ markets, or community-owned power companies, the contributors found social economies providing solutions based on reciprocity and an understanding of how parts function within the whole—an understanding that is essential to sustainability. In these locally defined and controlled, democratically operated organizations we see possibilities for a more human economy that is capable of transforming the very social and technical systems that make our current way of life unsustainable.

Contributors: Mary Beckie, Randy Bell, Marena Brinkhurst, Kailey Cannon, Sean Connelly, Mike Gismondi, Lillian Hunt, Noel Keough, Freya Kristensen, Celia Lee, Mike Lewis, Julie L. MacArthur, Terri MacDonald, Sean Markey, Juanita Marois, George Penhold, Stewart Perry, John Restakis, Lauren Rethoret, Mark Roseland, Lynda Ross, Erin Swift-Leppakumpu, and Kelly Vodden.

Michael Gismondi teaches at Athabasca University in northern Alberta, where he is a third-term Town Councillor and active in community and sustainability issues. In 2005, he helped collectively edit Consuming Sustainability: Critical Social Analyses of Ecological Change (Fernwood Press).

Mike Gismondi's profile page

Sean Connelly is lecturer in geography at the University of Otago and a research associate with the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University.

Sean Connelly's profile page

Mary Beckie is an associate professor in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Extension, where she teaches and conducts research in sustainability.

Mary Beckie's profile page

Sean Markey is an associate professor with the School or Resource and Envrionmental Management and an associate with the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University.

Sean Markey's profile page

Mark Roseland is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University and a professor in SFU's Department of Geography. A former editor of RAIN Magazine and North American editor of Local Environment, his publications include Eco-City Dimensions: Healthy Communities, Healthy Planet (New Society, 1997). He lectures internationally, advises communities and governments on sustainable development policy and planning, and participates actively in sustainable community development projects in Vancouver and elsewhere.

Mark Roseland's profile page

“A great read for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in how the social economy is transforming communities today, and what opportunities this holds for the future. The examples detailed in this book demonstrate that the social economy can serve to reinforce the notion that sustainability is a process and not a fixed outcome.”

Marlyne Sahakian