The « Social economy embedding circular economy: theory, practice and potential. An international partnership » project was initiated in March 2023 with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Since then, a first kick-off meeting on one of the project’s four themes – public policy and power – was held via Teams last June.

In September 2023, international members of the Partnership gathered in Montreal for Global Innovation Coop Summit to discuss two of the project’s other themes: governance and technology, and social innovation. In addition, attending members were able to share their work during the GICS as panelists in various sessions:

  • Mario Pansera : The limits to growth – A just transition to a circular economy within planetary boundaries (plenary session) 
  • Emmanuel Raufflet : Let’s get CIRCULAR (plenary session) 
  • Gaëlle Généreux (TIESS) and Rafael Ziegler : Circular business models for cooperatives (breakout sessions) 
  • Thomas Bauwens : Community energy (breakout session) 
  • Sonja Novkovic : Propel your leadership on the SDGs with UNRISD’s Sustainable Development Performance Indicators (SDPI) (plenary session) 
  • Marie-Josée Paquette : Welcome remarks (plenary session)
  • Justine Ballon : Organizing collectively to transform (breakout session) 
  • Martine Vézina: Multistakeholder cooperative governance (breakout session) 

The last kick-off meeting took place in October via Teams and focused on the fourth theme, business models.

The project is making good progress, with partnership members having identified their research assistants to carry out the ongoing data collection on cooperatives practicing circular economy strategies in their respective countries (12).

These face-to-face meetings as part of GICS 2023 were partly funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.