RSE COOP - The programme / Introduction

The programme » Introduction

The Catalan Confederation of Cooperatives (CCC), in conjunction with the Institute for the Promotion and Training of Cooperatives (IPFC), Barcelona City Council, the Catalan Institute for Women (ICD), the Spanish Federation of Social Economy Organisations (CEPES), and the six Catalan cooperative federations have launched a programme designed to help cooperatives to integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices into their business activities. The programme, entitled RSE.COOP, aims to promote the sustainable development of CSR within cooperatives and improve the overall competitivity of the sector. The programme will involve the implementation of a specially designed corporate social responsibility tool in a pilot group formed by forty different cooperatives. RSE.COOP is part-financed by the European Social Fund within the framework of the EU initiative EQUAL II 2004-2007.

The programme was inspired by a number of points:

The existence of clear similarities between the basic tenets of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and those of the cooperative movement.

Corporate social responsibility can be understood as the voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns into a company’s business operations and relationships with stakeholders

while the cooperative movement is characterised by values such as self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity.

The need to create a single tool capable of measuring a company’s, or in this case, a cooperative’s degree of social responsibility.

This measurement could then be used to identify – and endorse – socially responsible organisations, i.e. organisations which have voluntarily integrated social responsibility into their business strategy.

The cooperative movement has always been seen as a means for social transformation, and the RSE.COOP programme will provide the movement with a unique opportunity to create a benchmark model for similar organisations wishing to adopt CSR practices.

The programme is a groundbreaking initiative designed to create a common reference framework in the area of social responsibility that can later be transferred to the entire sector and to all types of business organisations in general.