Before going on to read how cooperatives help build sustainable communities, please note that CDI partnered with Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (NE SARE) to produce "Group-based Business: Sustaining Agriculture in the Northeast (The Resource Guide for Agricultural Group-based Businesses)."

Cooperatives assist in buidling sustainable communities on  three levels: socially, economically, and environmentally.

Solar panels installed by Pioneer Valley Photo Voltaics cooperative on top of Green Fields Market, another cooperative in Greenfield, MA.

Communities have a strong, sustainable economic life  when money and resources are retained within the community. Cooperatives  help increase a community’s resources because they are often locally owned  and controlled. Jobs, profits, and resources stay in the community longer  because the cooperative members who control the cooperative are community  members.
Communities are weakened when the businesses they have  built with their labor and patronage move out of a community and take that  value with them. Cooperatives are far less likely to decide to move south  for cheaper labor when that decision would cause the decision makers to  loose a business they depend on. When members depend on a cooperative to bring them products and services they need, jobs, or markets for their  products, they are far less likely to move the business out of the  community.
When people spend more of their money in locally  controlled businesses, they experience the beneficial multiplier effect of  having money circulate within their community. Cooperatives are often  locally owned by people within a community. Locally owned businesses spend  more payroll and operating dollars locally. Locally owned cooperatives return their profits to their local owners. When these dollars are  re-circulated within the community, everyone benefits. Cooperatives help  keep money in the community.

The Beidler family farms 150 acres in central VT, a certified organic dairy operation since 2000. They receive a fair price as coop members of Organic Valley Farm.

Environmental Sustainability

A cooperative is a type of business that allows generations to come to appreciate a healthy stock of environmental and  natural resource assets.

Please be aware that we are not protecting the environment for future  generations if we:
•   Require continual inputs of non-renewable  resources.
•   Use renewable resources faster than their rate of  renewal.
•   Cause cumulative degradation of the environment.
•   Require resources in quantities that undermine  other people's well-being.
•   Lead to the extinction of other life forms.

In the Northeast, cooperative members are doing  remarkable things to help protect the environment for future generations.  Some co-ops are dedicated to helping individuals adopt more responsible  patterns of consumption, thereby consuming fewer resources. Others are supporting practices that return value to our environmental resources.

"Humanity has the ability to make development  sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without  compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
- Dr. Gro Harlem Bruntland, Director-General, World  Health Organization