ABSTRACT
In 2015, the United Nations (UN) proposed its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The agenda specifies 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the relationship between the presence of worker cooperatives and the diffusion of environmental awareness. The starting point is that worker cooperatives, in which employees control most aspects of their work and the firm’s strategy, internalize the SDGs more than traditional firms do. In particular, in worker cooperatives, productive choices are made by workers who are generally part of the community where the firm is located. From this perspective, they provide sustainable local employment, starting with their governance model, and are likely to have a number of positive effects on their communities’ economies and health. Furthermore, the intergenerational nature of cooperatives is a stronger guarantee of sustainable development compared with traditional capitalist firms – not only in environmental terms but also from a social and economic point of view.
