Cooperatives and climate action
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Cooperatives and climate action
The international cooperative movement aims to raise awareness as to the need to combat climate change. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has chosen climate action as the focus of International Day of Cooperatives, held every year in July.
Many extreme weather phenomena, natural disasters and even the spread of some diseases such as malaria, are linked to climate change. Global heating and atmospheric carbon emissions are endangering the planet, and urgent measures need to be taken.
The international cooperative movement aims to raise awareness as to the need to combat climate change. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has chosen climate action as the focus of International Day of Cooperatives, held every year in July.
Cooperative enterprises are leaders in protecting the environment. The cooperative movement played a pioneering role in this field back in the 1980s, when a number of cooperatives adopted initiatives to address environmental degradation by developing greener products and promoting responsible consumption.
In 1992 this commitment was expressed in the "Environment and sustainable development declaration", focused on developing an enterprise economy that would protect natural resources. Three years later, in 1995, the International Cooperative Alliance assembly added to the "Cooperative Identity" hallmarks of cooperative values a new principle setting out cooperatives' concerns for the community and the environment within which they operate.
Ever since, environmental concerns have been hard-wired into cooperatives, and the cooperative movement is a global player in the shift towards advancing the climate agenda.
To mark International Day of Cooperatives, the ICA has devised an interactive map on which cooperatives from around the globe present the actions they are undertaking to combat climate change.
About International Day of Cooperatives
International Day of Cooperatives is held each year on the first Saturday in July to highlight the contribution made by the cooperative movement in pursuit of solutions to the key problems addressed by the United Nations.
The UN General Assembly launched the event in 1995, and ever since the ICA has, together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Farmers' Organization (WFO), selected a theme for the celebration each year
