SEE’s response to the European Commission’s consultation on scenarios towards co-creation of a transition pathway for a resilient, innovative, sustainable, and digital proximity and social economy ecosystem.
Please find here SEE full reply to the consultation.
On the 16th of December 2021, the Social Economy Action Plan was officially launched and it was accompanied by two working documents. One of them, titled Scenarios towards co-creation of a transition pathway for a more resilient, sustainable and digital Proximity and Social Economy industrial ecosystem, aims at explaining how the social economy and proximity ecosystem has the right potential to contribute to green and digital transitions, strengthening resilience for future shocks. In this document, the Commission committed to initiate a bottom-up process, whereby the mobilisation of proximity and social economy stakeholders is key to pave the way for the twin transition and ultimately accompany the implementation of the Social Economy Action Plan.
In response to its commitment, the Commission put forward a survey to function as a call to action for the wide range of social economy stakeholders, enabling them to provide their concrete contributions.
Social Economy Europe welcomed the Commission proposal and has responded positively to the call to action, by highlighting a number of points.
Social Economy Europe as a driver of social economy’s major contribution to the green transition
As far as the green transition is concerned, Social Economy Europe engages in the set up and the scaling up of green social economy projects at a multilevel scale, reinforcing their contribution to quality jobs creation. In this regard, social economy has the capacity to mobilise stakeholders “on the ground” and create shared value, especially at the local level. Another key priority of Social Economy Europe is to build alliances for the upskilling and reskilling of social economy employees and entrepreneurs in view of the Green Transition and at the same time build alliances to boost access to finance and equity for green social economy projects. In the same vein, it commits to promote the visibility of social economy innovations for the green transition, to study and disseminate existing good practices. Social Economy Europe is ultimately willing to collaborate with EU Institutions and Member States towards the development of policy and legal frameworks facilitating the further development of green social economy projects.
Social Economy Europe objective to promote an inclusive digital transition that serves general interest
In view of the digital transition, Social Economy Europe engages in building pluralistic alliances for the upskilling and reskilling of social economy employees and entrepreneurs. At the same time, it will support social economy actors participation and involvement in strategic EU projects and alliances in areas as artificial intelligences, processors and semiconductors, batteries etc. Eventually, Social Economy Europe is committed to raise awareness on social economy’s potential to lead an inclusive entrepreneurial revolution in the digital economy, inspiring and attracting new talents.
We believe that, with the right support coming from SEAP and its associated actions, the social economy can continue growing from 6.3% of jobs to at least 8% of all jobs in the coming years. This is our time to scale up and the transition pathways should help us in identifying what we need -from ourselves and from others- to achieve our goals.
In conclusion, it is crucial that all the actions and measures foreseen by the European Commission and Member States towards green and digital transition are accessible to all social economy enterprises, as cooperatives, mutuals (public benefit and insurance), associations (including charities), foundations, social enterprises, and other legal forms sharing the same values and features, active in all sectors.
The survey is just the beginning of a participative process that will be lead by the European Commission in cooperation with SEE, DIESIS and other social economy actors as EUCLID and EURICSE, and mobilising the expertise of RREUSE, CECOP, REVES, EMES and others. A process that will be open to at least all those who have replied to the consultation.
Social Economy Europe's members contributions to the Transition Pathway
Concerning the actions towards the green and digital transition, AIM will foster the development of policy and legal frameworks by the OECD and the EU institutions to facilitate the development of national measures of its members in this area. AIM will engage in the re- and up-skilling of our members by participating the EU Pact for Skills.
Concerning the actions towards the green and digital transition, CECOP works to create a supportive environment for cooperatives, so that they can operate to their full strength and fulfil their mission of providing sustainable jobs and high quality services to communities. As a European confederation, CECOP commits to support digital and green transition through networking and mutual learning among members, representing their interests. At the same time, it wishes to Increase the visibility of cooperatives in industry and services implementing green and digital transition. It will also carry out research and contribute to knowledge about industrial and service cooperatives’ green and digital transition. Members of CECOP and their affiliated cooperatives contribute to a more inclusive and just economic transition committing to promote green and digital transition that serves the general interest. They will promote the multistakeholder cooperative model as an instrument for this twin transition, especially for the provision of services of general interest. At the same time, they will not only mobilise stakeholders “on the ground” and creating shared value at the local level, but they will also favor "cooperation among cooperatives" - one of the core cooperative principles.
ENSIE and its members are ready to take the various actions towards the twin transition of the ecosystem. Concerning the green transition, they propose to map good practices of WISEs active in the green transition and exchange them with relevant stakeholders. They also propose to work on the identification of skills needs for the green transition. ENSIE and its members commit to raise awareness on socially responsible public procurement and how to implement it through the reinforcement of ENSIE SRPP database. They propose to organise concrete action (webinar or publication) to explain the combination of different support schemes (state aids and taxation). Finally, it will be important to promote communication campaigns in order to demonstrate that the green transition will be sustainable among WISEs and social economy only with an holistic approach in which green, digital and just are considered together. Concerning the digital transition, ENSIE and some of its members, are partners in two projects that concerns the digital transition of the sector. The B-WISE project which aims to develop and implement a European strategy to address skills needs, in particular regarding digital skills, in the WISEs sector. The WISE for Digital Upskilling project (WISE Up) which aims to increase the capacity of vulnerable people to integrate the labour market by developing digital education training and improving the mentoring. ENSIE and its members propose to organise webinars on digital tools and big data platforms, and existing digital regulations for their members. ENSIE commits to reinforce, develop and disseminate the wisebusiness.eu platform, that presents digital tools that WISEs can use. Finally, ENSIE and its members are ready to develop concrete policies and tools designed for people with specific needs in the digital transition.
The recent declaration that ESS FRANCE adopted is an actual commitment towards the achievement of the green transition. In particular, ESS FRANCE is willing to support innovative and efficient solutions in the territories to make the economy of tomorrow, by favoring the research for impact in our activities. ESS-FRANCE will favour inter-cooperation within the SSE but it will also seek all forms of alliances with companies, research bodies, social organisations, local authorities, the State and the European Union to govern and regulate the economy. To do this, it will ensure that its models are recognised in their rightful place. ESS-FRANCE will promote a vision of the world in international organisations and coalitions that promotes peace, social, human and cultural rights, fair trade and action for climate and biodiversity. Concerning the digital transition, ESS-FRANCE will contribute to a fair and inclusive digital transition, in particular, integrating disadvantaged groups such as people with disabilities, youth, women, people living in rural or remote areas, etc. It engages in joining alliances aimed at training and re-skilling of social economy employees and entrepreneurs for the digital transition as well as at strengthening access to tailor-made software and support services. ESS-FRANCE will set up campaigns to attract young talent for social economy digital projects and at the same time, it will work on the digitisation of social, health and care service provision.
FEBEA set itself the task of developing the ethical and social finance in Europe. Through the activities of its members and its own initiatives, FEBEA defends a committed, rigorous and ambitious vision of social and ethical finance. The Federation supports social finance, social economy entrepreneurs and all citizens and groups who work for the development of a fairer, more sustainable and more inclusive society. To this end, the Federation has therefore set concrete objectives starting from supporting the exchange of information, experiences and cooperation between national networks and social economy and finance practitioners in Europe and in the European free trade area. It will represent its members at the EU institutions and the financial and political organizations and leverage different political levels and European institutions. FEBEA will concretely support the efforts of its members, including in the creation of banking and financial instruments that are necessary to accomplish their goals. At the same time, FEBEA will set up alliances with ethical finance and social finance actors to boost access to finance for digital social economy projects, allowing them to scale up.
Together with partner networks such as those being part of Social Economy Europe, Energy Cities, ICLEI, the CoR, national networks such as RTES, le Labo de l'ESS, PLS and others, REVES is ready to work on the implementation of policy programmes to support green transition of social economy enterprises through grants, easily accessible loans or guarantee schemes – in the field of energy, but also in other fields such as circular economy or sustainable transport. REVES will promote the discussion and experimentation of (innovative) social-economy based solutions, in partnership with local and regional governments, that demonstrate the possibility and added value of combining green and social transition. at the same time, it will favor not only the development of techniques allowing for the use of public procurement to leverage green transition of social economy, but also the development of experiences of shared administration to benefit from the capacity of social economy organisation in recovering and reusing unused or underused common goods. Concerning the digital transition, REVES will help identify and catalise local territorial investments. It will favor the development of a taxonomy to be used by public authorities and (public) financial actors in order to ensure that investments are of the greatest possible use in promoting social, economic and territorial cohesion in general and for a specific region/territory more specifically. REVES will also help in the promotion of quality work in the field of the platform economy by encouraging and supporting experimentation, involving also local and regional authorities, of social economy-based models such as cooperative platforms.
Social Economy Europe's partners contributions to the Transition Pathway
GROUPE VYV is the leading mutual health and social protection player in France. The group develops solutions to improve the quality of life of members, customers, patients and residents by combining different businesses.
Concerning the actions towards the green transition, in October 2021, Fundación ONCE launched the Green Makers initiative to promote sustainability within the organisation. As one of the key social economy players in Spain, Fundación ONCE also commits to promote an inclusive digital transition that serves general interest and to raise awareness on social economy’s potential to lead an inclusive entrepreneurial revolution in the digital economy. Concerning the actions towards the digital transition, ONCE is focused on helping in the creation of an inclusive digital labour market with the help of social economy, especially throughout ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities, promoting digital skills and promoting the digital employment of people with disabilities. Only through collaboration and alliances amongst relevant stakeholders can an inclusive digital labour market that leaves no one behind be achieved. Therefore, every part, namely public authorities, people with disabilities and their representatives organisations, the digital industry, the corporate sector and social partners, has an important role to play.
