Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are the most common form of employee ownership, and when structured with meaningful participation, they reduce layoffs and help narrow the wealth gap. ESOP firms often contribute shares amounting to 6–8% of annual pay to workers’ accounts — with some contributing up to 10–25% — compounding over decades.
Bridestones Moor, a dramatic 114-acre space above Todmorden, West Yorkshire, has been brought under community ownership.
The site, beloved in Calderdale for its striking rock formations, sweeping moorland vistas and wildlife, will now be managed by Bridestones Rewilded, a community interest company (CIC) led by local ecologists, naturalists and residents.
From 15 to 17 December 2025, the CIPCRE in Bafoussam hosted the preparatory work for the launch of the Youth and Social and Solidarity Economy HUB (JeunESS), a strategic initiative led by the African Network for Social and Solidarity Economy (RAESS), in conjunction with the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social and Solidarity Economy (RIPESS IC).
At Boyfriend Co-op, the four worker-owners work together to curate the cafe and cocktail menu, design the space and plan events. Although there is a hierarchy of roles — one worker-owner with more expertise in event-planning may take on more of those responsibilities, for instance — there is no hierarchy of person.
To become a worker-owner, people can participate in a “labor buy-in," working for the cafe-bar for six months and contributing 60 hours to co-op improvement like pitching events, adding menu items and more. Currently, two workers are on that path.
As 2025 comes to a close, it’s a good time to look back over the last 12 months of happenings at Dancing Rabbit. As with any year, we’ve had our ups and downs. When we look at the big picture, it’s quite promising; we’re making meaningful progress on a number of projects, our population is growing steadily, and our collective institutions are chugging along and aiding villagers and visitors in living sustainable, connected, and meaningful lives.
About one in six adults feels lonely all or most of the time. It’s the same for about one in four young adults.
No one has a simple solution. But small groups with diverse missions and makeups are recognizing that social disconnection is a big part of the problems they’re trying to address, and reconnection is part of the solution.
Capitalism’s crisis is planetary. It is a system upending nature and society, causing many to live and work in despair. So far, the left has been incapable of inspiring an effective challenge to it. In Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy, Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams map a new transformative politics arising from inspiring worker cooperative systems that advance planetary care from below and which have the potential to undermine the capitalist status quo.
One of the year’s early milestones was the hosting of the 11th Technical Committee of the Africa Ministerial Cooperative Conference (TCAMCCO), held in Morocco which marked the official launch of the International Year of Cooperatives in Africa, setting the tone for a year of continental engagement.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Cooperatives is pressing village-based cooperatives to prioritise locally made goods, a policy aimed at strengthening domestic supply chains and reducing reliance on imports as economic pressures mount.
“All local products must be absorbed by cooperatives,” Ahmad Zabadi, secretary at the Ministry of Cooperatives, said in a statement released in Jakarta on Sunday, underscoring the government’s push to anchor economic growth at the village level.
From the very beginning, our village design has centered around densely clustered buildings surrounded by expansive natural areas for wildlife protection and human enjoyment. Building density serves two main functions: it maintains a human-centric, walkable village in which collaboration and social interaction are encouraged by the physical environment, and it leaves as much space for wildlife as possible.
On a plot of land in western Connecticut resides a small group of tenants who are doing housing a little differently. “ We’re all involved and invested in the same thing, which is safe housing for ourselves and our family,” says Wandy Luna, 48, president of one of the six Brookside Housing Cooperatives, the oldest cooperative housing project in Connecticut.
