This is a CTP of initiative: RIPESS/ APRES‐GE (Switzerland)
This CTP is about the creation of the Charter of values, which was the basis for the development of criteria for membership in 2011. As the interviewee explains, the two are interlinked in nature: “The Charter is the first act [...] and the criteria are the practical component of the Charter [...] The criteria are the practical translation of the latter”.
The idea to design a Charter flew forth from the broad variety of member organizations. Indeed, the SSE sector represented in Geneva a wide diversity of actors (cooperatives, associations, foundations, self-employed people, public limited companies, limited liability companies etc.) and a wide array of activities. The member organizations were active in a major number of economic sectors: housing, artisanal and industrial sectors, agriculture, environmental services, personal services (insertion, nursery), fair-trade, solidarity finance, leisure activities and other services (transport, gardening, information and communication technologies...). This diversity was thought as a real wealth and as a power supply for the innovative dimension of the SSE sector. However, it made difficult for the external observer to clearly understand how these very different organizations were linked.
In order to highlight this link, the member organizations of the Chamber decided to formalize what they shared in a Charter of values in 2005. This Charter was thought as a way to enhance the awareness and recognition of the values defining their common identity and to orientate the actions of the members while maintaining their rich diversity. Seven values were defined: social well-being, participative governance, respect for the environment, autonomy, solidarity, diversity, coherence. From there on, organizations would have to adhere to these values and commit to implement them in a progressive manner when applying for membership.
Five years later, the Chamber set some criteria up so as to be able to monitor the degree of respect of these values by member organizations. The originality of the process lies in the fact that APRES-GE used these values in order to elaborate criteria to delineate membership: instead of defining SSE according to the legal form of entities (e.g. only accepting cooperatives, associations and foundations) as was the case in other countries like France, they decided to adopt an inclusive approach that would define SSE as a sector of the economy characterized by a common identity based on values.
They decided they would divide the criteria into 3 categories: essential prerequisites, binding standards and evolutionary criteria. The essential prerequisites are outside the Charter, they concern for example the respect of the law or the geographical perimeters of an organization’s activities (which have to be in the Geneva region); The binding standards (transparency, collective interest, autonomy and limited profitability) constitute the core of the system because they represent the minimum conditions for one organization to claim its belonging to SSE. Consequently, they have to be respected if the organization wants its application for membership to be accepted; finally, the evolutionary criteria (respect for the environment, participatory management, social management) are non-binding when an organization applies, but the latter has to set up a mechanism within two years (after the membership application) aimed at improving its performance in these fields.
The Charter and the membership criteria were very co-produced in essence: first, because they were developed according to a participatory process; then, because they benefited from advice and feedbacks from members of the academic field.
Both the Charter and the criteria were developed according to a participatory process in order to ensure coherence between the defended values and the practices of the Chamber (coherence being by the way one of the seven values composing the Charter). On one hand, the Charter was created by a working group composed by different members of the Chamber and was validated by the General Assembly. Regarding the criteria, they were developed according to an even more extensive participatory process which took place in 2010 and 2011. This process included a first presentation to the General Assembly, followed by the setting-up of an online consultative forum and a final validation by the General Assembly in may 2011. As the interviewee summarizes, “When they founded APRES-GE, they sat down and thought about what a process of common values could look like. From there, they decided it would be very democratic and involve discussions and voting. Then, they decided they would choose themselves their membership criteria. It was really a participatory process, very Swiss-style, they really know how to do that, more than French-people”.
Moreover, from the beginnings, the founders were very eager to receive pieces of advice from external persons, and especially academics. For the Charter, they paid great attention tothe speech made by Jacques Defourny, a Belgian social economist, during the first "SSE days" in Geneva. In his speech, Jacques Defourny insisted on the necessity to avoid to be locked into a restrictive terminology debate (concerning a potential definition of SSE) as it was happening in France or Great-Britain. On the contrary, he proposed to the Swiss audience to embrace the variety of initiatives by adopting a common code of ethics: this code should be structured around the purpose of activities (preferably general-interest oriented rather than profit-oriented) and functioning principles (such as autonomy for management, democratic control by members and primacy of the social object on the capital in case of surpluses). This piece of advice was obviously followed, with the production of the Charter the year after and its translation into membership criteria few years later.
For the criteria, APRES-GE asked the interviewee, a French academic working in Geneva, if she would be willing to start collaboration. However the collaboration would not be about designing them, but rather about getting feedbacks on them. Indeed, “They invited me to come to their General Assembly [...] during which their criteria would be validated.” As she explains, it was win-win collaboration: “I was interested in knowing more about what was done in the field in Switzerland in a ‘action-research’ spirit; on the other hand, they wanted me to see if there was a way to showcase their Charter and their criteria as innovative. They did not know how much they were innovative or not, compared with other countries, and especially France”. More precisely, “They wanted to have feedbacks on their SSE definition and their practices, if they were consistent with the theory or not. [...] From my point of view, I wanted to see what they were doing, in order to see if their ‘values-approach’ was innovative compared with a legal approach [...] They wanted a reflexive point of view on what they were doing”.
Three related events were crucial for this CTP: the first "SSE days" (2004) which resulted on a consensus on the necessity to draw a charter; the general Assemblies during which the Charter and criteria were validated (2005, 2011), which fostered the participative stance of the Chamber; the SSE statistical studies (2010, 2015) which helped to make use of the criteria and give them some substance.
The first "SSE days" were organized in Geneva in November 2004. Even if they were already mentioned in another CTP (on the creation of the Chamber), it is worth mentioning that one of the outcomes of this two-day meeting was not only the decision to create the Chamber but also to draw a common ethical Charter. It was even considered as one of the first matters of a Chamber, along with the services that would be offered to the members. The creation of a label was also mentioned: this label was supposed to identify, despite the legal form of an entity, its contribution to society because of his SSE practices. It was thought as a recognition and visibility tool not only with the State but also with consumers. The criteria for the label would have to be precise. Even though the creation of the label (which is discussed again today) did not happen finally, one component of this idea (ie. the criteria) was taken-up 6 years later.
The second set of related events corresponds with the general Assemblies which ended up with the validation of the Charter (June 2005) and of the criteria (May 2011). If the process regarding the criteria was already detailed in the "co-production" category, it might be worth mentioning that the draft Charter presented in front of the General Assembly had been the result of 89 hours of meetings of the working group dedicated to the subject. A two-week online consultation was then organized with the members in order to present a revised version in June 2005. During the General Assembly, debates rose on several subjects, including the use of "sustainable development" instead of "ecology" as a founding value. Finally, the "ecology" option was kept. This example shows how the Chamber used the Charter (and later-on its criteria) in order to foster its participative stance.
The third set of related events corresponds with the publications of the two statistical studies on Geneva SSE, in 2010 and 2015. For the 2015 edition, the criteria of the Chamber were translated in 2014 into an electronic template of 80 questions. In total, 208 questionnaires were analyzed (representing 77% of the 270 member organizations of APRES-GE at the time) in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data on a wide variety of topics, including employment, social and environmental responsibility, gender representation or participative management. The results of the study was thought as a way to foster the definition of Geneva SSE and to further develop the tools used for the evaluation of the criteria.
If the Charter and the criteria have never been criticized as such, few limits have been raised regarding the criteria, in an article jointly written by the interviewee and one employee of the Chamber (Baranzini & Swaton, 2013).
The first and main limit concerns control: since the evaluation of the respect of criteria is based on an auto-evaluation process (potential member organizations have to submit a self-assessment grid to the Chamber when applying), some concerns have been raised around the possibilities to verify that practices correspond with claims. As the interviewee explains, “they made the choice of self-control because they wanted to promote inclusiveness. They did not want to police or propose too much binding criteria. They wanted to gather organizations around guiding principles and the self-evaluation process was part of this inclusive approach”. Moreover, even tough formal controls were avoided, a social kind of control can act as a way to ensure the respect of the criteria: “there is a form of social control, which is rather strong [...] It is a small world and everything is known”.
A second limit was raised regarding limited profitability. Sometimes, criteria can be endured rather than chosen. As an example, a member organization can have a limited profitability because of a small size of because it is starting its activities. What would happen if it grew quickly? Would it still be part of SSE? As a matter of fact, these kinds of issues were raised during the General Assembly of October 2010 where the criteria were presented: few concerns were brought by some member organizations on the limited profitability criterion, and especially on the necessity to disclose the names of shareholders holding more than 20% of capital.
Finally, a third limit concerns the duality between intentionality and action: sometimes, some entities really want to implement actions but lack the resources (technical, human, financial) to do so. It raises the question to know if an organization that would like to implement an environmental policy but fails to do so can still claim its belonging to SSE. In the interviewee’s point of view, “We have to distinguish the willingness to do things differently, rather than adopting an approach by results”. Moreover, she thinks that the Chamber, by proposing trainings or mutual exchanges spaces, could develop further accompanying measures. This is already the case to some extent, with “le café des bonnes pratiques”, which is a forum for discussion and exchange between member organizations taking place on lunchtime on a regular basis. However, the Chamber is seeking to further develop training and monitoring activities which would help smaller entities to cope with limited resources when trying to implement progressive policies.
The formalization of the Charter and of the criteria was understood at the time as critical turning points for APRES-GE. Furthermore, they were not developed for their own sake but rather to respond to several concerns or aspirations of the Chamber.
The Charter was anticipated as a way not only to foster the common identity of member organizations, but also to distinguish them from other kind of organizations similar in appearance, such as social businesses. Social businesses, which appeared in the 1990s in the USA, are financially self-sustainable businesses addressing a social problem and whose profits are supposedly reinvested in the business itself. Consequently, they are not seeking either to limit profits or to introduce participatory management mechanisms. They just see the social field as an economic sector like any other. According to the interviewee, “they do not share the willingness to do things differently; they just see insertion or other fields like a promising niche”.
The criteria were also meant to meet several objectives. They were supposed not only to evaluate the SSE profile of applying organizations and to build a self-evaluation tool, but also to give a clear direction for entities seeking to become part of the SSE movement. “When an organization fills in the application form for membership, the criteria are extremely well-detailed. For example, on the environment, environmentally-friendly transport, energy-consumption reduction or waste management devices are mentioned. The explanation of the criteria can allow them to assess what they already do but also what they could do. [...] These explanations can be considered as a road-map or guidelines to some extent”.
The Chamber’s members also saw the criteria as a mean to measure and make visible the height of SSE in the regional economy. Two statistical studies, in 2010 and 2015, have been undertaken (the interviewee was part of the scientific committee for the 2015 version) in order to determine the key features of SSE in the region. The self-evaluation grids, coupled with interviews, were used in order to identify trends in the Geneva SSE sector in terms of work condition, women representation, funding patterns or environmental responsibilities.
Finally, the criteria were also meant to have external benefits, by giving hindsight to public authorities when it came down to develop public policies enhancing SSE or to include some criteria for tender procedures.
The setting-up of a Charter and of membership criteria had strong implication on SSE promotion in Geneva: first, because the progressive approach acted as a means to attract a diversity of actors situated traditionally outside the SSE fold; Second, because they acted as a kind of label, which was recaptured by external observers, including political parties.
First, the Charter, and especially the criteria, acted as a way to convince non-traditional SSE organizations (especially companies) they could be members of the SSE movement, given the flexibility and the evolutionary feature of such indicators. As the interviewee explains, "There are prerequisite essentials, 4 binding standards and 3 progressive criteria [...] However, for public limited companies (which the Chamber sought to welcome) democratic participation was not compulsory. They did not have a democratic culture de facto. The presence of 3 evolutionary and non-binding criteria was thought as a way to enhance the willingness to include rather than exclude. [...] It was thought to show to potential members that the non-consideration of the environment was not a problem, that the fact that they did not have a "one person, one voice" structure was not a problem. They had to acquire a democratic culture and they had 2 years to do so". To help them, they could rely on the self-assessment grid and pick up ideas among other member organizations or in informational reports produced by the Chamber (especially the "SSE entrepreneur guide").
Second, the Charter and criteria acted as a kind of label, which was recaptured at the municipal and cantonal levels: “It allowed the Chamber to have the label ‘another economy exists’ and this was very important. It was picked up by the city on the website, there was a support of the agenda 21, and there was much collaboration. [...] It helped the promotion and the recognition of SSE because it was a win-win situation at the municipal or cantonal levels or at the political level in general. SSE has been taken up by the political sphere [ie. the socialist party], it is now a project politically defended. The criteria were decisive and this is why we keep on defending them with Christophe [Christophe Dunand, one of the founders of APRES-GE] in front of people who are more reluctant about this approach”. It is worth-mentioning that the Chamber is currently working on the criteria again and even envisages again the possibility to create a proper "SSE label".
Stay informed. Subscribe for project updates by e-mail.
