Professors Martine Vézina, Justine Ballon, Rafael Ziegler and Amélie Artis studied the democratic and participatory governance models and mechanisms of social economy enterprises (SEEs) that promote sustainability in the circular economy. Discover the summary of their work.
Summary
Social economy enterprises (cooperatives and not-for-profit organizations) are increasingly recognized as playing an important role in the implementation of circular production systems, not least because of their open and inclusive governance and management systems, which encourage dialogue, mobilization and integration into their decision-making processes of stakeholders from multiple and complementary spheres (operators, community, political, institutional, representative, etc.), each of whom is the bearer of part of the solution. To date, very few empirical studies have focused on the contribution, conditions and modalities of democratic, participatory and inclusive governance as a lever for the implementation of circular economy systems. The aim of this research was therefore to gain a better understanding of the democratic and participatory governance models and mechanisms implemented by social economy enterprises (SEEs) in the circular economy, and the issues they raise.
This research enabled us to hold a Université éphémère, as part of an action-research approach to co-construction between players, researchers and SEE mentors on governance practices, issues and needs in the social and circular economy. Although exploratory, this study, which enabled us to meet ten or so SEEs in addition to sharing two days of co-construction with some twenty social economy partners, highlights a variety (governance by the circular economy political project, pragmatic governance and territorialized governance) of democratic and participatory governance models revolving around the nature of membership, notions of tension between political project and economic growth, between social and ecological mission, stakeholders, and governance systems (ownership and control, bodies, rules, etc.). The results show that governance models and mechanisms are flexible and change over time in line with what appears to be ongoing questioning within organizations, underlining the centrality of governance to the realization of the circular economy project.
