A Different Kind of Ownership Society
Innovative strategies for cooperative local ownership
make it possible for prosperity to be shared as well as sustainable.
-
Photo by Brent Danley.
By Marjorie Kelly and Shanna Ratner
solidarityeconomy.net via Yes! Magazine
Aug. 3 2010 - Drive across southern Minnesota near the city of Luverne, and you’ll see clusters of wind turbines poking up through the cornfields. Climb into one of these sleek, gleaming, white towers, and you’ll find sophisticated computer controls monitoring dozens of factors every moment (wind speed, pressure on the blades, and so on). Yet the way the turbines are funded and owned is just as innovative as the technology that runs them.
These wind developments were created by Minwind Energy, a limited liability company that is structured as a cooperative. Back when only corn was harvested in these fields, Minwind invited hundreds of local residents to make investments of $5,000 apiece, eventually raising $4 million to fund the turbines. In return, the residents became owners of the project—alongside the farmers on whose land the turbines stand.
With a policy that no individual can own more than 15 percent, the ownership design is aimed at spreading wealth widely and keeping it rooted locally. According to the Government Accountability Office, keeping a project like Minwind locally owned means that local communities get three times more economic benefit than if the project had absentee owners. Rather than flowing to Wall Street investors or major companies, the dollars generated by these wind farms will flow first through local communities, going to pay local workers, local investors, and local suppliers of all kinds. Wealth stays local.
(more...)
email2friend
The Relevance of
A Left Role, Renewed Identity,
Photo: Evergreen's Industrial Laundry Coop in Cleveland
Fire the Boss!
Popular Consultations: Space for 