Can We Create Mission-Driven Enterprises That Last? Scaling the Impact of Worker Cooperatives in Environment and Technology for Regeneration, Shared Prosperity, and Resilience

Abstract

This Master’s Project explores how worker cooperatives in the environmental and technology sectors can scale their impact to support regenerative economies, shared prosperity, and climate resilience. Worker cooperatives—enterprises owned and democratically governed by their workers—represent an alternative to extractive economic models that have contributed to deepening inequality, ecological degradation, and social disconnection. While these enterprises embody values aligned with long-term sustainability and democratic participation, they face significant challenges in achieving visibility, scale, and structural support. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach—including a literature review, a survey of 14 cooperatives, interviews with nine cooperative members, and eight detailed case studies (with two highlighted)—this study examines the operational, structural, and ecosystem-level barriers that worker cooperatives encounter in the environmental and technology sectors. It identifies strategies that could support their growth without compromising cooperative values. Survey data and interviews revealed common challenges such as burnout, decision-making inefficiencies, limited access to capital, and the difficulty of translating democratic governance into scalable operations. At the same time, cooperatives emphasized nontraditional scaling approaches rooted in federation, replication, peer support, and ecosystem-building. Environmental cooperatives often face regulatory and funding challenges despite delivering public environmental benefits, while technology cooperatives grapple with competition from venture-capital-backed firms and limited recognition of their climate relevance. Many technology co-ops did not initially identify their contributions to climate action—through ethical AI, data justice, and secure infrastructure—indicating a need for broader definitions and framing in sustainability research. Findings suggest that scaling worker cooperatives requires sector-specific policy tools, shared infrastructure, housing and financial anchors, and cross-sector cooperative ecosystems. Biomimicry—particularly models such as murmuration and myxobacteria—emerges not only as a metaphor but as a practical blueprint for cooperative growth: decentralized, responsive, and values-aligned. These natural models offer strategic guidance for how environmental and technology cooperatives can scale together. Technology cooperatives can create tools and platforms that emulate ecological systems—enabling sensing, signaling, and coordination across networks—thereby amplifying the impact of environmental practitioners. In doing so, they also provide ethical alternatives to extractive technologies, reinforcing shared commitments to climate justice, transparency, and democratic governance. The study concludes with recommendations for public, private, nonprofit, and academic actors to support cooperative development and outlines future research directions to expand the cooperative ecosystem as a critical component of just and regenerative economies.