Hello! I am Jonathan from Carbon Co-op, we’re an energy services co-operative based in Greater Manchester, UK. We mix eco-retrofit work with social and technological innovation and our 16 members of staff feature four software engineers working on a range of digital products and services.
We’re running a project called “Energy Data Co-op” aimed at developing and exploring digital energy services.As part of our organisational learning work package, we’re looking for examples of what might be called ‘digital first’ co-operatives to inform our development.
‘What’s Digital First?’ you might rightly say. In defining that term we’ve been informed by this blog by Cassie Robinson, a funder at National Lottery. The latter examples she offers in the blog include organisations that take a digital approach to the design of new services and demonstrate organisational ‘digital leadership’, ie digital aspects are hard wired in to the design of new services and the organisation as a whole, rather than an add on to existing IRL actives.
A non-co-operative example of such an organisation is Octopus energy in the UK, which is essentially a tech company that uses tech to supply and sell energy in new and innovative ways.
We’d love to learn from other co-operatives that are taking this kind of approach, no matter what their sector. Do you have any examples or ideas? Could be a co-op you’re involved in or one you’ve heard of, let us know! Thanks 