the social solidarity economy in the environmental transition

Abstract This is an essay on the capacity of the population to transform to active social actor of the processes of change towards one society more equitable and with one better environmental balance. Specifically, we have the hypothesis that the whole of social solidarity initiatives, based on the work and the economy, have a strong influence in the ecological transformation. The text has three parts. The first plans the topic of environmental transition models and highlights the circumstance that, nowadays, the social actors have a strong role in the processes of environmental change. The second part provides a brief overview of the cooperative world in Europe, including short references on the current cooperative reality in Spain and Catalonia. Following it presents the results of an analysis with six Catalan cooperatives with the intention to deep into their organizational characteristics, goals and capacity to develop dynamics of social transformation in their territorial contexts. Four cooperatives part of the agroecology. Also it presents the case of one consumption urban cooperative and one other of ethical finance. Finally we propose conclusions on the capacity of these six cooperatives in order to improve the environmental change