Building a Better World Together: Cooperative Contributions to the SDGs is a policy brief series developed in support of the UN International Year of Cooperatives 2025 (IYC2025) to highlight how cooperatives advance sustainable development by strengthening resilience, promoting inclusion, and supporting people and communities through collective action.
The SDG 12 brief, Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, demonstrates how cooperatives address structural challenges in resource use, waste management, and value chain governance. Through collective ownership and democratic decision-making, cooperatives promote more sustainable production systems, support responsible consumption, and advance circular economy approaches that reduce environmental pressures while improving social outcomes.
Drawing on diverse cooperative models, including agricultural, consumer, worker, and multi-stakeholder cooperatives, the brief presents examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. These cases illustrate how cooperatives improve resource efficiency, reduce food loss and waste, strengthen traceability and transparency, and enable more equitable and sustainable value chains across sectors.
Produced by the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the brief highlights cooperatives as practical partners in achieving SDG 12 through people-centred and locally grounded approaches. During the International Year of Cooperatives and beyond, cooperative solutions offer scalable pathways to promote responsible consumption and production while ensuring that sustainability transitions are inclusive and equitable.
The policy brief is available for download in English, with French and Spanish forthcoming.