Field Study No. 2: The Evergreen Cooperatives

Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy: Evergreen Cooperatives

Click the image above to view the Evergreen field study

“The Evergreen Cooperatives  Field Study,” the second in Capital Lab's Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy, highlights a remarkable experiment in worker-ownership, anchor-institution-based “green” job creation, and true wealth-building in Cleveland’s inner city.  But it deserves to be viewed through a much wider lens. Can we see in Evergreen a way forward for a great diversity of communities to build resiliency and to redefine wealth through hands-on ownership of capital, a more creative and productive use of internal assets, and through shared purpose and respect for the limits of the earth’s regenerative capacities? We hope you will bring to this story of Evergreen an openness to imagining all these possibilities.

As Evergreen cooperative enterprises multiply and take root in Cleveland’s University Circle, we look forward to their seeds scattering farther afield, nurturing a vibrant, highly collaborative, and far-reaching network of place-based economies that will build the local resilience for a healthy engagement with the larger global economic system.