Solidarity initiatives for sustainable development: a gateway to conceptualising a new responsible and democratic economy[Título : Las iniciativas solidarias en favor del desarrollo sostenible:una puerta de entrada para conceptualizar una nueva economía responsable y democrática]

Climate change is the symptom of an economy that has moved away from good household management (oikos, the common root of economy and ecology, means home). Today's productivist economy is more concerned with the short-term profitability of assets than with the long-term survival of the human race. Not only is it slow to take the necessary measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but its race for growth is destroying our environment. This lack of concern for the environment is compounded by unsustainable social inequality. This unsustainability is made all the more glaring by the fact that the poorest people are often the first victims of climate change. Against this backdrop of social and ecological deadlock, we urgently need to change our economic paradigm. To do this, we propose to draw on experiments in the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) that seek to reconcile the economy and the environment. This text, which is the result of longitudinal empirical research, has two objectives. The first is to show that the SSE is teeming with local initiatives that are often in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this contribution, we will focus on four objectives. The first two are aimed at building an inclusive society: eradicating poverty and reducing inequality. The other two contribute to building a sustainable society: decent work and sustainable growth; responsible consumption and production. For each objective we will mention several SSE initiatives in order to give a general overview, but we will only detail one initiative that we feel is particularly representative of what we are talking about. the second objective of this paper is to show that these grassroots initiatives are social innovations which, through the principles they embody, call for a renewal of economic theory. Indeed, from a conceptual point of view, these SSE initiatives are based on principles of action (e.g. favouring use over ownership, deliberation over competition, etc.) which, once articulated, constitute an economic paradigm favourable to a more ecological and supportive humanity.