l’Olivera

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

L’Olivera is a cooperative company founded in 1974 by a group of people that wanted to work in Vallbona de les Monges with people with psychiatric disabilities involving them in an economic project based on local values. They produce and sell wines and oils that are manufactured ecologically by local workers

Their main focus has always been giving help in social issues and developing the local economy. They help people with disabilities not only by giving them a place to work and develop their career without dependence, they also make them part of the company because some of them are partners.

Moreover they designate part of their revenues to social actions as charity in the third or fourth world. In fact in 2011 they created a school in Mauritania for people with sensory disabilities, to finance it they designated the 0,7% of their revenues of 2008, 2009 and 2010. They also have a foundation that is in charge of social actions locally.

They are not only a socially responsible company, they are also really concerned about the environment. They use only ecological products that they produce themselves and they recommend plans to change the agriculture way of working in order to improve it and in order to have a bigger variety of products.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

This company is showing their ethical values in three different ways.

 They have created a profitable company with disable people that are not only workers they also are partner of the company, they are an active part on the decision process, etc.

 They help other people. This company does not only give the opportunity to workers to develop their career independently, they also have a foundation that helps local people and designate part of their revenues to charity.

 They develop the economy. They work with land of other agricultural workers, to do a partnership they do a study of the lands, they prepare a planning of the products that could be produced in those lands and they ensure that all the process is done ecological.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

The main reason why we trust in this company is because we have had the opportunity to visit their cooperative due to a tour of business knowledge that we did, in which they explain the different activities they carry out and how they do it. Furthermore, we could work with their employees, helping them in their day to day tasks. With this experience we could feel the illusion, desire and the goodwill that all the members of the cooperative develop their job, with employees that are in difficult personal situation that in other cases they could be in a social exclusion situation, however being part of the Cooperative they have responsibilities, they are motivated, well appreciated and totally committed with the project.

Moreover, the cooperative has a really strict ethical code, and only collaborate with those projects that respect it. Their main goal is improving agricultural sector in a sustainable way, so they only will help those that are aligned with their objectives.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

L’Olivera is a great example of how a Catalan Cooperative Company has to believe in its own name and values. Beginning, once again, to trust in the values that has forged cooperatives companies for years is the first challenge that l’Olivera has already achieved. But there are more:

Integration:

One hundred twenty-two cooperatives for the production of oil Catalan are not the best basis for competitiveness, just as thousands of microscopic marks are not the best way to retain customers or the best way to explain the high quality of the offered product.

However, the necessary economic integration should not go against the contribution of local cooperatives vitality. We will have to look for ways to gain all fronts, conserve and enhance the cooperative centers that add value and dynamism and the local business units to achieve dimensions economically competitive.

It will not be easy, but the challenges are important, understood as essential that can move ingenuity, initiative and generosity to find the roles of each formats in a renewed, though not without difficulties and inconveniences in during the change.

Legislation:

Today it is working towards a new cooperative law. It is the right time to open doors and set aside old stereotypes only serve to hinder career Future cooperative world. The debate, with all the nuances needed is not so much between two ways of seeing the cooperatives but the ability to recover a vanguard role and boost the agricultural Catalan sector or the possibility –undesired to become a reality that will be extinguished or surviving with difficulties sheltered public aid.

Auto financing

Catalonia has forged major cooperatives, some have changed their legal form, others have succumbed in war competition, and the remaining have considerable equity. It will not be easy for a partner to invest in equity, which is perceived as sunk. The argument that is a transfer to future generations is extremely weak within a society as dynamic as today’s.

The starter of this contradiction can only be nominated equity. The money, capital contributed to the cooperative should be identified equity and linked to the generation of financial results of the cooperative company. The cooperative fact, however, suggests ways and forms to own joint nomination, among which there can be the identification of surplus of activity and the linking of partners to social and territorial reality. At that point, this fact should be determined so that the cooperative company can become an essential tool for capitalizing farmer’s surplus to own benefit while reinvesting funds generated in the same rural area.