We just spent a hugely enjoyable afternoon with four South Korean colleagues, who came to Calverts to talk about the experience of setting up a co-operatively owned and managed business with an environmental and community benefit mission.

Lee Donghyun and Lee HyoJeong of the Recycling Federation of Social Solidarity Enterprise, and Ladeok Koo of the Korea Computer Refurbish Centre, were accompanied by Hyung Sik Eum, who is working with with the European worker co-op network, CECOP.

We were able to offer our guests some insights into the situation for worker co-operative startups in the UK, and found strong parallels between the UK and Korean context – particularly, difficulty with finding startup capital, a steep learning curve in terms of management skills among the co-op’s founder members,  and the prejudice of potential backers in favour of the company (rather than co-operative) model. Our guests were particularly interested in how we found strength in co-operation – the powerful formula of member ownership, member control and member benefit – to overcome those early problems.

The group was especially interested in Calverts environmental policy, practice and accreditations, including FSC and ISO 14001, and our efforts to find a sustainable and co-operative supply chain for recycled and FSC certified papers.

A  factory, studio and office tour were followed by Fair Trade coffee and chocolate biscuits, which melted in the heat and humidity of Calverts small south-facing meeting room.

The group has a hectic schedule of visits. Yesterday they went to a worker co-operative run community recycling scheme in Bristol, this morning they were at Paperback recycled paper co-operative, and tomorrow they fly to Brussels for more fact finding about European worker co-ops and environmental businesses.

Thanks to the four of you for your interest in what we do here at Calverts, and especially for the gift of three traditional Korean fans, which will be pressed into action immediately. We hope the rest of your tour is fruitful, and wish you every success.