Koopera is a second-tier cooperative with three business lines: Environmental Services (Reuse and Recycling), Sustainable Consumption (second-hand business Koopera Store) and personal and home care. In addition, Koopera provides vocational and job training services, which combine professional-level training with individualised support. Koopera provides training aligned to different professional sectors: commerce and marketing, environmental or socio-cultural services, as well as community service.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests the greening of economies represents a new alternative for achieving economic growth and at the same time social objectives such as social inclusion and poverty eradication. Many social enterprises are aware of these possibilities and are already active in making work opportunities available in the circular economy to people who face disadvantages, alongside offering them opportunities for skills development. By incenvitizing these type of organizations, local governments can combine supply and demand side policy interventions to the benefit of both social inclusion and the supply of labour to the circular economy.

Koopera is a social enterprise working for the integration of people at risk or in a situation of social exclusion, through activities that in turn have a positive impact on society, improve the environment and take care of the planet. It is a second-tier cooperative with three business lines: Environmental Services (Reuse and Recycling), Sustainable Consumption (second-hand business Koopera Store) and personal and home care. In addition, Koopera provides vocational and job training services, which combine professional-level training with individualised support. Koopera provides training aligned to different professional sectors: commerce and marketing, environmental or socio-cultural services, as well as community service.

Through Koopera's education and training services, people facing different forms of social disadvantage receive personalised support. Training is focused on enhancing soft skills, increasing participants' opportunities for social and labour inclusion. After receiving this training, participants can be matched to professional internships in some of Koopera's associated companies, or in any of the business lines of the cooperative, for a period of time as long as three years. After completing their placement, and regardless of whether the employment relationship with the company in which they carried out the internship extends, participants are enrolled in the network of employment services, where Koopera walks them through their active job-searching process.

Koopera has a presence in Spain and Chile, Spain being the first of these where the largest operations are carried out. The success in the scale of its operations lies in the involvement of its partners and funders such as Cáritas, as well as public and private institutions. This has also allowed them to diversify their environmental activities within their various business lines. For example, in the area of environmental services, Koopera now has its own transportation and waste containers that they use to collect resources including textiles, electrical appliances, paper or organic waste in coordination with local authorities. Likewise, reuse plants are responsible for recovering most of the collected materials, seeking to convert to zero waste. Only this activity has generated 241 inclusive jobs and 433 social jobs.

Enabling factors:

- Strategic alliances with private and public sectors, as well as the support of Cáritas, have enabled Koopera's growth.

- Clear integration between their training services and their different business lines paves the way for  tangible routes to employment once participants are trained.

- They have a clear social goal, which portrays the cooperative as a legitimate social partner focused on sustainable activities with a mission towards social inclusion that is visible locally.

Challenges:

- Many of the groups that Koopera works with have low digital literacy, which makes some training activities related to longer-term positions more difficult. 

- Matching and integrating people into the labour market in the long-term remains a challenge, particularly women given their high levels of unemployment in Spain.