Watch as several organizations move towards a more cooperative future by experimenting with open and non-traditional business models. Among them are a small craft-brew coop, a peer-to-peer open hardware lab and an urban agricultural social enterprise.
By rewarding human effort fairly and proportionately instead of obsessing about the bottom line, these revolutionary businesses are creating a more people-friendly future, creating new ways to make money and make it sustainably.
A New Economy features seven interwoven stories.
London Brewing Co-op follows five guys who love beer as they jump-start a tasty craft-brew cooperative within a local sustainable food ecosystem in London, Ontario. While they face the challenges of starting a new business and learning to work together democratically, several members are also starting new families while the group wrestles with the day-to-day struggles of growing the enterprise to a sustainable size.
Sensorica follows a Romanian laser physicist with a big heart who works collaboratively with other high-tech professionals in Montreal, Quebec and around the world to prototype new socially responsible technologies while at the same time developing a whole new type of democratic open- source peer-to-peer organization-the open value network.
Sole Food Street Farms follows a Vancouver, B.C.-based social enterprise transforming the way we work and eat by adapting unconventional urban spaces for large-scale food production- with a social twist. While hailed by local chefs as the best produce in the city, many of Sole Food's dozens of employees face barriers to traditional employment. Their unique model creates both an equitable and fair workplace that understands their needs while producing transformation and healing through the creation of a high-quality product.
In addition, a string quartet weaves beautiful music together with conversations on the core rewards of cooperation. Other stories examine housing, public spaces and the use of technology in building community - all the while blending the economic and social needs of a functioning new economy with cooperative values and principles as its base.
Stars: Michael Ableman, Portia Antonia Alexis, Sabina Ali