Ready-mixed concrete producers in the Kinki region of Japan formed a small business federation of cooperatives which brings together professionals of different departments and construction workers of 242 companies in order to obtain fair conditions from the few cement companies that dominate the industry in Japan. The particular feature of this federation of cooperatives is that it operates in solidarity with the labor union of the construction industry. In this system, cooperatives can comply with orders and access the market but also answer larger orders together and benefit from joint marketing. Consequently workers obtain better wages, management quality has improved, safety standards have increased as has the quality of the goods produced.

Reacting to the closure of their local dairy, a revitalization committee embarked on an unprecedented regional mobilization leading to the creation of a new enterprise featuring private entrepreneurs in partnership with two new cooperatives, one gathering consumers and the other regrouping the workers of the company. La Laiterie de l’Outaouais is the story of a successful citizen mobilization in favor of the consumption of local products and of the implementation of an innovative business model based on a partnership between the private sector and the social economy.

Lantegi Batuak is a social business created in 1983 by Gorabide, an association of families and people with mental disabilities, under the legal form of a Foundation. Nowadays, more than 3000 people (85% with disabilities) work in Lantegi Batuak, and one in every three of those with disabilities live in or around Bilbao. The enterprise operates in the outsourcing sector, with more than one thousand private and public customers, belonging to a wide range of activities (industrial and services). Lantegi Batuak bases its management on values centered on people, their participation, the social economy, sustainability, innovation and the search for managerial excellence. In the last seven years, in the middle of the economic recession and crisis (2009-2015), more than 500 new positions for people with disabilities were created in collaboration withlocal businesses and public administrations, such as the City of Bilbao.