Glossary

SSE Organisations act according to the following criteria:

1. Economic activity
2. Social/societal objective (including social, cultural, ecological objectives) 
3. Citizens’ initiative and participative structure
4. For social profit (not for private gain)

Solidarity economy gathers transformative citizen-led initiatives understanding economy as a space of social relationships based on solidarity, human and Earth rights, self-determination, mutuality and cooperation. Solidarity initiatives are seeking to democratise economy and participate strengthening social, economic, and environmental justice. SE is not a sector of the economy, but a transversal approach that includes initiatives in all sectors, sharing a broad set of values contrasting with the dominant Market economy, such as cooperation vs competition, mutual support and solidarity vs individualism, horizontal organisation and democratic decision making. vs hierarchy and centralized structures It is an attempt towards solidarity-based practices of production, exchange and consumption that generate livelihoods while implementing democratic principles and fundamental rights for common well-being.

Supply and distribution chains consist of all the steps taken to source, produce, transform, distribute and manage residues of goods or services. In SSE, they tend towards a circular economy, reducing energy and waste consumption as much as possible. They can also include the financing, research and development, transport and logistics, promotion and communication activities needed throughout the production and supply process. According to SSE values and principles, the solidarity reorganization of these chains relies on trust relationships and reciprocal guarantees between the different actors involved (producers, artisans, service furnishers, consumers, etc.) and it increases shared benefits as social inclusion, wealth redistribution, equality, transparency, democratic involvement, healthy environment and many other positive impacts for all the communities involved. The open and cooperative nature of the supply and distribution chains encourages the creation and support of new initiatives and enterprises when the natural growth limits of one or more actors in the chain are reached.

Inter-cooperation – cooperation between SSE initiatives – is an instrument aimed at strengthening existing companies and organisations, creating other new ones and conceiving new projects. It can be done in different ways: carrying out joint business activities, creating second-tier cooperatives and cooperative groups, through socio-political, sectorial and territorial non-profit organisations, etc. In turn, the public authorities must promote responsible public procurement so that companies working with them as providers and suppliers are outstanding in terms of their social and environmental responsibility.

SSE networks are sets of economic, social and political interlinked initiatives that include many different actors or groups of actors (called nodes) who play different roles, bringing different resources and needs. The organizational or legal form of the entities is not considered as important as the perspective and the values pursued, adopting "approaches from local to global that support freedom, reciprocity, solidarity and egalitarian exchange" (cit. RIPESS EU). These networks are built at different scale: they can be local (e.g. XES Catalunya or RES Marche), national (e.g. REAS) or international (e.g. RIPESS), as well as sectoral (e.g. food or energy) and inter-sectoral (e.g. URGENCI – CSA network) and their flexible structure allows them to develop different practices and enterprises (e.g. worker- and consumer-owned cooperatives, associations, rural farmers' unions, fair trade networks, local/social currencies, bartering market, etc.)

There are three dimensions of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental in SSE and in CSR and triple bottom line. In SSE, the objective of economic sustainability cannot be separated from those of social and environmental sustainability. The objective of the SSE is to promote people and the economy is an instrument to improve the quality of their lives. It is not the people who are tools for an economy that has as its priority the profit of a few. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) includes initiatives of companies that - while pursuing profit-making - decide to explicitly present a series of internal and external instances, providing economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders; triple bottom line (TBL) is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. Many organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. 3P: in SSE we are flipping the priorities of the TPL from profit-planet-people to people-planet-benefit.