Shared sustainability for community economies

A meeting to learn how to overcome today’s crises together by participating in collective practices based on relationships of exchange and reciprocity that have beneficial effects for people, the economy and the environment.
From individualism to community to overcome today’s polycrises.
A path advocated by many, from the environmental activist Vandana Shiva with her food communities, to the Polish sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, author of Desire for Community.
A desire to be together in the most varied forms, such as shared living, energy communities or solidarity purchasing groups, but with common benefits: strengthening sociability, self-determination and the economy of the area, fostering low environmental impact activities and reducing conflicts and money needs.
A community vision shared in MAG2 since its origin, when in 1980 it chose mutualism as a form of implementing ethical finance, and is even more relevant today with the path of Shared Sustainability.
A project that, among other things, includes its own training course dedicated to Community Economies, which began in February 2024 and will have as its focal point the September 25 workshop entitled precisely “Community Economies. From Mutualism to Shared Sustainability Leading the workshop are Barbara Aiolfi and Davide Biolghini, two MAG2 representatives who are specialists in the topic in their lives and professions.
The meeting starts with the history of mutualism and then explores today’s practices of exchange and reciprocity, such as Solidarity Purchasing Groups or swap parties.
Also to be narrated are more evolved forms, such as CSAs, or Communities that Support Agriculture, Renewable and Solidarity Energy Communities, co-housing and family communities, including in its forms of exchanges without money or where it is shared and not personal.
And also the forms of CO-laboration and CO-operation between consumers and producers resulting in solidarity pacts where the risks and costs of farming are shared in exchange for good food at the right price.
Also to be told will be young realities such as the Emergency Volunteer Brigades, virtual communities born on digital platforms like Home Exchange, and Shared Sustainability itself, MAG2’s new vision.
A narrative made even more engaging with the help of videos, narratives and “games” designed to guide participants to explore the practices, rules, labors and challenges of actively participating in community, mutualism and reciprocity projects. One participates with an “enhancement” Participation in the workshop is based on “shared sustainability” in which everyone joins with their “assets,” monetary and otherwise.
Alternatives to contributing money are non-monetary enhancements, such as lending goods or one’s time, hosting the participant’s vacation home or making one’s professional skills available for free.
But one can also invite/bring a friend or acquaintance interested in the topic with him or her to the workshop.
The workshop will be held at MAG2’s headquarters in Via Angera 3, Milan.
Registration procedures are described here. Community economies Wednesday, September 25 – hours 6-9 p.m. with a break in between Barbara Aiolfi Researcher of the Bicocca University of Milan on economic anthropology topics involving community economies, morality and on the exchanges and forms of food negotiation in Italy and Africa (where she lived for three years).
For more than 15 years she served on the board of MAG2 where she was also a member of the operations staff.
She lives in Lodi in a community from the Family Community World network where she experiences money sharing.

Davide Biolghini
Cybernetic physicist, scientific coordinator of Forum Cooperazione e Tecnologia, member of DESR PASM, RES Lombardia and CO-energy, of which he is president.
Conducts research on “Social Networks and Solidarity Economy,” which he has taught at the University of Calabria, and R&D projects on socio-environmental sustainability issues, including at the European level: among them in 2006/8 New Lifestyles – led by MAG2, on whose Board of Directors he has been several times.
Author/editor of several books on EcoSol issues.