Strategic content for Windcoop
A shipping company owned by more than 1,500 members, a sail-powered cargo ship under construction, and one question: how do you make decisions together when so many of you are owners?
Windcoop is building a sail-powered container ship. 85 meters long, 150 containers, around 1,400 tonnes per crossing, and up to 90% energy savings on long-haul routes. The first line will connect Marseille and Madagascar.
What makes this company unique is not just its ship. It is its structure. Windcoop is a cooperative owned by more than 1,500 members (individuals, businesses and local authorities) who take part in decision-making. A shipping company whose owners number in the thousands: that changes the very nature of strategic questions.
When governance is shared, content becomes a key issue
In a conventional company, a strategic direction is decided by a small group and then rolled out. In a cooperative, it has to be understood, discussed and championed by a very broad collective whose members do not share the same level of information, the same profession or the same relationship to the subject.
The work, therefore, is not about producing yet another document. It is about making strategic material something people can take ownership of: framing the real questions, giving everyone what they need to form a view, structuring disagreement so that it is productive rather than obstructive, and making sure that what is decided still holds once the room has emptied.
What we bring to this kind of project
Scoping that begins well before the day itself, with the sponsor, to turn an intention into a question that can genuinely be worked on.
A format that allows a large number of people to contribute, not merely to attend.
Documentation that outlives the session and gives participants what they need to carry the work forward.
There is something stimulating about working for an organization that challenges its own business model. It demands the same rigor on our side: on issues like these, a seminar that led nowhere would be a missed opportunity for everyone.