CEO Update - September 2023
Our co-op has experienced yet another busy summer period, with its highs and lows. A definite low point were the wildfires that have devastated too much of our province. We wish the best to members in Kelowna and elsewhere that may have been directly impacted.
We are very pleased to report a couple of big milestones. Early in the summer we added our 30,000th member and late in the month of August marked the launch of our 1,000th vehicle. We’ve come a long way since 1997, when our co-op got started with two cars and 16 members. We were considerably less sophisticated back then. No online system, no app, no GPS. Just a lot of passion and a singular commitment to a Purpose that in its essence remains unchanged to this day – to transform communities by connecting people with places in a way that’s affordable, convenient, inclusive and sustainable.
A long-standing practice of sustainable growth has defined our journey from those initial two cars to today. Deep roots in the community strengthened by the fact of the co-op being owned and governed by local people for local people have allowed us to weather multiple recessions and most recently the pandemic. Where much bigger, international carshare operators simply exited the region when the going got tough, we have stuck it out and found a way to continue to grow and thrive.
Our wonderfully decorated 1,000th vehicle (“1000 ways to share”) is symbolic of our commitment to members and the community. On the one hand, representative of the way Modo has been able to extend affordable and reliable use of a vehicle across an ever-increasing number of people and families in a growing number of communities. And on the other, illustrating with this electric vehicle and the growing number of EVs in our fleet, our commitment to transitioning our entire fleet to zero emission vehicles and thereby even further minimizing the environmental harm associated with the use of vehicles.
While the desire to live a more affordable life remains the most significant driver of the double-digit growth we are currently experiencing, we are seeing increasing interest from those that are concerned about their environmental impact. Who today can be aware of the world around them and not connect the dots to human influence on the climate. Shedding one’s car in favour of sharing is a very straightforward and proactive step.
It is for all these reasons that we are working to make carsharing available to more people in more places, and thereby scale up our impact. More vehicles available where we are already active and continuing to push the boundaries to our presence, including entering new communities.
Clearly much work to be done for our now not-so-little co-op!
To underline our support for more urgent and deliberate action in the face of the climate emergency, we have joined more than 500 other BC organizations as a signatory to an initiative led by the BC Climate Emergency Campaign. We join a diverse network of groups including environmental, Indigenous, labour, health, business, housing, government, faith, and youth groups to convince the BC government to commit to ten urgent climate actions. Use the links above to learn about the BC Climate Emergency Campaign, the ten urgent climate actions and ways to support the initiative.
You received recently from us an email seeking participants for the second cohort of our Member Advisory Council. The first cohort was a success and received very favourable reviews from participants. They provided valuable input to the co-op and we are grateful to them. I do encourage you to consider expressing your interest before the deadline. No specific expertise is required, just an interest in the future of our co-op.
And finally, I want to address the system outage we experienced on Monday, August 28th. It was caused by an equipment failure that it took us longer than we would have liked to recover from. We are very sorry to all members that were inconvenienced that day and will ensure that we do not see a repeat. Thank you for your understanding.
