Today, The Co-op, UK’s largest consumer co-operative, publishes its “Co-operate Report”
Apr 5th 2023

Today, The Co-op, UK’s largest consumer co-operative, publishes its “Co-operate Report”

Today, The Co-op, UK’s largest consumer co-operative, publishes its “Co-operate Report” – an open and honest account of the actions it’s taking to achieve its Vision of “Co-operating for a Fairer World”.

“I am so proud of the achievements and incredible efforts that went into making 2022 Fairer for Members and Communities; Fairer for our Colleagues, and address climate change on behalf of our members to make things Fairer for our Planet.

This report is published to offer full transparency, covering where we’ve made real progress, but also on the lessons we’ve learned, in the hope we can inspire others to drive their ambitions and work with us to deliver meaningful change.”

Shirine Khoury-Haq, CEO, The Co-op Group

Key 2022 highlights include:

Fairer for our People

  • Co-op Levy Share continued to go from strength to strength; tackling inequality and supporting opportunities for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds – with 1367 matched apprentice opportunities confirmed to a value of £14m
  • To help our colleagues through the Cost of living crisis, we invested £15m in payments on to colleague membership cards and colleague discount was extended to 30% on own brand products
  • We partnered with Fairtrade Africa to support 1,400 producers in Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda to adapt to climate change

Fairer for our members and communities

  • Our community missions of access to food, mental wellbeing and opportunities for young people, have supported over 1.56m people[1]
  • Our Members have raised £117m for local communities since 2016, including support for over 30,000 causes across the UK
  • Member Pioneers invested 116,000 hours, engaging 51,000 people per month, to support the delivery of our Co-op community missions and increase co-operation in our communities

Fairer for our planet

  • We were recognised with a Queens award for enterprise for sustainable development
  • Our plastic packaging footprint has been cut by 24% since 2018
  • We’ve reduced our direct greenhouse gas emissions by 56% since 2016
  • Our CEO launched our ‘Water Security for People and Planet Report’, speaking on climate justice at COP27

25 of the 34 targets set last year have been achieved or (for longer-term targets) are on track.

Looking ahead, the Report sets out targets and identifies emerging themes for the coming years which will further support The Co-op’s Vision. This includes taking action on our missions of supporting Fair Access to Food, Fair Access to Mental Wellbeing and Fair Access to Opportunities for Young People as well as its commitment to increase their ethnic minority leadership representation and our long-term goal to reach net zero carbon emissions from both our operations and products by 2040 at the latest. The Report is independently assured by DNV.

Read the Report: www.co-operative.coop/sustainabilityreport

Media Contact:
catherine.turner@coop.co.uk
@coopukpress

 

[1] Based on average estimated no. beneficiaries submitted by partners between 2020-2022.