Climate Justice

Our Co-op’s Climate Justice campaign launched in May 2021, and we continue to believe that the twin climate and nature crises are the gravest threat facing our global society. We‘re working to reduce our environmental impact whilst advocating for strong political leadership on this agenda, not least because nobody gets to Net Zero until we all get to Net Zero.

Taking action

Everybody has a part to play in tackling the climate crisis – from households to governments. Helping our member-owners and customers to understand the steps they can take at home and in their communities is a key part of our Climate Justice campaign.

Great Big Green Week is the UK’s biggest celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature, which we have supported for a number of years. This year we asked our members owners to ‘swap together for good’, our Member Activators hosted over 100 events to help communities come together to help protect people, climate and nature and make our communities better and we asked people to write to their MP to share their stories to why climate justice is so important to them.

On 9 July 2025 thousands of people joined a Mass Lobby of Parliament. They came to speak to their MP, and tell them why protecting people, planet and nature is so important to them. We were delighted to see so many Co-op colleagues and members join in on the day to support the event and speak to their Member of Parliament.

We know that lots of people were unable to join us in Westminster so there is now an opportunity to join a lobby in Wales on 17 September, or Scotland on 18 September – please do follow these links to register if you can attend any of these events.

A further opportunity is the climate lobby week which is taking place between 13 and 20 September – all the details can be found here. Contact your MP to ask for a meeting and show them, in your community, why we need to commit to making vital changes now before it is too late.

At the same time, it’s clear that governments, industries and large businesses have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to Net Zero. Throughout 2024, Co-operative Group CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq has played an important role as industry co-chair of the Net Zero Council, along side the Energy Minister. The Net Zero Council was initially convened in 2023 to develop robust sector pathways to Net Zero, review financing challenges and identify the key challenges faced by SMEs.

People and Planet

Those who have the least resources to respond to the climate crisis are being hit worst by its impact, even though it’s these communities who have historically contributed the least to the advance of global heating. Through our leading partnerships with organisations including Fairtrade, The One Foundation and Water Unite, we’re investing directly in the communities around the world that we source from. We hear from those communities clearly that the impact of the climate crisis is in need of urgent attention. That’s why we convened parliamentarians and experts for a roundtable in March 2023 to share the findings and recommendations from our report, Water Security for People & Planet.

In September 2023, alongside the Co-op Foundation, we published Gen Z(ero): a pathway to a greener fairer future? which explores the perspectives of young people throughout the UK on the journey to Net Zero. We wanted to understand their thoughts on how we can work towards a just transition as it is young people who will eventually lead the pathway to Net Zero. Around 7,000 members took part in a survey where we shared the findings of this report, giving us rich insight into what our members understood about climate change, Net Zero and what a just transition means.

Greening the grid

It’s clear that decarbonising the grid needs to remain a top priority for the Government as a key enabler for every household and business in reducing their carbon footprint. We’ve been increasingly focused on becoming more ‘energy smart’ (see the case study in our climate change section) and have continued to make the case for renewable energy as the answer, whether the question be energy resilience, driving economic prosperity, or Net Zero.

We have been working to the strategy we set out in 2022: to reduce our overall energy consumption, to increase the proportion of our energy procured via corporate Power Purchase Agreements; and to investigate opportunities for self-generation. We announced a 15-year corporate Power Purchase Agreement for the entire output of a 34-megawatt solar farm, where we’ll source electricity from the Eastgate Solar project. Featuring 62,500 solar panels, this project alone provides enough electricity to supply up to 7.5% of Co-op’s total electricity needs per year.