Making your vote and voice count in 2024

You said, we did

Every year, our National Members’ Council puts forward three motions to our AGM. In 2024, these were informed by insight from member-owners, covering the issues of:

Member Prices on healthy products, household essentials and personal care items

Tackling the cycle of reoffending and root causes of retail crime

Our Co-op DNA

The above were all overwhelmingly approved, and you can watch our video updates on how we’ve made members’ voices count since they voted below. You can also find updates on these motions in our You Said, We Did booklet.

Motion on Member Prices update

Motion on tackling retail crime reoffending and root causes update

Motion on our Co-op DNA update

'Join In' with the Co-op you own

Every month, we invite our members to ‘Join In’ with opportunities from around Co-op and our partnerships, getting your views and sharing the latest on important issues, products, and services to help us do right by you because we’re owned by you. In 2024, member-owners joined in over 1,000,000 times across 90 opportunities. Across the year, three opportunities stood out for members choosing, learning, shaping and taking part. These were:

61,000 member-owners helped design our new Fairtrade chocolate bar, which features bold packaging and a delicious flavour combination of salted caramel and pretzel.

57,000 member-owners watched Ivan Brosnan from our Co-op Young Members’ Group interview CEO, Shirine Khoury-Haq, and Co-ops UK CEO, Rose Marley, on what it means to be a business owned by its members following the launch of our ‘Owned By You, Right By You’ brand promise.

300,000 responses to our conversations across the year were received, asking members to shape our priorities for how we work together on big ethical issues.

Since September, our network of Member Activators has been busy bringing member-ownership to life locally around the UK, and this includes helping you make a difference and tackle the issues you care about day-to-day with Co-op's help.

In November, ‘Co-op came to you & you & you’ with local events, capital city pop-ups and online conversations. In stores and community venues around the UK, our Member Activators helped us thank you for the money you’ve raised for local causes and introduced over 3,000 members and customers to all the ways you can own Co-op.

Supporting our communities to thrive

Our Local Community Fund has raised £114.5m for local causes since 2016. In 2024, 1.5m member-owners chose a local cause, supporting over 1m people around the UK through community projects.

In April, we launched our 'Winners Share It All' prize draw to help boost Co-op's support and reward members for choosing a cause, leading to £495k being shared out between members and their causes to improve community connection and provide vital services around the UK.

Campaigning for change

Campaigning for public policy change on the issues that matter to our member-owners has been core to our co-operative identity since the beginning.

Through our National Members’ Council and motions at our AGM, members have the deciding say on which key advocacy campaigns we focus on. In 2024, these were: Climate Justice; Safer Colleagues, Safer Communities; and Social Mobility.

Climate Justice highlight

Our member-owners have championed our support for Fairtrade from the start, so it’s no surprise that you’re passionate about helping the farmers and producers who are contributing the least to climate change but are the worst affected.

In September, as part of 30 years of Fairtrade, over 30,000 members called on their MPs to sign the Fairtrade Foundation’s pledge to bring the voices of farmers and producers in lower-income countries to the table in discussions about the climate crisis.

Safer Colleagues, Safer Communities highlight

During the King’s Speech last summer, we were proud to hear that the Government had committed to new legislation for shopworkers, which would make an attack or an assault a standalone offence in England and Wales. This is a direct result of thousands of member-owners making their voices count with MPs and a demonstration of co-operation in action.

Social Mobility highlight

In July, we published our socioeconomic background pay gap report – the first UK retailer to do so. This is an important step on from the work we began in 2023 with Making the Leap, which is a charity helping us to better understand social mobility, inclusion and belonging for colleagues. From here, we informed our plans to address inequality within our business, and in turn, our approach to inspiring change at a societal level.

Make your voice count in our 2025 AGM

Voting is now open for our 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) & Elections! If you spent £100 or more with Co-op last year, make your voice count by helping us tackle big issues through our motions and choose two Member Nominated Directors who will represent all member-owners on our Board.

You can also elect Council Members from your region to be your voice. They’ll help us ensure that our business strategies, plans and campaigns are ethical, sustainable and focused on doing the right thing to deliver real, everyday value for our member-owners.

Our AGM is on 17 May at Co-op Live in Manchester, and there are also opportunities to get involved online or closer to home if you live near to one of our local events. Visit our website for the latest information.