It is great to be part of a business that is so determined to put something back. Nobody does it quite like The Co-operative.
We may be a commercial business, but we are also a business with a real conscience.
Just like the rest of The Co-operative Group, we have a unique business model where all profits are reinvested in the business, shared with our members and put into the local community. This allows us to grow our portfolio, invest in our customers and reward our teams. This unique way of working, where customers and employees can become controlling members, is the cornerstone of the Co-operative movement and is still to this day, the most significant aspect of our unique approach.
It follows that such a fair way of delivering a service should also have a big influence on our ethical strategy. Indeed, working for the Co-operative means you are making a conscious choice to help the world around you.
Our aim is to make a real difference to people’s health, and to have a positive impact on communities here in the UK and overseas.
It is what we mean by our ethical approach, and it is what makes our business so special. You will see it in everything we do, and you can be part of it too.
There is far more to our commitment than just words. We actually get out there and take action. Here in the UK for example, we have played an important role in developing an initiative to protect homeless people from exposure to the sun, giving out thousands of bottles of sun lotion in twelve UK cities. Similarly, we were the first British pharmacy to recognise the difficulties that partially sighted customers were having with their medication. As a result, we were the first to introduce Braille onto medicine packaging. More recently we have developed a pioneering service for Muslims, offering advice on the best ways to take medicine while fasting during Ramadan.
Further afield, we are working with UNICEF in Togo to save the lives of children, many of whom die from diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation. For every pack of Affinity (our own brand of antibacterial hand wash) that we sell, we donate 15p to UNICEF, and so far we have raised a fantastic £200,000. We even sent out a couple of our colleagues to lend a hand on the ground and to see what a difference our fundraising can make.
We take our environmental responsibilities seriously too. In 2009 we opened our brand new National Distribution Centre, which streamlines how we supply our medicines and includes a state-of-the-art recycling centre for plastics and cardboard packaging, helping to significantly reduce our carbon footprint.
Find out more about our ethical strategy and our vision and values.