A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
Husky Energy Inc. was a Canadian company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It operates in Western and Atlantic Canada, the United States and the Asia Pacific region, with upstream and downstream business segments. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Husky Energy was ranked as the 1443rd-largest public company in the world.
Recreational Equipment, Inc., doing business as REI, is an American retail and outdoor recreation services corporation. It is organized as a consumers' co-operative. REI sells camping gear, hiking, climbing, cycling, water, running, fitness, snow, travel equipment, and men, women and kids clothing. It also offers services such as outdoor-oriented vacations and courses.
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
A building co-operative is a co-operative housing corporation where individuals or families work together to directly construct their own homes in a cooperative fashion.
Mountain Equipment Co-op is a Canadian co-op that started the MEC outdoor gear retail brand. The MEC brand name, assets and store leases were purchased by the American private investment firm Kingswood Capital Management's subsidiary Mountain Equipment Company in October 2020. 1077 Holdings Co-operative remains active to deal with the remaining claims by creditors and will be wound up at some point in the future.
The Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including grocery retail and wholesale, legal services, funerals and insurance retailing.
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7,000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Many cooperatives, however, do have a degree of profit orientation. Just like other corporations, some cooperatives issue dividends to owners based on a share of total net profit or earnings ; or based on a percentage of the total amount of purchases made by the owner. Regardless of whether they issue a dividend or not, most consumers’ cooperatives will offer owners discounts and preferential access to good and services.
The Midcounties Co-operative Limited, trading as Your Co-op, is a consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom with over 700,000 members. Registered in England under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, it is a member of Co-operatives UK and Federal Retail Trading Services.
The Aldergrove Credit Union was a credit union in Aldergrove, British Columbia, Canada with approximately 20,000 members and assets around $807m CAD.
Co-op Insurance is the trading name of CIS General Insurance, a general insurance company, which is part of the Co-operative Group, based in Manchester, United Kingdom. Co-op Insurance Services, an insurance intermediary incorporated in 2017, is a wholly owned subsidiary of CIS General Insurance.
Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society Limited , founded in 1839 in the Scottish Borders, was the oldest independent consumer co-operative in Scotland until it merged with The Co-operative Group in December 2008. It operated over 50 food stores in the south and east, as well as some other retail businesses, and funeral services. At the time of the merger, Lothian Co-op was owned by 65,000 consumer members on a one member one vote basis.
Calgary Co-operative Association Limited is a retail cooperative operating in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Co-op Food is a brand used for the food retail business of The Co-operative Group in the United Kingdom.
The Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC), formerly known as Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries Limited (CCRL), is an oil refinery spread over 544 acres (2.20 km2) located in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, owned and operated [source needed] by Consumers Co-operative Refinery Limited, an affiliate of Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL). The refinery provides oil products to the member co-operatives of Federated Co-operatives Limited as well as most other petroleum retailers in the region including major national and regional brands. The complex completed a CA$2.9 billion upgrade project in 2012 to increase operations up to 145,000 barrels per day (23,100 m3/d)
Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL), operating as Co-op, is a co-operative federation providing procurement and distribution to member co-operatives in Western Canada. It was established in 1944 after a series of amalgamations of smaller cooperatives, starting in Saskatchewan, including the Saskatchewan Co-operative Wholesale Society and a fuel production and distribution co-op, the Consumers’ Co-operative Refinery Limited. Federated had expanded to Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia by 1970. Federated Co-operatives is owned by about 160 member co-operatives across the region. Some are large co-operatives, such as Saskatoon Co-op and Calgary Co-op, while others are small co-ops based in small towns, such as Abernethy Co-op.
Central England Co-operative, trading as Central Co-op, is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom, based in Lichfield and which trades from over 400 sites across the English Midlands and East Anglia. The business is owned and democratically controlled by its members who can stand for election to the board and who also share in the society's profits. A proportion of the profits of the business are also invested in local community groups through its community dividend grants programme and its more than 60 member classes.
Dairygold Co-Operative Society Limited is an Irish dairy co-operative based in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland. With its catchment area mostly in the Golden Vale, Dairygold processes an annual volume of approximately 1.43 billion liters of grass fed pastureland milk, making it Ireland's second largest dairy co-operative and the island's third largest milk supplier. Formed after the 1989 merger of the Mitchelstown and Ballyclough co-ops, by 2020 it had 7000 shareholder members and reported an operating profit of €26 million from a turnover of €1.02 billion.
