The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 3 million individual members. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844.
Co-operatives UK is the central membership organisation for co-operative enterprise throughout the UK. This is a co-operative of co-operatives: a co-operative federation. Most kinds of co-operatives are eligible to join Co-operatives UK. W
Campaigns
Fair Tax, "Fair tax is the new fair trade... All it takes is for consumers, people who are taxpayers themselves, to back the companies that pay what they owe." Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK.
Move Your Money, UK, "national campaign to spread the message that we, as individuals, can help to build a better banking system through our buying power."
Budget 2016: What we are facing isn't a financial crisis, but a crisis of the imagination. Mar 16 [9]
2015
Food waste cafes and urban orchards: five ways people are building a new economy, September 17 [10]
People, planet, power: towards a new social settlement, Anna Coote, February 17 [11]
NEF’s proposals for a new social settlement – a framework for deciding how we live together, what we expect from our governments and what we want to achieve for ourselves and others. It builds on the strengths of the post-War settlement inspired by the Beveridge Plan, but moves on – because the world has changed profoundly – to offer a bold new approach to the challenges we face today.
The new social settlement has three goals: social justice, environmental sustainability, and a more equal distribution of power. All three are intertwined and must be pursued together.
Co-operatives UK, "the central membership organisation for co-operative enterprise throughout the UK". Historically associated with the consumer co-operatives, the merger broadened its scope to include worker co-operatives and it now exists to support and promote the values of the entire co-operative movement throughout the UK. W
New Economics Foundation (NEF), British think-tank that promotes social, economic and environmental justice.
NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability".
The foundation has 50 staff in London and is active at a range of different levels. Its programmes include work on well-being, its own kinds of measurement and evaluation, sustainable local regeneration, its own forms of finance and business models, sustainable public services, and the economics of climate change. W
Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), promotes the ethical practice and use of science and technology. SGR is affiliated to the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES).
SGR's main areas of concern are arms and arms control, including military involvement in UK universities; effect of excessive greenhouse gas emissions on climate; the nature of war and reducing barbarity; topsoil and water shortages resulting from modern agricultural methods; depletion of species of fish due to over-fishing; continual spread of nuclear weapons, and reduction of occurrence of serious nuclear accidents.
SGR evaluates the risk of new science and new technological solutions to older science-based problems and threats, while recognizing the enormous contribution science, design and technology has made to civilisation and human well-being. W
Stir to Action, "community organisation that publishes a quarterly magazine, runs workshop programmes and short courses, produces how-to resources for setting up co-operatives and community enterprises, commissions original artwork and facilitates social economy start-ups."