Re:act (published by the Co-operative Group)

Finance can be ethical

Ethics are, at last, big business. There has been a four-fold increase in ethical investment in the UK in the last decade, rising from £2.4bn in 1999, to £9.5bn by 2009. Where there were 20 or so ethical investment funds at the turn of the millennium, now there are well over a hundred.

Consumers [...]

Government turns to co-ops to deliver

The UK’s Coalition Government came in with a ‘big idea’ of the ‘Big Society’ – and also a massive problem of a massive financial deficit. The idea and the problem since the election coalesced into a important initiative – to turn public services into co-operatives.

Yet there is widespread confusion about the so-called ‘Right to [...]

A crisis of bankers’ own making: Re:act

 
The crisis in the global economy and the near collapse of the international banking system have damaged almost everyone. Very few organisations have benefited – yet ethical financial institutions are actually in a stronger position today than they were before the crisis unfolded.
 
While member-owned and other ethical institutions have maintained sustainable business practices, restraint and [...]