Co-operative bank scoop Award for Best Financial Services Provider
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Co-operative bank PET credit cards which can be recycled
As you know, we’re fans of the Co-op here at zero waste towers (except when they double-wrap gala pie)
They have a good ethical policy including detailed information on their website about how they tackle waste through reducing, reusing and recycling.
During 2007, the cooperative recycled or reused almost 40,000 tonnes of their waste, the majority of which was card and plastic waste from The Co-operative Food.
They have their own in-house recycling centre in Manchester which takes their head office paper and recycles it into their own-brand toilet tissue and kitchen towel which is then sold in The Co-operative Food stores. Brilliant! Talk about turning your waste into a resource!
Waste and packaging report
You can read more about the policies they have in place with their waste and packaging sustainability report.
This week the Co-operative has even more to celebrate becuase they have been named Best Financial Services Provider at the Which? Awards 2009.
This is happy news because it means that ethics are moving into the mainstream. The bank has been performing well despite the recession and its customer numbers have increased significantly in recent years because of its ethical investment policy.
You might remember me having a bit of a rant about plastic credit and loyalty cards. Most are made from PVC which ends up in the landfill. The Co-operative, however, make their cards from PET1, which means they are fully recyclable. They also email members instead of sending them paper post and have started asking customers if they would like carrier bags rather than leaving them on the checkouts.
Recycling and waste
It’s little things like that, along with their community projects which gets our support. I think with the recession on us, people are thinking even more about where their money ends up, who their banks invest with and what that vote with their money means.
And just to show that banks are no longer full of stuffy people without a sense of humour, the Co-Op have written all their customers a special Thank You song. As they say; they might be bad at singing, but they’re good with money.
It looks like they had a lot of fun making this video and I’m sure it was a great team building exercise!
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Enjoy!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kui070Twqc4
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This is great news, the reasons stated for the banking sides ethical policies is why i moved my banking to them.
The only thing I do find annoying is that the grocery side doesn’t come under one, I live with 4 Co-op stores around me in different directions, in order to obtain the dividend points etc I have to have 3 different cards as they come under different areas.
The most stupid being that one of them comes under the same srea as the Co-op I used to shop in when we lived 70 odd miles down the road.
I just love that video! Good for them. I have been meaning to switch to them for years. Come on, Claire, do it do it do it!
@maisie dalziel: Hi Maisie, I never knew that about the loyalty cards; how annoying for you.
@VegBox Clara: Yes, come on Clara. Let us know when you’ve done it 😉