Q&A with the Phone Co-op (now Your Co-op)

The Phone Co-op has been a Best Buy for many years. Can you tell us a bit about how your company has changed in the last 2 years since your merger with Midcounties?

The main change, as an organisation, is that we have joined forces with Co-op Energy under the ‘Your Co-op’ branding, creating the only co-operative utilities group in the UK. Our products and services are now branded ‘Your Co-op Broadband’, ‘Your Co-op Mobile’, ‘Your Co-op Energy’ and ‘Your Co-op Business Solutions’. 

Your Co-op Energy supplies the UK’s only 100% community-generated green energy tariff, and our new organisational setup gives Phone Co-op members access to some great member-only low-carbon energy deals.

We're committed to supporting and driving change within the sector. Personally, I am active within the Women's Utilities Network, which seeks to develop and encourage women working in utilities.

During the pandemic we’ve contributed to many community programmes – including donating £10K worth of tablets with free internet access to local schools. As part of Midcounties, we continue to support Fair Trade, Fair Tax and the international co-operative movement.

The Phone Co-op is a founding member of the FairTEC consortium, a European organisation launched in May to reduce the environmental impact of smartphone production and usage. This will mean increased choice for UK consumers who want to maximise the sustainability of their phone, operating system and airtime/broadband contracts.

What are you most proud of as an organisation in terms of your ethics?

We’re very proud that our values stand as beacons both inside and outside of our organisation. We are a democratic, member-owned organisation, trustworthy, inspiring and empowering for customers, suppliers and our colleagues. Our central focus is always on delivering a better product and service for our customers.

If you had to sum up the ethos of the Phone Co-op in two sentences, what would they be?

We put people first - including our members, colleagues, and our customers as members of the future.

Our purpose - a commitment to low-carbon, sustainable products and services - is at the core of our business as we work towards a better and fairer world.

Over the last few years, our Ethical Consumer Markets Report has shown consumers making more and more decisions for environmental reasons. Have you noticed increased engagement around your actions on climate change?

We have a long way to go to encourage activism, but our customer insights show that we attract an intelligent, independent and very loyal customer base who are most concerned about the environment.

Eco-conscious consumers are a growing tribe in the UK. We all saw the difference that can be made by reducing pollution globally last year, when much of the world went into lockdown. Fish swimming in the clean canals of Venice, clear skies over Shanghai and mountain goats in the empty streets of Llandudno were perhaps the most impactful images we saw around that time. It was the clearest possible demonstration of how human activity is destroying the environment, and how quickly changes can be seen when we take action. 

More people have been working from home and engaging with their local communities over the last year, too. Our long-established commitment to helping community organisations connect with their volunteers, customers and users has helped us attract more like-minded business customers. Socially responsible businesses, charities and not for profits, looking for essential communications from an ethical organisation, have the right partner in Your Co-op Business Solutions.