Co‑operatives are businesses owned and democratically controlled by their members. In Belfast, many people will recognise the Co‑op Group’s convenience stores as familiar examples, while rural communities often know long‑standing agricultural co‑ops such as Dale Farm or Fane Valley.

Across Northern Ireland, the co‑operative sector now includes around 239 organisations, most of them credit unions, with a combined turnover of £1.5 billion and approximately 0.8 million members, according to the recently published landmark report The Democratic Alternative. These co‑ops are often rooted in deprived urban neighbourhoods and isolated rural areas, where they step in to meet essential needs that neither the market nor the state adequately provides.

The wider variety of co-operatives that has emerged across our region in recent years is not widely recognised. Since 2013, Co-operative Alternatives, a co-operative development body exclusively dedicated to establishing and growing co-operatives and community benefit societies in Northern Ireland, has worked to raise awareness of the model. This organisation equips groups with practical guidance on business models, legal structures and financial options, helping them to establish and grow co-operative enterprises and restore co-operatives to the region’s economic narrative.

Co-operatives are defined as ‘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 of individuals’. Co-operatives abide by internationally recognised principles such as ‘open membership’, ‘member economic participation’ and ‘autonomy and independence’, which are embedded in their legal constitution. They also abide by values such as ‘self-help’, ‘solidarity’, ‘equality’, and ‘equity ’, which permeate their democratic governance based on ‘one member, one vote’ rather than ‘one share, one vote’. The co-operative identity is fully described and safeguarded by the International Cooperative Alliance | ICA, which ensures that all co-operatives around the world share a common Cooperative identity, values & principles.

Northern Ireland now has emerging co-operatives in sectors including energy, food, technology and housing. We have aimed to show that the model, tracing its roots to the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 and, closer to home, to The Cope Co-operative in Donegal and the first Irish dairy co-operatives organised by Horace Plunkett in the late nineteenth century, remains relevant. Co-operatives can strengthen economic relationships, build wealth in communities, and deliver social and environmental benefits for their members and beyond.

New co-operative alternatives making a mark in NI   

In Northern Ireland, six wind turbines are collectively owned by more than 900 members, while around 100 members have financed, organised and managed 18 solar-panel installations on community centres and social enterprises. These two initiatives, respectively Drumlin Wind Energy Co-operative and NICE Ltd  promote renewable energy and demonstrate how co-operative structures can mobilise people to invest directly into them, reduce electricity costs for hosting organisations and/or farmers, and redistribute any surplus to local communities. The co-operatives have created renewable-energy assets for local use and benefit thanks to the action of their members. Surpluses can also support community benefit funds: Drumlin Co-op, for example, currently funds the BREESI Educational Programme delivered in primary schools across Northern Ireland.

Readers may also be surprised that the three co-operative enterprises established after Covid were all small retailers: Ethical Weigh Co-op in Eglinton, Sonas Co-op in Lisburn and Carrick Greengrocers in Carrickfergus. Each aims to improve the food system by giving customers access to plastic-free, organic and locally produced food wherever possible but also, for some, regenerate their town centres which suffered considerable loss in the aftermath of the epidemic.

Co-operatives are also common among sports clubs and community sports facilities. European examples include the fan-owned Barcelona and Real Madrid clubs. Closer to home, Ballymacash Sports Academy is a community co-operative that has expanded its facilities with new grounds, a community gym and community rooms in the heart of Ballymacash with the help of their local members.

Worker-owned co-operatives are also new additions to the emerging co-operative sector in NI. Belfast Cleaning Society, owned by experienced cleaners, has won several prizes and numerous public contracts. Rabble Co-op is a technology co-operative that designs websites to protect users’ privacy and data rather than extract their information. All born out the necessity to provide good and fair employment to their members.

Housing is another area of interest, and the visionary Belfast Cohousing Mutual Society deserves closer attention. This co‑operative aims to collectively own homes in Belfast and have them managed by the people who live in them. In doing so, housing regains its true value: not the price set by the market, but the level that residents can genuinely afford. It becomes a system where the worth of a home is defined by community need and collective ownership rather than speculation.

Co-operatives have re-emerged across the foundational economy, stepping in to meet essential needs that a fair and equitable society should guarantee: food, energy, housing, and good employment. At their core, co‑operatives are groups of people who come together voluntarily, not as benefactors dispensing charity, nor as profit‑driven owners seeking extraction, but as members organising to meet their own real and shared needs. Their resurgence shows that collective ownership and mutual responsibility remain powerful tools for building resilience and fairness in everyday life.

Support for co-operative development in NI

Why are there not more co-operatives in Northern Ireland? The main reason is longstanding underinvestment in regional co-operative development. For most of the past years, Co-operative Alternatives and a small number of local partners have relied largely on funding from the co-operative movement, working closely with organisations such as Co-operatives UK and the Co-op Group, both of which are committed to creating more co-operatives across the UK. The Department for the Economy allocated resources for co-operative development only last year, and this year brought further progress with the announcement of Northern Ireland’s first Regional Co-operative Support Programme in 2026. This is an important first step towards recognising co-operatives within our economy, but it remains modest compared with the Scottish Government’s growing support for Community Wealth Building and the Labour Government’s commitment to double the co-operative sector in their 2024 Manifesto, including a recently announced £10 million investment in England.

To grow the co‑operative sector in Northern Ireland, we need a strategic policy framework and sustained investment in the support infrastructure that enables co‑ops to thrive. For too long, the enabling environment has favoured private‑sector profit extraction, and the limits of that approach are now clear. At the same time, much of our social infrastructure has relied on charitable organisations that do vital work but operate without democratic ownership or member control. It is time to give co‑operatives a fair chance to be as transformative as we know they can be.

Tiziana O’Hara is the Director of Co-operative Alternatives, a co-operative development body in NI. A co-operative development practitioner, Tiziana was a founding member of Co-operative Alternatives. She has a passion for all types of co-operatives embracing the principles of co-operation and the values of fairness, equality and solidarity.