Our Members Trust Us
A new national consumer survey, released during the annual celebration of National Cooperative Month confirms what we expected: that people have greater trust in businesses they own and govern, and rate cooperatives higher on questions of trust and ethics compared to large investor-owned companies.
That information may not surprise Access Energy Cooperative members, but it should serve as a wake-up call to corporate America and their regulators.
Though Congress has imposed new requirements on corporate America to improve accountability and reduce fraud, corporate governance practices still bear little resemblance to the democratic, member-governed structure that coops have embraced for nearly 150 years. And though the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering new regulations requiring more shareholder input into corporate board elections, they won’t do much to eliminate the token democracy of corporate director elections. By contrast, cooperative board elections are truly democratic.
When 2,031 adult Americans were asked about a series of govern-ance characteristics, two-thirds said customer-owned and governed businesses were more trustworthy than other types of companies. Sixty-two percent said locally owned and controlled businesses were more trustworthy, and a majority said companies that allow customers to democratically elect the board of directors—as coops do—are more trustworthy.
Those Americans were describing the structure of consumer-owned cooperatives: credit unions, food cooperatives, electric and telephone cooperatives, housing cooperatives and many others.
Not surprisingly, Americans also rated cooperatives higher than publicly traded corporations on a series of positive business attributes.
More than two-thirds of Americans agreed that cooperatives are ethically governed, while just 45% said the same of publicly traded corporations. More than 75% agreed that these co-ops run their businesses in a trustworthy manner compared to just 53% for publicly traded firms.
When asked whether cooperatives have the best interests of consumers in mind when conducting business, 77% of Americans agreed they did. Fewer than half said the same of investor-owned companies. Cooperatives also scored higher than publicly traded companies by wide margins on questions of value, quality, price, and commitment to their communities.
Consumers also said they’d be more likely to do business with a company or store if they knew it was a cooperative. This was true for food, utility, childcare and health care cooperatives, mutual insurance companies and credit unions. Those who were already members of a co-op were even more likely to prefer them. That demonstrates that though most consumers know co-ops by reputation, those who have first-hand experience with co-ops have an even stronger recognition of their value and service.
At Access Energy Cooperative, and at the nation’s 48,000 other co-ops, that’s exactly what we do. And we’ll continue to work hard to serve you—our consumers and our owners—and earn your trust.