If I asked you to list your greatest achievements in business in the past 10 years, what would you say?

Perhaps you’ve opened a new workshop, employed more technicians or exceeded turnover goals.
Every business’ answer would be slightly different, but no less important to the individual.
I ask because, on 1 July, we celebrated the International Day of Cooperatives, which marked 10 years since the release of the International Cooperative Alliance’s “Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade.”
It was an ambitious project with admirable goals, including furthering “the economic and social progress of people, thereby contributing to international peace and security” and promoting “equality between men and women in all decision-making”.
A decade on, the follow-up report suggests that on everything from inequality to poverty to tackling climate change, cooperatives are doing an awful lot for the greater good.
It got me thinking about what we have achieved here at Capricorn over the past 10 years.
For example, our membership has doubled from 13,000 in 2010 to more than 25,000 today across Australia and New Zealand.
In 2014, we launched Capricorn Risk Services, which has seen the mutual protection arm of our cooperative grow enormously.
The Mutual was created in 2003 to provide Capricorn Members with a competitive alternative to insurance and provides protection tailored to the motor trades industry through Capricorn Risk Services.
In 2019, we paid our first trade rebate of $5 million back to Members, which had grown to a trade rebate of $15 million in 2022.
The point is, we do all of this for our Capricorn Members. That’s what cooperatives are about — reinvesting in the communities that built them.
It is why cooperatives may just be the ideal business model for a more sustainable future.
Yours in cooperation,
David Fraser
Group CEO – Capricorn Society Ltd

To learn more about Capricorn Society membership, visit www.capricorn.coop