Pellervo Coop Center
About Pellervo
Pellervo is a service and a lobbying organisation for all Finnish co-operatives and mutuals and a forum for co-operative activities.
Our goal is to make the co-operative and mutual business model more known to the public and offer the co-operative model as a competitive alternative for those thinking about starting a business.
Pellervo was founded in 1899 and the Pellervo name comes from the national epic of Finland Kalevala where Sampsa Pellervoinen is the patron of field and harvest.
Advocacy work
Pellervo strives to influence the legislative work and the economic and financial policies in Finland to accommodate the cooperative business model.
Pellervo’s message to the decision-makers: Diversity of business models increases economic performance
- One business model – investor owned – is not enough
- Cooperative businesses play a significant role in the everyday life of people
- The scope of cooperatives is constantly expanding
- Over 3 000 cooperatives and mutuals
- Over 7 million memberships
- Cooperatives mean Finnish ownership
- They invest in Finland
Current issues and themes:
- The government's Entrepreneurship Strategy
- The Parliament's Co-operative Group
- Government’s action plan 2019-2023
- Entrepreneurship education at schools
- Research and teaching
- Start-up advice
- Co-operative governance
- Sustainability and CSR
Not a big leap every year – cooperatives have a reputation advantage in environmental responsibility
The carbon footprint of large cooperative companies decreased more slowly in 2021 than the previous year or not at all. It was to be expected, because the reductions in fossil emissions were huge in 2020: in meat industry HKScan over 50 and Atria around 30 percent and consumer coops S Group 20 percent. You can’t
SME cooperatives 2021: A record few cooperatives were established
The number of new cooperatives is falling for the eighth year in a row. Only 78 cooperatives were founded in 2021, compared to 92 the previous year. In 2019 the number of new cooperatives was 142 cooperatives, and a total of 235 we established in 2014. There is still a lot of work to be