A cooperative is an enterprise which, beyond having to compete on the market, attempts to actualize important values of solidarity and mutuality among workers and different generations.

In this way, the cooperative world represents an economic model alternative to the model offered by liberalism based on individual profit.

Still today, cooperative values and principles continue to be the greatest richness of the cooperative world, so much so that they constitute an important source of competitive advantage as well.

The success of a cooperative depends, in fact, on the extent to which its members are able to create an enterprise that fully embodies these values of mutuality, solidarity, democracy and pluralism.

For this reason as well, the International Cooperative Alliance (ACI) that Legacoop is a part of, has deemed it opportune to synthesize the principles guiding the actions of its members in a Table of Principles approved by the XXXI Convention held in Manchester in 1995.

In that same year, the National League of Cooperatives decided to elaborate a Charter of Values for cooperation, a true reference point for any cooperative member worthy of this title.