Co-operatives are characterised by and proud of the fact they are rooted in local communities. They are set up by the people to meet their common economic needs within communities for buying quality food and services at an affordable price, marketing local produce and creating local jobs, obtaining credit and insurance and other services. In this sense, co-operatives are an effective tool for the sustainable social development of the communities in which they work.

Limited only by their financial capacity to do so, many co-operatives have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to care for others and have made significant contributions to the human and financial resources of their communities. Following best practice of corporate social responsibility, many co-operatives now provide social responsibility reports to their members. Co-operatives understand that sustainable social development requires the maintenance of a harmonious relationship between material growth and responding to the immaterial needs and aspirations of the community. These immaterial needs include: culture and the arts, spirituality and religious rights, education, history and heritage, community and cultural festivals, and the visual arts. It is this social dimension of sustainable development that the unique nature of co-operative enterprise has the power to deliver.

Co-operatives also have a long history and proud tradition of meeting social needs by delivering services such as health, housing, education, social services, integrating people who are socially disadvantaged into work, and helping community development. In particular, they often play a vital role to serve devastated or depopulating communities through delivering services and encouraging and supporting mutual help among residents. Co-operatives also respond positively to natural disasters, as the international response to the 2004 tsunami co-ordinated by the Alliance showed.

In many countries where public services are under threat because of fiscal constraints or where market-orientated politicians seek to transfer public services into the investor- owned enterprise sector, co-operative organisations, such as co-operative development and support agencies backed by local co-operative enterprises, have helped communities establish co-operatives to run public services. Co-operatives are increasingly filling gaps caused by austerity regimes introduced by governments in response to increasing public debt in the wake of the global financial crisis. There are also co-operatives working for the more general benefit of communities such as Italian social co-operatives, which deliver a variety of social services or give disadvantaged people an opportunity to work. Beneficiaries or service users of these co-operatives are not confined to members and there could be tensions or conflicts in allocating resources between the mutual interest for members and the wider general interest. Means to mitigate the tensions between diverse interest groups need to be agreed. this is a practical demonstration of this 7th Principle, working for the common good and common wealth of all.

Social co-operatives usually have extended groups of members that may include user- members, investor-members, worker-members, promoting members and non-member beneficiaries. The most distinctive characteristic of social co-operatives is that they explicitly define a general interest mission as their primary purpose and carry out this mission directly in the production of goods and services of general interest. [3] therefore their relationship with this 7th Principle, which is common to all co-operatives, is primary, more explicit, and direct.