This report, sponsored by Co-operative Education Trust Scotland, introduces employee ownership and uses case studies to demonstrate how co-operatives have not only survived and performed better than investor-owned businesses in the most recent economic crisis but through the last 200 years of social and economic turbulence. One example, the Co-operative Bank, created in 1872, is Britain’s largest consumer cooperative with over 350 branches, more than six million customers, and operating revenue of £108.6 million in the first half of 2011. The bank continues to increase its profitability, and credits its success to its customer-led ethical policy, which has resulted in the withholding of more than one billion pounds in funding to businesses that violate the policy.