Conceptual foundations of consumer cooperation sustainability

Sustainability is the main criterion for the performance of any economic system. In modern scientific publications, there is no unified approach to understanding its essence, which must be considered from the perspective of its dual nature: the sustainability of the state of the system and the sustainability of its development. The modern concept of the sustainability of economic systems is based on the characteristics of sustainability, which have been deeply studied by scientists and disclosed within the framework of the theory of systems. Consumer cooperation, being an original economic system, differs from traditional commercial structures by the presence of a social purpose in society, its social mission. The state of consumer cooperation is assessed on the basis of volume indicators - the number of shareholders and consumer societies in the system, as well as the total volume of activity. The specific features are identified, and the main criteria for a sustainable cooperative organization are defined. The selection of criteria and indicators for the formation of an approach to assessing the sustainability of consumer cooperation was carried out taking into account the specifics of the activities and structure of cooperative organizations. Another feature of the activity of consumer cooperatives is their functioning on the basis of a certain way of organizing consumers interested in creating a consumer cooperative so that the effect of participation in it significantly exceeds the costs of its organization.