So, Co-op is an organisation that was built on principles of equality and fairness. And those values are still an important part of our culture, and one of the reasons I'm proud to work here. But over the past 3 years, we've been asking ourselves some difficult questions: Do colleagues from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have access to the same level of opportunity as their white counterparts? Do our teams across the UK reflect the diversity of the communities they serve? And if the answer to either of those questions is 'no', are we living up to the standards of equality and fairness set by our founders?

Matt Eyre - Candidate Marketing Manager

Since starting this period of reflection, we've audited many of our people processes and made some positive changes to help drive diversity in our various businesses. But recent events have made it clear to us that change needs to happen more quickly. We must take action now and quickly become an organisation that is actively anti-racist.

On 17 September, we published our commitments to racial equality and inclusion. These commitments will make lasting changes that impact our customers, colleagues, members, products and services. You can find out more here.

As part of our commitment to colleagues, we've pledged to work with partner organisations that will help us to improve the representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in our leadership teams. By partnering with Black Young Professionals (BYP), we believe we can introduce more young black leaders to Co-op and, by doing so, create a pipeline of talented people who will eventually help us shape the future of Co-op as part of our next generation of senior leaders.

We've already started working together in many different ways:

• The BYP team are currently sourcing candidates for leadership roles in our retail business, in areas of the UK where we know we need to improve Black representation.
• We're advertising Co-op jobs on the BYP job board so we can attract more black candidates into our specialist support teams.
• BYP are advising members of Rise (our internal network for Black, Asian and minority ethnic colleagues) on the work they're doing to support black colleagues.

BYP is much more than just a channel for us to promote Co-op careers to a Black audience. We fully expect the BYP team to hold us to account as we aim to improve our processes and create a level playing field for our black colleagues and candidates applying for Co-op jobs.

We know we've got a long way to go, but our partnership with BYP represents an important step on the journey to creating a more inclusive Co-op.