Territorial roots of local cooperatives. A response to localized social needs. Case studies in the French West This article questions what constitutes the specificity of local community cooperatives such as CUMAs (coopératives d’utilisation des matériels agricoles – cooperatives for the shared use of agricultural equipment), SCICs (sociétés coopératives d’intérêt collectif – community-oriented cooperative enterprises) such as wood-based energy company Bois Bocage Énergie (B²É), and banking cooperatives in Western France. The text discusses the conditions for their establishment, as well as their effects on the organized space, on local companies, and on the capital gained locally by their activities. The presence and embeddedness of local cooperative projects in a given area responds to different forms of social utilities: (1) targeting local autonomy by increasing the number of members involved in projects such as CUMAs; (2) supporting and sustaining innovative local initiatives; and (3) satisfying local and social needs that would not otherwise be met. Conversely, the capacity of certain geographical areas to mobilize non-transferable local social capital, as a result of cooperative undertakings of this kind, is underlined.