World’s top co-operatives grow by 19.5% since 2010

12 November 2015

Despite the global recession dominating the world’s economy, co-operatives and mutuals have grown by 19.5% in the last four years.

The fourth edition of the World Co-operative Monitor has been released by the International Co-operative Alliance. The findings show good news for the co-operative movement, as co-ops and mutuals continue to grow across the globe.

The most notable statistic shows that the world’s largest 300 co-ops have increased their turnover from $2.2 trillion to $2.36 trillion ($2,360 billion) in the last year, an increase of 6.9%. The Monitor used data from 2013 to calculate the figures. As well as this growth for the world’s biggest co-ops, the number of registered co-ops has also increased substantially – from 1,926 to 2,829. Three Australian co-operatives and BCCM members made the Top 300 with CBH Group (205), Murray Goulburn (219) and HCF (246) all featuring.

The data incorporates the widest spread of co-operatives yet – covering 2,829 co-ops in 76 countries. Together these organisations reported a collective turnover of $2,950.82bn.

The top ten co-operative and mutual enterprises are: