December 2017

World’s top 300 co-operatives
have a combined turnover of
$2.164TRILLION
The largest 300 co-operatives and mutuals in the
world have a combined turnover of $2.164tn.
The figure is revealed in the latest World
Co-operative Monitor, which was presented at
the International Co-operative Alliance’s Global
Conference and General Assembly in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Monitor collected data for 2,379
organisations across eight sectors of activity,
1,436 of which had a turnover of more than
$100m. Now in its sixth year, the Monitor is
produced in partnership with the Alliance and
the European Research Institute on Cooperative
and Social Enterprises (Euricse).
Presenting the results, Gianluca Salvatori, CEO of
Euricse, said automation meant skills needed in the
workforce were “based on human interaction and
empathy, that cannot be replaced by machines”.
“Building a sense of common good is becoming a
priority in our societies,” he added. “It means there is a
new space for co-ops, creating a new trust in societies.
It should be a priority to show the contribution of the
co-operative model to social progress.”
Mr Salvatori said the world was also seeing a
transition to a knowledge economy, with companies
like Google and Apple seeing huge success because
of their use of big data. “The co-op movement could
collect an enormous amount of data about the needs
of society and people,” he added. “We need a change
of mindset in the co-op movement to collect that
data and interpret it to plan new services.”
Mr Salvatori said the monitor showed that the top
300 co-ops were all well capitalised, but smaller and
younger co-ops were in need of support. He said the
movement could provide this through funds and
loan guarantees for new co-ops.
Charles Gould, director general of the Alliance,
added: “We are attempting to get data on smaller
co-ops. If the countries could produce their own
reports on their own movements, we could look
deeper into those.”
The Monitor refers to data from 2015, which was
collected from various sources such as national
rankings, sector rankings, existing databases
containing financial data and annual reports.
Insurance is the largest sector represented within
the top 300, which takes up 41% of entries. Other
sectors include agriculture (30%), wholesale and
retail trade (19%), banking and financial services
(6%), industry and utilities (1%), health, education
and social care (1%) and other services (1%).
To ensure consistency, this year’s ranking is
created by converting the home currency into the
international dollar, using World Bank calculations.
One international dollar would buy in the cited
country a comparable amount of goods and services
a US dollar would purchase in the United States. This
method was used to provide a better picture of the
purchasing power parity of the co-operative. The new
methodology was used to create a ranking based on
a value that removes the conversion distortion.
Also new this year is a trend analysis on the
top co-operatives and mutuals by sector activity.
The monitor also features a trend analysis on the
top co-operatives and mutuals by sector activity,
as follows on the below chart.
THE TOP FIVE CO-OPERATIVES
BASED ON TURNOVER
Groupe Crédit Agricole, France
Kaiser Permanente, USA
State Farm, USA
BVR, Germany
Zeykyoren, Japan
$70.89bn
$67.44bn
$64.82bn
$56.26bn
$49.17bn
28 | DECEMBER 2017