The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), with the technical and scientific support of the Euricse research centre, has published the 11th edition of the World Co-operative Monitor, corresponding to 2022. This project continues to expand a solid database for the co-operative movement, showing not only the economic importance of this business model, but also the concrete impact that co-operatives and mutuals around the world have on their respective communities and members.
The publication presents reports on the world’s largest cooperatives and mutuals (or groups of cooperatives and mutuals), including Top 300 rankings and sectoral analysis. As every year, the World Cooperative Monitor builds on research and data from previous years, and continues to refine and improve its methodology and data collection strategies.
Special 2022 – Large cooperatives and digitisation
In addition to economic and employment data, this year’s report includes a special feature on digitalisation. Following the research on the impact of Covid-19 published in the last two editions, the team wanted to study the changes brought about by the pandemic in the use of digital tools, particularly in terms of member participation and the particularities of co-operative identity. The results of the article address the level of use of these tools and the advantages and disadvantages of further digitisation.
2022 results
The 300 largest cooperatives and mutuals (Top 300) reported a total turnover of more than two trillion US dollars (USD 2,171 billion) according to 2020 economic data. On the podium are two financial companies and one trading company. As last year, the top positions are occupied by the French cooperative Groupe Crédit Agricole (with a turnover of USD 88.97 billion in 2020) and the German REWE Group (with a turnover of USD 77.93 billion in 2020). In third place is the Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken – BVR (Federal Association of German Cooperative Banks), with a turnover of USD 58.02 billion in 2020. Most of the companies in the Top 300 are organisations from industrialised countries such as the USA (71 companies), France (42 companies), Germany (31 companies) or Japan (22 companies).
