World Cooperative Monitor 2020: Three worker coops make the top 300
4 February 2021
The newest issue of the World Cooperative Monitor explores the economic and social impact of the largest cooperatives and mutuals worldwide.
At the end of January, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), together with European Research Institute on Cooperatives and Social Enterprises (EURICSE), launched the 2020 World Cooperative Monitor (WCM) report during a worldwide webinar.
As the ICA describes it, the WCM is “A process of data collection, integration, and analysis, culminating in the creation of a regularly updated database containing economic, employee, and other social data to monitor and demonstrate both the economic and social impact of the largest cooperatives worldwide.”
The 2020 issue of the World Cooperative Monitor provides a ranking of the Top 300 cooperatives, as well as sector rankings, and other useful indicators and materials. It must be noted that worker cooperatives have climbed in ranking in the Top 300 GDP per capita, than in previous years.
In the Top 300 world ranking by turnover in USD, the three worker cooperatives that made the list are: Mondragon Corporation in 33rd place, Fundación Espriu in 203rd place, and SACMI in 219th place.
European member Smart Belgium is also featured as a success story of how a cooperative helped freelancer throughout the COVID-19 crisis by developing trainings and a 0% credit mechanism. During the webinar launch, Sarah De Heusch, Smart’s Public Affairs Officer, had a chance to present their case and explained the importance on data for cooperatives.
The data collected for the 2020 edition of the WCM is from the year 2018. As the WCM describes it “The primary sources of data include annual and sustainability reports, existing databases of economic data, data collected by national associations, research institutes, and other organisations, and the use of a questionnaire to collect data directly from enterprises.”
The worker cooperatives from industry and utilities that made the list are in top turnover (USD) are: In the first place, Basque Mondragon Corporation, with $14.43 billion USD, and in third place, Italian worker cooperative SACMI with $1.70 billion USD.
For more information about the WCM, detailed charts, data on Education, Health and Social sector cooperatives, and other service cooperatives please find the executive summary here, and the full report here.