The importance of the world’s co-operative and mutual businesses – many of them successful, large-scale enterprises with social and ethical principles at the heart of their operations – is often overlooked. These businesses may not be household names, but their contribution to the world economy is highly significant.

The Global300, an initiative of the International Co-operative Alliance, the apex body of the international co-operative movement, presents the details of the major member-owned businesses worldwide for the first time. This “provisional” ranking based on 2004 data shows that together, these businesses share a turnover of approximately $1,000 billion (USD). Just to compare, Canada, the 9th economy of the world, had a GDP of $979 billion in 2004, according to the World Bank.

Because co-operatives and mutuals are member-owned, they are generally not subject to stock market listing. Teams of analysts are not employed to study their performance, and the financial press often omits to report their results. As a consequence, there has been a tendency to marginalise the role of the sector. Even co-operatives and mutuals themselves sometimes fail to fully appreciate their significance in the global economy.

Global300 will contribute to a better understanding of this neglected part of the world economy. The global reach of these hidden giants, and the breadth of their businesses, will surprise some. Among the businesses are Switzerland’s largest employer, France’s largest bank, a New Zealand-based business with a third of the international dairy trade, India’s largest food processing business, the top healthcare provider in the Netherlands, North America’s market leader in canned and bottled juices and juice drinks, and the largest Canadian-owned multi-product insurer.

Objectives and Benefits

The objective of the GLOBAL300 project is to develop a provisional ranking, based at this stage on turnover, of the world's largest co-operative and mutual organisations.

There are many obvious benefits from this project, including:

• Increasing the profile of co-operatives within their own industries and countries as well as internationally
• Demonstrating to government and other regulatory agencies the economic importance of co-operatives and mutuals
• Modelling good practice and highlighting successful co-operative business models and innovative approaches
• Creating a much improved statistical and data methodology to allow for better analysis of performance
• Creating networks between co-operatives and mutuals within GLOBAL300 for greater sharing of information, business intelligence and business opportunities.