World Cooperative Monitor 2025: 7 worker cooperatives among the Top 300 largest cooperative enterprises
March 2026
The latest issue of the World Cooperative Monitor demonstrates the role of large cooperatives and mutuals as well as their contribution to social and environmental development.
On 3 November 2025, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) published the 13th edition of the World Cooperative Monitor (WCM), in the context of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives 2025 (IYC2025).
The report, produced with the scientific and technical support of the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE), seeks to achieve three main goals: providing visibility to the cooperative movement, maintaining an up-to-date database, and responding to the knowledge needs of large cooperatives.
The WCM features a ranking of the Top 300 cooperatives in the world based on turnover, with a second ranking focused on the ratio between turnover and GDP per capita, showcasing their economic and social impact. The data collected through desk research, existing rankings, submitted information and private databases refer to the year 2023. Four worker cooperatives appear in the overall ranking, rising to seven when considering turnover over GDP per capita.
From CICOPA’s perspective, the sectoral analysis by turnover calculated in USD deserves particular attention:
- In the industry sector, Mondragon Corporation and SACMI, two of the largest worker cooperative groups in Spain and Italy stand out in the Top 10, ranking 2nd and 5th The turnover over GDP per capita rankings also include the Indian worker cooperative and member of CICOPA, ULCCS Ltd.
- In education, health and social work, the Brazilian worker cooperative of doctors, Sistema Unimed, ranks 1st, while the Spanish worker cooperative, Fundación Espriu comes in 3rd.
- In the ‘other services’ category, four worker cooperatives from Italy make it to the Top 10, Manutencoop and Coopservice, F.A.I. Service CIR S.C. (CIR FOOD S.C.).
In addition, the 2025 edition contains excerpts from a series of interviews with members of the Cooperatives and Mutuals Leadership Circle (CM50) who shared impact stories with Co-op News. Formed in 2025, CM50 brings together 50 leaders from some of the world’s largest cooperative and mutual enterprises.
Among the interviewees, Anne-Laure Desgris, Co-Chief Executive of Smart, one of the biggest worker cooperatives in Belgium and member of CICOPA. The cooperative, founded a little over 25 years ago, enables workers to secure and develop their professional activities in an autonomous way, while benefiting from a collective framework and social protection of salaried employment. In 25 years, SMART has supported more than 90,000 professionals, generating more than 2 billion in turnover.
Additionally, Carlos Zarco, General Director of Fundación Espriu (Spain), explains the cooperative’s success in combining medical excellence with democratic, multistakeholder governance. Prioritising people over profit allows the organisation to deliver patient-centred, sustainable care. As President of the International Health Cooperative Organization (IHCO), Zarco praises the leading role health cooperatives play worldwide in improving patients’ access to care and empowering local communities.
In a recent webinar dedicated to the launch of the latest edition of the WCM and hosted by the ICA and EURICSE, speakers presented the latest data and analysis and discussed insights into key global trends. Gianluca Salvatori, Secretary General of EURICSE, emphasised cooperatives’ resilience not only in surviving but also in overcoming crises – a key feature in times of uncertainty.
Perspectives were also shared on what the future WCM should look like, given the need to improve its ability to measure how transformative cooperatives are beyond the more easily measurable financial impacts. Thomas Blondeel, Chair of the International Cooperative Entrepreneurship Think Tank (ICETT), invited cooperators to join a participatory framework to shape the next editions of the WCM – a call made in the true spirit of cooperation.
To find out more about the WCM, access the full report and the executive summary here.