Australian Co-operatives Named Among World’s Best

A duo of leading Australian co-operative and mutual enterprises has been listed among the world’s top 300 largest co-operatives by the World Co-operative Monitor, with both registering annual turnovers of more than $2.4 billion.          

Co-operative grain giant CBH and health insurance mutual HCF were recognised by The World Co-operative Monitor, which collected data for 2,379 organisations and ranked the top 300 based on their turnover and the ratio of turnover to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Both organisations are founding members of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM), and CBH is Australia’s largest co-operative, owned and controlled by about 4,200 Western Australian grain growers.

The recent Australian National Mutual Economy Report reported its annual turnover as $3.27 billion. The same report listed HCF – Australia’s largest not-for-profit health fund with 1.5 million members – as third in annual turnover of Australian co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs), reaching $2.47 billion.

“The Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals congratulates co-operative grain giant CBH and health mutual HCF on this achievement,” BCCM CEO Melina Morrison said.

“Two Australian CMEs ranking among the world’s best proves the co-operative business model is sound, as well as providing social value to members. Of the 2,379 international organisations which supplied data for this report, 1,436 reported turnovers over US$100 million [A$130 million].”

The world’s top 300 co-operatives were found to operate in a diversity of sectors, although the majority were in the insurance (41 per cent) and agriculture (30 per cent) sectors.

Charles Gould, the director-general of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) said: “The World Co-operative Monitor is a project designed to collect robust economic, organisational, and social data about co-operatives, mutual organisations and non co-operative organisations controlled by co-operatives worldwide. It is the only report of its kind collecting annual quantitative data on the global co-operative movement.”

This comes as Capricorn Group CEO and BCCM board member Greg Wall was re-elected to the ICA board for another four-year term, at the ICA’s annual global conference and general assembly in Kuala Lumpur in November.

Wall, who led the formation of BCCM and was the first Australian to be elected to the ICA board in 2013, said he was delighted to be re-elected.

“I am proud of the contribution I have made to the ICA board and the co-operative movement in general over the last four years. The work done on progressing the UN sustainable goals during this time shows the true power of co-operatives and reinforces the vision of making co-operatives the number one choice for people by 2020,” Wall said.

“The Australian Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals has achieved great success, including receiving recent recognition from the Australian government of the importance of co-operatives as a business model that represents the required long-termism and social responsibility that is needed today.”