Architects of the New Global Economy: Inside the first CM50 Leader’s Summit
by Elsa,
Innovation is gathering strength at the highest levels of the global cooperative movement, and it has the potential to reshape how every cooperative and mutual on earth does business. At the inaugural CM50 Leader’s Summit in Brussels, 80 visionary CEOs and leaders from 28 countries across 5 continents converged with a single, audacious goal: to build a new global economy. Together, this group represents a combined, cautious US$500 billion in joint turnover, giving them the financial muscle and scale to push the boundaries of what cooperative business can achieve.
This first summit of the cooperative and mutuals leadership cycle CM50 marks the start of a long-term commitment of CEOs in the movement to position cooperatives at the centre of efforts to build a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable global economy. The group aims to nearly double the total global cooperative and mutual business turnover from US$2.7 trillion to US$5 trillion a year.
“This is a powerful new chapter for the global cooperative movement," says Jeroen Douglas, ICA Director and co-chair of the CM50 initiative. "Think of it as our own cooperative and mutual economic forum—built to deliver a new economic model firmly rooted in cooperative values and principles. The energy in the room proved that when cooperative leaders unite, we don’t just discuss the future—we build it. We are the Architects of the New Global Economy.”
His fellow co-chair Shaun Tarbuck noted that “At the core of the CM50 is a powerful value proposition for cooperative and mutual leaders: by working closely together and scaling projects across markets, capital, digital spaces, and food systems, we do more than just strengthen our businesses. Through these deepening relationships, we ultimately uplift the families and communities we serve every day.”
Five Ambitious Commitments for the Movement
At the centre of the summit was a set of five concrete, scaled-up commitments, aimed at creating a cooperative digital and social ecosystem:
A Cooperative Digital Marketplace: Building a platform used daily by 150,000 enterprises.
The 'Cloud Coop' Infrastructure: Creating a dedicated cooperative digital commons used daily by at least 100,000 enterprises.
Planetary Health: Moving 500 million people toward a healthy, sustainable diet that protects both people and the planet.
Future-Proofed Leadership: Training the next 4,000 cooperative leaders at the highest level by building a world-class, global academic infrastructure.
Crisis Reconstruction: Deploying the movement's capacity to help communities and countries rebuild after crises in at least five major global contexts.
These commitments will bring together its members across every geography and sector towards practical action.
Bringing Local Innovations to Global Scale
One of the most energising and critical elements of the CM50 Leaders' Summit was hearing directly from members about innovation and resilience underway across the movement. Across two days, leaders shared examples that demonstrated the leading force of cooperatives and provided concrete ideas for scaling.
In India, the world's largest farmer-owned dairy cooperative Amul is extending its model into new territory, moving from milk to mobility by financing electric vehicles for its members and backing a ridesharing cooperative, turning the clean energy transition into a direct economic dividend for farmers.
In Ethiopia, Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union is commanding premium prices through certified organic production, demonstrating that cooperative agriculture and sustainable practice are not in tension but are mutually reinforcing, a point echoed by a Scandinavian farming cooperative earning a premium from one of the world's largest brewers for regeneratively-farmed ingredients.
In Northern Cyprus, Koopbank has developed a shared digital infrastructure model that provides technology services to smaller financial cooperatives at significantly lower cost, a practical demonstration of what cooperative-to-cooperative collaboration looks like in the digital age, and exactly the kind of model the CM50’s digital infrastructure work is designed to scale.
Zimbabwe’s National Association of Housing Co-operatives is developing what could become one of the largest housing cooperatives on the African continent, drawing on successful models with deep roots in Europe and North America.
In Germany, a local energy cooperative and member of DGRV financed a football club's stadium roof through solar panel returns, with members collectively choosing to redirect their dividends to the community rather than take them as income.
Coopercitrus, a large agricultural cooperative from Brazil, is showing what cooperative trade infrastructure can do at scale when built around member ownership rather than investor extraction.
And in the UK, CoopsUK - a coalition of cooperatives with a combined turnover of £3 billion - pooled their purchasing power and saved £31 million in a single year through joint energy contracts and collective procurement.
These are not pilot projects or aspirational cases. They are happening now, within our membership. They are examples the CM50 is designed to amplify and help grow, across continents and across sectors.
A New Chapter: The World the CM50 is Built For
Central to the success of the CM50 is it being fit for purpose in the world we live in. This world, as our keynote speakers told the Summit, has shifted considerably.
Opening speaker Alessandra Stråberg, Chief Economist and Länsförsäkringar, outlined how the world has shifted from globalisation and cooperation to nationalism, protection, and conflict, and beneath this geopolitics, climate change, demographic transformation, and AI are reshaping the world before us. Her call to action: stop being frozen by what cannot be controlled and focus on what can, and keep moving. Growth is the best crisis tool any cooperative has.
Kristof De Spiegeleer, the CEO of OurWorld and CTO of the CM50, closed the Summit by taking this argument into the digital age. We are living in the AI revolution, he said, and the question is not whether it will happen but rather whether cooperatives will be shaped by it or shape it themselves. Augmented Collective Intelligence, data sovereignty, and ownership are key. Together they made a single argument, what Alessandra called ‘resilience capitalism’: long-term ownership, democratic governance, and freedom from earnings-focused management.
In this fast-moving world, cooperatives and mutuals will need to innovate and collaborate: the CM50 is an engine designed to pull the entire cooperative movement into this high-tech, highly integrated future.
What Happens Next?
The ideas forged in Brussels are moving from the whiteboard to the boardroom. Over the next three to six months, the commitments will be transformed into workable business plans, with rollouts targeted for Q3 2026 and Q1 2027. The group is already planning for expansion, with an invitation from Bulgaria’s Central Cooperative Union to host the 2027 Summit. To sustain this momentum, CM50 aims to grow its leadership support base to at least 100 enterprise members by the end of 2026.
How Your Cooperative Can Join the Movement
The innovations, digital marketplaces, and data tools built by CM50 will eventually flow down to benefit cooperatives of all sizes. To ensure your cooperative is at the table and directly aligned with these massive shifts, encourage your CEO to look into the CM50 initiative, champion these targets, and bring your cooperative’s unique strengths into this history-making global team. Together, we are building the $5 trillion cooperative future.