February 8, 2010—Corporate Knights, “the magazine for clean capitalism,” announced its sixth annual Global 100 list of the most sustainable large corporations in the world, intended to establish a new standard of transparency for such rankings. The Global 100 includes companies from 24 countries and all sectors of the economy, with a collective enterprise value of $4 trillion, and three million employees. The rankings used data from several sources.
The top rank overall went to General Electric Company, creator of the multibillion-dollar ecomagination line, whose score was bolstered by its industry-leading ratio of sales to waste, strong board gender diversity, and the doubling of its carbon productivity from 2006 to 2008, cutting total carbon emissions from 10.8 million tons to 6.5 million tons while increasing sales from $150 billion to $181 billion. GE also increased its annualized resource productivity in excess of the six percent “sustainable path” threshold from 2006 to 2008 for waste, energy and water.
Besides GE, the top ten companies were PG & E Corp. (U.S.), Tnt Nv (the Netherlands), H & M Hennes & Mauritz Ab (Sweden), Nokia Corporation (Finland), Siemens Ag (Germany), Unilever Plc (U.K.), Vodafone Group Plc (U.K.), Smiths Group Plc (U.K.), and Geberit (Switzerland).
Among the 24 countries, the United Kingdom led the way with 21 Global 100 companies (one more than in 2009). The United States followed with 12 (down from 20 in 2009). Canada and Australia tied for third with nine each (up from five and four). Rounding out the top ten were Switzerland (six), France (five), Japan (five), and Germany (four), as well as Brazil, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, with three constituents each. Fifty percent of the 2009 companies remained on the list in 2010.
Toby Heaps, Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Knights magazine, said, “By using clear metrics to show investors which companies stand out from their peers, we hope to create a virtuous cycle where the most sustainable companies attract the most capital and earn the best returns.”
