These 200 companies are leading the clean economy in 2023

In 2016, things seemed somewhat dire for the clean energy transition. The election of Donald Trump meant the United States would soon pull out of the Paris Agreement. While there were record global investments in renewables that year, there were fears that Trump would undo some of the progress that had been made up until that point.  

It also happened to be the same year Corporate Knights and As You Sow launched the Clean200 – a list of publicly traded companies worldwide that are leading the clean energy charge. Things have changed quite a bit since then as investors have poured a growing amount of money into the energy transition and green companies have thrived. If an investor had put $10,000 into the Clean200 in July 2016, that investment would have grown to $19,121 by the end of January 2023. 

“The Clean200 has demonstrated consistently that what we called the ‘clean energy’ future seven years ago is now the clean energy present,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow. “This year, the scale and global diversity of leading companies continue to expand and redefine the term ‘cleantech’ to be any company that has products and services that will reduce demand for fossil fuels and water.” 

The Clean200 lists the 200 major corporate players from 35 countries around the world that are at the forefront of the energy transition and put sustainability at the heart of their products, services, business models and investments, helping to move the world onto a more sustainable trajectory. On average, 58.3% of revenues earned by Clean200 companies are classified as sustainable, representing close to $2.4 trillion (all figures in U.S. dollars) in revenue, roughly unchanged from last year and significantly above the 5% average sustainable revenue for their MSCI ACWI peers.  

The United States dominated the 2023 list, with 42 companies on the Clean200, while China had the second-largest share with 21, followed by Japan, which is headquarters to 16 Clean200 companies. U.S. companies had, on average, the highest sustainable revenue at $23 billion. This is followed by Germany with $18 billion and South Korea at $17 billion. 

There are 90 new companies on the list this year, and some of those companies cracked the top 10, including Deutsche Telekom (in third place), Verizon Communications (fourth), Agricultural Bank of China (sixth) and Contemporary Amperex Technology (10th). Apple and Alphabet, as last year, ranked first and second, respectively.  

Of the 2023 Clean200 companies, the information technology sector accounted for nearly a quarter of the total sustainable revenue at $586 billion, followed by the communications services sector ($542 billion) and the industrials sector ($400 billion).

This year’s Clean200 companies rose to the top of a pool of 6,720 global firms based on rigorous assessment of the amount of revenue each company earns from products and services aligned with the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy, while also ensuring that their businesses are not fundamentally offside important criteria for socially responsible investors, including being a company flagged by As You Sow’s Invest Your Values platform, which identifies fossil fuels, weapons, private prisons, thermal coal or having a record of systemically obstructing climate policy. 

CLEAN200 PERFORMANCE VS. BENCHMARK

Of note, it was found that on average 44.4% of the capital expenditure, acquisitions, and research and development expenses among the Clean200 companies were defined as sustainable by the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy, compared to only 7% among MSCI ACWI constituents. On sustainable investments, the utilities and industrials sectors led with $50 billion each, followed by the communications services sector at $24 billion in sustainable investments. 

“It is telling that even on the back of a banner year for fossil fuel stocks, the Clean200 continued its six-plus-year track record of outperformance against both fossil-fuel and blue-chip benchmarks,” says Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights. 

While we’ve made great progress since 2016, we need to go further faster. For the first time, global investment in renewables rose above $1 trillion in 2022. But the International Energy Agency says we need to increase that amount to around $4 trillion per year by 2030 in order to reach net-zero by 2050.  

THE CLEAN200

METHODOLOGY

The Clean200 are the largest 200 public companies ranked by clean revenue. The ranking was first calculated on July 1, 2016, and publicly released on August 15, 2016, by Corporate Knights and As You Sow. The current list has been updated with data through January 31, 2023.  

The Clean200 companies are ranked by their clean revenues in U.S. dollars. The data set is developed through assessment of a company’s revenue that aligns with the definitions laid out in the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy, primarily sourced from Corporate Knights research. To be eligible, a company must earn more than 10% of total revenues from clean sources. 

The Clean200 uses negative screens. It excludes all oil and gas companies, all utilities that generate less than 50% of their power from green sources, the top 100 coal companies measured by reserves, the top 100 oil and gas companies as measured by reserves, as well as all fossil fuel companies, majority fossil-fired utilities, pipeline and oil-field-services companies, and other fossil-fuel-related companies screened on As You Sow’s Fossil Free Funds. In addition, the Clean200 excludes weapons companies, including major military arms manufacturers found on the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Top 100 arms-producing and military services list, as well as cluster munitions, nuclear weapons and civilian firearm manufacturers screened on As You Sow’s Weapon Free Funds. The Clean200 also excludes palm oil, paper/pulp, rubber, timber, cattle and soy producers that are screened on As You Sow’s Deforestation Free Funds; companies that use child or forced labour, are involved in the manufacture of harmful pesticides, and that engage in negative climate lobbying are not included. The full list of exclusionary screens is provided below.