Affordable.

Onshore wind and utility‑scale solar photovoltaic installations are now substantially cheaper than new fossil fuel plants almost everywhere in the world. With voters broadly ranking economic concerns and energy costs above climate, cost is a key part of the new low-carbon lexicon.

Secure.

Renewables rely on international supply chains for set-up, but once installed they use freely available local resources like sunlight, wind and ground-source heat, which makes them less vulnerable to the sorts of market volatility that afflict fossil fuels.

Resilient.

A grid that is dependent on a mix of renewable sources, rather than exclusively on fossil fuels, can better withstand shocks. That’s why Ukraine, for example, has pivoted to wind and solar rather than large power plants to avoid major outages from Russian attacks.

Advanced.

Rather than positioning renewables as climate-positive, the sector is increasingly describing its products as modern, high-tech and cutting edge. Worldwide, renewables have received twice as much investment as other power sources, which increases competition and strengthens.

Efficient.

Combustion technologies also lose most of their fuel energy as heat, converting only about 35% to 60% into electricity. By contrast, electric motors commonly achieve 80% to 95% efficiency.

Illustrations by Drew Shannon

The post The new language of clean power appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The U.S. companies that make up Corporate Knights’ first-ever USA 25 Most Sustainable Corporations ranking brought in more than $1.15 trillion in revenues in 2024, of which an average of 61% came from sustainable products or services. That included companies like Nvidia, whose super-efficient chips power much of the world’s AI infrastructure, and Tesla, which has single-handedly transformed the U.S. electric vehicle market.

Perhaps more notably, however, sustainable revenues as a share of the total are growing, and sustainable investments are poised to accelerate the transition. Michael Yow, director of rankings at Corporate Knights, points out that the average sustainable investment ratio for S&P 500 companies is less than 11%; for companies in this ranking, it is more than 62%. “It illustrates how sustainability leaders are already rewiring their business models for a low‑carbon economy while the broader market lags behind.”

The top company

Leading the ranking this year is Fluence (#1), a company out of Arlington, Virginia, that creates utility-scale energy-storage systems. Founded in 2018 from a partnership between Siemens, the German tech giant, and AES, the largest U.S.-based global power company, Fluence is one of a select group of companies playing a pivotal role in the shift to renewable power in the United States. The grid-level battery company currently has 296 projects globally storing 28.9 gigawatts of renewable energy.

Fluence doubled its sustainability revenues between 2022 and 2024 and earned a perfect sustainable investment score by pouring all its capital expenditure and research and development into new energy-storage solutions and supporting technology. In early 2025, the company announced “breakthrough” modular stacks that can store 30% more power over the same footprint as previous generations of the technology. Additionally, Fluence – which also placed fourth in this year’s Global 100 ranking – is deploying AI-optimized software to help maintain its infrastructure and to assist with bidding in the notoriously complex and volatile wholesale energy market.

The fast track

The companies with highest compound annual growth rate of sustainable revenue

Among the companies with the fastest-growing share of sustainable revenues was
Prologis (#17), a San Francisco–based real estate investment trust.
Prologis owns more than 5,800 facilities, mostly warehouses and commercial spaces,
spanning 1.3 billion square feet across 20 countries. In the last year, the company
secured sustainable building certifications for all the eligible buildings and since
2021 has achieved 626 megawatts of solar power and storage capacity across its portfolio.

Sustainable revenues still account for only about 19% of the company’s total revenues, but since 2022 those revenues have grown 239% annualized. Yow points out that a significant share of the buildings that did not qualify under the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy in 2022 now do, thanks to the company’s efforts.

Nvidia (#10), the world’s largest company by market capitalization, also had one of the fastest-growing shares of sustainable revenue. It saw a 124% increase over 2022 for total sustainable revenues of about $75 billion. Most of those earnings are attributable to the company’s ultra-efficient computer chips that now make up the majority of global AI data-centre infrastructure. These chips are up to 25 times more energy efficient per watt than traditional, general-purpose central processing units and up to 300 times more water efficient than air-cooled computing architecture.

There was one more company, Bristol-Myers Squibb (#25), that registered an even higher sustainable revenue compound annual growth rate, at 342%, but as Yow explains, its circumstances are unique. Revenues at pharmaceutical companies in the ranking are considered sustainable if they come from the sale of drugs included on the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines list. Bristol-Myers Squibb sells several of these medicines, but in 2022, a significant share of those revenues were not credited in full. This was because a significant portion of the cash flow from those revenues went toward share buybacks, dividend payments and senior executive compensation, rather than being reinvested in the company. Since 2022, the share of eligible revenues at Bristol-Myers Squibb has shifted, hence the increase.

Come-from-behind corporation

A company with a small percentage of sustainable revenue but high sustainable compound annual growth rate

At Hologic (#16), a healthcare company out of Massachusetts, about 19% of its $4.03 billion in 2024 revenues were sustainable, representing an annualized increase of 50% since 2022. This change is attributable to the increased sales of its medical solutions for women’s health, particularly breast cancer. Many of Hologic’s systems, including those used for imaging and biopsy, have been classified by the World Health Organization as “indispensable” for quality healthcare delivery.

Transition majors

Companies with small sustainable revenue but high sustainable investment

American Water Works Company (#19) is a 140-year-old company and the largest regulated provider of water and wastewater utilities in the United States. Based in Camden, New Jersey, and delivering services to more than 14 million people in 18 states, its share of sustainable revenues was small relative to the scale of its operation, but its sustainable investments were significant. Last year, the company reportedly invested $3.2 billion in infrastructure improvements (in 2024, the company brought in $4.6 billion in revenue). This included pipe replacement and water treatment upgrades, as well as remediation for PFAS (known as “forever chemicals”) that have been commonly detected in drinking water.

Another one of the senior companies on the list, the 146-year-old automotive manufacturer BorgWarner (#21), operating out of Auburn Hills, Michigan, also earned high marks for its sustainable investments. The company has been focused on developing new parts for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, including motors, transmissions and battery systems.

The pure-play behemoth

A large-cap pure-play company with high sustainable revenue and investment, but also penalties

Given this year’s refocusing of the methodology on sustainable revenues, investment and growth, it should come as little surprise that Tesla (#9) remains a fixture on the list. Now based in Texas, the company recorded $97.69 billion in revenues in 2024, 100% of which was registered as sustainable in the Corporate Knights methodology. It should be noted, however, that the company did suffer several penalties related to a $1.5-million settlement over the alleged mishandling of hazardous waste, and another to a fatality at its Texas Gigafactory.

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Waste-to-wealth winners

Companies at the forefront of the circular economy

Enviri (#11) is a Pennsylvania-based waste-management firm that specializes in complex environmental challenges. Across three divisions, it has recycled nearly 440,000 tons of hazardous material, 3.1 million tons of contaminated soil and 85 million gallons of wastewater – in all, about 92% of the materials it collects. These materials are used to create the company’s “ecoproducts” such as cement additives, construction aggregate, asphalt and cost-effective alternatives to raw materials used in concrete and brick.

CMC (#22) is one of the primary suppliers of the steel rebar used to reinforce the concrete in buildings, bridges and roads across the United States. With 212 facilities, the Texas-based company boasts an impressive record in an industry that has, traditionally, had a large environmental footprint: 17 billion pounds of scrap metal saved from landfills, 82% less energy and 62% less carbon dioxide than traditional steelmaking, and 100% recycled steel in all of its products.

2026 USA 25 Most Sustainable Corporations

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“The Clean200 follows revenues, not rhetoric,” Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights and report co-author, said in a statement. “Even when politics turns hostile, markets continue to reward companies that are supplying what the global economy is structurally demanding – clean power, electrification, efficiency, and resilient infrastructure.”

For the 200 companies that made this year’s list, revenue from sustainable activities reached a record high of US$2.8 trillion, up 12% from last year and 710% from 2017. On average, more than half the revenue (53.7%) at Clean200 companies is sustainable – roughly 15 percentage points higher than five years ago – whereas companies in the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) generate only 16.7% of their revenue from sustainable activities.

“In 2016, we created the Clean200 in response to investors who asked, ‘As we shift away from fossil fuels, what should we invest in?’” Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow and report co-author, said in a statement. “A decade later, the Clean200 continues to demonstrate that the global economy is increasingly driven by companies delivering solutions that reduce dependence on fossil fuels and resource-intensive systems.”

Over the past decade, investors in Clean200 companies beat the benchmark by a wide margin. From July 1, 2016, to January 26, 2026, the Clean200 portfolio returned 282.9%, compared with 221.3% for the MSCI ACWI. The fossil fuel benchmark, meanwhile, returned a much slimmer 111%. In other words, the Clean200 produced about 2.5 times the gain of the fossil fuel benchmark.

The Clean200 is selected from 8,229 eligible companies, of which 103 were excluded. The list employs a wide range of negative screens to exclude: for example, fossil-fired utilities or big banks and insurers financing fossil fuel companies, as well as for-profit prisons, weapons makers and others.

Looking back five years, the Clean200 demonstrates the increasing economic weight of all-in sustainability firms known as “pure plays,” such as electric-vehicle makers and renewable-power generators. Since 2021, the share of pure-play sustainability companies – those for whom more than 99% of revenues are sustainable – has increased by 175%, from eight to 22. Near pure-plays, or those with greater than a 90% ratio, increased 216.7%, from 12 to 38. And those with more than 80% sustainable revenue also increased dramatically, from 22 to 49.

The United States and China have 69 companies on the list between them, 41 and 28 respectively. Five years ago, the United States had 46 companies on the list, and China had 17, which suggests a subtle but marked rebalancing trend. About half the list consists of “middle power” countries: Japan (15), France (12), Canada (11), Germany (11), Spain (8), Brazil (8), South Korea (7), Denmark (7), United Kingdom (5), Sweden (5) and India (5). Sixteen other countries share the remaining 14.5% of the list, underscoring how widely distributed the clean‑economy opportunity has become.

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Corporate Knights trained its lens on a wide universe of corporations to produce its first-ever Latin America–specific ranking. Using the Global 100 benchmarks of sustainable-economy performance indicators, it assessed 55 companies based in the region with more than US$1 billion in annual revenue.

Corporate Knights’ director of rankings Michael Yow said Brazilian companies are more forthcoming than other companies in the region with their disclosure, which helps explain why so many made the top 10 list.

1. Alupar Investimento

One of the largest energy companies in Brazil, Alupar’s transmission lines extend across Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Peru and generate roughly 800 megawatts from power plants it operates. The company has adopted various policies that bolster its environmental bona fides, such as “replacement and recovery of native forest vegetation” and “maintenance of biodiversity of fauna and flora” in areas where Alupar has lines or power plants. Alupar also “conducts periodic assessments of water quality downstream and upstream” of its assets and offers certified carbon credits for buyers of emissions offsets.

2. Neoenergia

Wind is a key component of energy production in Brazil, accounting for 20% of the country’s needs. Neoenergia, which provides electricity to some 37 million Brazilians, has leaned into the renewable resource, with 44 wind farms across seven states. In 2023, it launched its first wind and solar hybrid project, capable of producing up to 600 megawatts in the northeastern state of Paraíba – enough to power more than one million homes. Also, the Neoenergía Institute develops community-based programs that include funding environmental research and cultural activities.

3. Energisa

Brazilian electricity company Energisa is actively decarbonizing its operations and putting its energy transition in practice. The company claims to have avoided the production of 539,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2024 by closing diesel- and oil-fuelled thermal power plants in the Amazon region. The company has contributed to the restoration of Usina Maurício Reserve, a 300-hectare private reserve in the Minas Gerais state, with tree planting.

4. Enel Américas

Based in Chile but belonging to Italy’s Enel Group, Enel Américas is one of Latin America’s main energy producers and distributors. In 2023/2024, the company increased its renewable-energy capacity to 12,600 megawatts – around 98% of its portfolio. In 2023, the company reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by around one-third compared to the previous year thanks to more renewable-energy production and less fossil fuel generation. Enel also subscribes to a biodiversity policy of “no net loss,” with a mandate that aims to avoid having a negative impact on the environment where the company operates.

5. CEMIG

Brazilian CEMIG operates around 5,000 kilometres of transmission lines across the country and a massive distribution network spanning more than 500,000 kilometres of lines, mostly in the state of Minas Gerais. It generates electricity through dozens of power stations, mainly hydroelectric but also wind and solar. CEMIG has significantly increased its internal use of renewable energy and decreased non-renewables over recent years. It has pledged to cut non‑renewable energy consumption by 40% by 2027 while increasing the share of renewables in its own energy use.

6. Engie

Engie’s gas network is Brazil’s largest, crossing about 4,600 kilometres of territory, but almost 100% of the energy the company generates itself comes from renewable sources like wind, hydro and solar. The company has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 41% since 2017 and also reduced its waste generation and water use. The company touts multiple sustainability awards, including placing 21st on the 2025 Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking.

7. Sabesp

The Company of Basic Sanitation of the State of São Paulo (Sabesp) provides comprehensive sanitation services, including drinking water supply, sewerage and final disposal of wastewater for nearly 30 million people. Last year, Sabesp took part in IntegraTietê, a sanitation program centred in São Paulo city’s Tietê River. Among some 50 initiatives is its Partners for Impact program, which includes environmental management policies around waste and emissions, along with inclusion and social development with communities, such as job creation and education partnerships.

8. Telefônica Brasil

Through its subsidiary Vivo, Brazil’s largest telecommunications company has launched a long‑term forest‑restoration project in the Amazon that will, over 30 years, restore and protect about 800 hectares of degraded land, with the planting, regeneration and conservation of more than 900,000 native trees in one of the most deforested areas of the forest. The company uses 100% renewable energy in its operations and has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2035.

9. Paranaense Energy Company

Brazilian Paranaense Energy Company (Copel) is the main electricity distributor in Paraná state and operates in nine other states in Brazil. It was the first Brazilian electricity company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in 1997. Copel has committed to reaching carbon neutrality among its Scope 1 emissions by 2030 and, after divesting from coal‑ and oil‑fired thermal plants, now generates 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly hydroelectric power. It has tapped into Paraná’s major chicken-producing industry with pioneering biogas projects that repurpose poultry waste into electricity, and others that convert biogas into renewable hydrogen.

10. Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM)

Chilean Chemical and Mining Society is a major producer of lithium, potassium nitrate, iodine and industrial chemicals, with most of its resources and plants in the northern Atacama Desert in northern Chile, a region rich in minerals. In early 2026, it entered into a major partnership with Ivanhoe Electric for a copper exploration project. The company has come under significant scrutiny for its water usage in a highly arid region, in particular from local Indigenous communities and environmental groups. The company says it is committed to responsible practices and in 2024 invested US$33 million in areas such as environmental evaluations, environmental monitoring and mitigation measures, industrial waste management, and hazardous substance management. That year, according to its last report, the company did not receive fines or sanctions from environmental law enforcement.

Latin America Top 10 Ranking

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1. Canada‘s largest battery storage farm just opened – and it’s Indigenous-led

By Natalie Alcoba, May 13

The headline behind the headline here is that many such projects are coming to fruition all the time now: community-level contributions to a low-carbon future, unfolding around the world at an exhilarating rate. Indigenous ownership is a sign that a project is well-designed.

Read the story

2. How trade threats could lead to a better grid network in Canada

By Victoria Foote, March 12

This story by the British Columbia–based journalist Victoria Foote examines the possibility of dismantling interprovincial trade barriers, which dominated the Canadian political discourse after U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war shortly after taking office. Better electricity interconnections between the provinces would be a boon for clean energy and help defend Canada’s economic sovereignty.

Read the story

3. What happened to Canada’s cleantech tax credits?

By Shawn McCarthy, July 11

Canada has the tools to deploy cleantech at a much greater speed and scale, but it’s been slow to use them. This article by our lead energy journalist, Shawn McCarthy, explains how the federal government botched the rollout of its plan for refundable credits for cleantech. Hundreds of billions in low‑carbon investment could be unlocked by this program, once the bottlenecks are fixed.

Read the story

4. To boost competitiveness, EU proposes slashing key climate rules

By Eugene Ellmen, March 3

Our word of the year for 2025 is “backlash,” a concept that has provided the primary narrative for the dissolution of so much of the optimism and ambition of the 2021 to 2023 period. The weakening of Europe’s climate-disclosure regulations represented a major plot development in this story. Despite opposition from sustainability advocates, the main elements of this simplification plan have now cleared the EU legislative process, putting most of the companies originally targeted by the rules now out of their scope.

Read the story

5. First Nations in oil country are converting old wells to geothermal

By Matteo Cimellaro, April 9

Without a doubt, geothermal will be among the biggest stories of 2026. The technology has been winning backers and evading the politicization of other sources of renewable energy throughout 2025, and 2026 will bring many more examples of this kind of story.

Read the story

6. Canada’s chief actuary underestimates climate risks, advocates say

By Mark Mann, August 29

This campaign by Ecojustice and Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health raises the alarm that Canada’s Office of the Chief Actuary is neglecting the systemic risks of climate change. Responding appropriately to climate threats is a challenge for everybody, but the chief risk officer is held to the highest standard.

Read the story

7. Offshore wind is gaining momentum in Atlantic Canada

By Moira Donovan, July 23

How Nova Scotia balances the hurdles and opportunities of major offshore wind development is one of the stories we’ll be following closely in 2026. The province is betting that green hydrogen production will be a core use case for these projects, but that poses its own major challenges, as hydrogen is extremely difficult to transport.

Read the story

8. How some sustainable investors are divesting from Tesla

By Mark Mann, April 8

As ESG-themed investment funds multiply and mature, green investors are acquiring more ways to tailor their holdings to their ideals. When Elon Musk joined forces with Trump’s authoritarian agenda, sustainable investors who wanted to divest from Tesla struggled to find options. This article by managing editor Mark Mann examined some of the intricacies of ESG-themed index investing.

Read the story

9. The transatlantic divide over sustainable investing just got wider

By Mark Mann, Sept 5

The rift between U.S. and European investors has widened to a chasm this past year, with many in the EU now treating sustainability and climate as core elements of risk management rather than just marketing. Pension funds, in particular, have emerged as a key pressure point for climate advocates, given their long‑term investment horizons and exposure to climate‑related risks.

Read the story

10. Economists say Ottawa should rethink tariffs on Chinese EVs

By Victoria Foote, October 1

This will continue to be one of the hottest topics for Canadian sustainability advocates: should Ottawa open the door to low-cost Chinese electric vehicles, or should we continue shielding Western automakers from China’s heavily subsidized industry? Climate advocates should also be wary that if major Eastern markets stumble on their EV rollout in 2026, as Western markets did in 2025, the global electrification narrative would be seriously weakened.

Read the story

These five op-eds sparked the most conversation this year:

1. The facts of climate progress are the antidote to pessimism

By Rick Smith, February 21

Rick Smith is the president of the Canadian Climate Institute, and he contributes a monthly column to Corporate Knights called Climate Progress. Smith trains a level eye on new developments in climate policy and the green economy, and our readers tend to pay close attention to what he’s saying. The broad theme this year is that when you look beyond the United States, there’s plenty to celebrate, and even on the state and municipal levels, things are looking up for sustainability implementation.

Read the op-ed

2. Radical reforms are needed to make MBAs a force for good

By Danny Parys, Oct 14

Capitalism itself is increasingly under fire, as widening wealth inequality, growing concentration of capital and deepening unaffordability push societies closer to open class conflict. Yet rarely do these critiques focus on the role of business education. This commentary by Danny Parys in Montreal struck a nerve.

Read the op-ed

3. Three big shifts that can transform and modernize Canada’s economy

By Ralph Torrie and Mitchell Beer, April 10

Here, Corporate Knights research director Ralph Torrie and Mitchell Beer, the editor-in-chief and publisher of The Energy Mix, have collaborated to produce an overview of Torrie’s Climate Dollars project, which provides a province-by-province transition plan to a net-zero economy by 2050.

Read the op-ed

4. Trump’s tariffs threaten Canada’s food security. It’s time to go local.

By Justin Abbiss, March 11

A lot is happening in agricultural innovation and food distribution, and we’re keen to follow not only the energy transition but also the shift toward a more regenerative, sustainable food system.

Read the op-ed

5. Just because Trump wants to kill DEI doesn’t mean CEOs should

By Shilpa Tiwari, January 20

The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion in business looked bleak at the start of the year, as high‑profile U.S. companies dismantled DEI teams under political pressure from Donald Trump and other anti‑equity agitators. Yet, as Shilpa Tiwari argues in this essay, DEI isn’t a political accessory but a core business survival strategy – and CEOs who retreat in the name of “neutrality” risk aligning themselves with a status quo built on exclusion.

Read the op-ed

The post These were our 10 most-read stories this past year appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Corporate Knights’ Sustainable Economy Intelligence provides business leaders and investors with the information they need to align their business strategies and portfolios with the opportunities in sustainable production that are driving global economic growth. By quantifying corporate revenues and expenditures that align with the sustainability transition, our data and analytical products provide our clients with the highly granular, internally consistent and comprehensive information they need to make the choices that will keep them on the leading edge of the global trend toward a sustainable economy.

Purpose. The purpose of the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy (CKSET) is to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy by providing an integrated global standard for identifying and quantifying company revenues and investments that are aligned with a sustainable economy, broadly defined as an economy in which the UN Sustainable Development Goals are achieved.

Scope. All economic activity that takes place anywhere is within the scope of CKSET. At Corporate Knights, CKSET has been applied to the products and services of more than 3,000 companies, including the companies in the MSCI ACWI, with data from 2019 forward to create a database of sustainable revenue and investment with more than 40,000 records. Sustainable investment includes capital expenditures, research and development, and acquisitions. A growing number of global companies use CKSET for their internal sustainability assessments and strategic planning analyses.

Organizing framework. CKSET defines sustainability using an easy-to-navigate, hierarchical framework consisting of nine top tiers and 85 secondary tiers covering all types of economic activity. Sustainable revenue and investment can be identified by any company for any tier of the economy, regardless of the company’s industrial classification.

Compatibility. CKSET adopts design principles and specific benchmarks from other taxonomies, including the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities, the Climate Bonds Taxonomy, the Taxonomy Roadmap of the Canadian Sustainable Finance Action Council and others. Corporate Knights maintains a watching brief and incorporates innovations from climate and sustainability taxonomies from around the world that are under development or in the field. For the EU taxonomy, a detailed concordance is maintained that specifies line-by-line alignment with CKSET, allowing data prepared for EU taxonomy reports to be incorporated into CKSET’s broader, global scope.

Limitation. CKSET defines products and services that are sustainability-aligned, but it does not include an assessment of the environment, social and governance (ESG) performance of the companies generating the sustainable revenue and investments. To evaluate ESG and other risks, CKSET should be used in concert with other evaluation and screening tools. At Corporate Knights, use of CKSET to identify sustainable investment and sustainable revenue is integrated into our Global 100 Methodology for systemically evaluating company sustainability against ESG key performance indicators and “red flag” screens for egregious corporate behaviour.

Design principles. A set of design principles and guidelines serves as a reference for the development of definitions and benchmarks incorporated in CKSET.

1. Best available technology. CKSET sets the gold standard for sustainable products and services by establishing science-based definitions and benchmarks for the highest possible level of alignment with a sustainable economy operating within planetary limits. Products and services that are misaligned with this objective are excluded from the taxonomy altogether, and for all others the starting point for defining alignment is “best available technology” that avoids carbon lock-in that is incompatible with science-based pathways for avoiding climate change exceeding 1.5 to 2°C.
2. Sustainability alignment. While the taxonomy puts forward definitions for what constitutes “sustainable” products and services, no specific technology or service offering is sustainable. Sustainability is an emergent property of the whole economy, and as such the best one can do in evaluating products, processes and services is to identify characteristics of those products, processes and services that are aligned with the achievement of a sustainable economy.
3. Pragmatic. There are few if any products or services that are perfectly aligned with sustainability, and so the selection of benchmarks and definitions requires setting priorities and accepting compromises. Given the immediacy of the climate emergency, there is a tendency to emphasize the greenhouse gas emission profile in establishing benchmarks, but CKSET endeavours to take a holistic approach to sustainability and covers social dimensions as well. The energy component of a sustainable economy, for example, would comprise highly efficient and convivial technologies matched in scale and quality to human energy needs that run on renewable energy; that generate no greenhouse gas emissions, no air or water pollution, no toxic or radioactive waste, and no waste heat; that protect and enhance biodiversity; that fail safely; that are manufactured under healthy working conditions with no forced labour; that distribute costs and benefits equitably among the current population and between the current and future population; that create no geopolitical risks; and that are 100% recyclable. Clearly, a working tool like CKSET with the goal of accelerating adoption of best practices must take a pragmatic approach to defining the standards by which products and services in the energy sector are deemed “sustainability aligned.”
4. Versatility and flexibility. Different types of economic production contribute to the sustainability transition in different ways, and this requires flexibility in the approach to the definitions and benchmarks that recognizes the issues that are material to sustainability for different types of economic activity. For electricity, energy- and resource-intensive primary products, agricultural and forestry products, and minerals, the emphasis is on the production footprint. For buildings, vehicles, equipment and infrastructure, the emphasis is on the footprint of the products. For products such as telecommunications and information technologies, the emphasis is on the extent to which they facilitate sustainability. For products and services that reduce consumption (e.g., energy efficiency, recycling, light-weighting and right-sizing, logistics innovations), the focus is on the extent to which they eliminate unsustainable production. For
   insurance and financial products, the emphasis is on the enabling of sustainable loans, investments and advisory services.
5. Radical transparency and verification. Radical transparency is a Corporate Knights core value. Data are provided with documentation of sources, methods and assumptions. Data used to qualify revenue and investments as aligned with CKSET must be available to Corporate Knights for independent verification. No imputed data is included in CKSET; all data is real and verified.
6. Use of certifications. Corporate Knights reviews hundreds of product certifications and accepts some of them as evidence of sustainability-aligned production. To be considered, a certification must have a fully disclosed, credible and stringent methodology; must require third-party verification; must require continuous requalification (preferably annually); must cover both outcomes and production processes; and must have a multi-stakeholder governance structure to guard against greenwashing. Certifications that pass all five of these screens are then assessed for whether they reflect sustainability-aligned production, and if so whether the certified production is counted as 100% sustainability-aligned or discounted.
7. Sustainable revenue versus sustainable investment. Whereas capital expenditures on any of the products defined as sustainability-aligned in CKSET qualify as sustainable investment, the ownership of sustainable products defined in the taxonomy does not necessarily lead to qualified sustainable revenue unless those products are central to the value creation of the business. For example, capital expenditures on emission-free vehicles qualify as sustainable investment, but owning emission-free vehicles does not result in qualified sustainable revenue except for companies in the business of providing passenger mobility or freight delivery. Similarly, if any business invests in a sustainable building, it qualifies as sustainable investment, but a business does not qualify to claim sustainable revenue by virtue of owning or occupying a sustainable building except for the hotel and accommodation industry or businesses that lease or manage real estate.
8. Supply chains count. All products and services that form part of the supply chain for sustainability-aligned products and services also qualify as sustainability-aligned. Examples include the percent of a tire manufacturer’s revenue resulting from sales of tires for electric vehicles, or the sales of a digital controls company to smart-grid or sustainable-building developers, or capital expenditures and related sales by a machine manufacturer to tool up for and provide gearbox components to a wind turbine manufacturer. By qualifying sustainable revenue and investment for these “behind the scenes” but critically important players, we are able to identify the sustainability leaders and laggards in all sectors of the economy and provide business intelligence that supports investors with diverse portfolios.
9. Financial products and services. In the special case of financial products and services, credit in the taxonomy is restricted to revenue and includes interest earned from loans that facilitate sustainable investments in other sectors, as well as revenue from investments, underwriting and advisory services that are sustainability-aligned, and environmental insurance premiums.

Revision and review. CKSET is a public document, accessible on the Corporate Knights website, and is central to both Corporate Knights’ data products and services and Corporate Knights’ various company ratings and rankings, including the Global 100. It is also integrated into the Corporate Knights online data portal, through which hundreds of global companies submit data and engage with Corporate Knights staff in the identification and verification of company sustainable economy performance. As such, the taxonomy is in daily use and subject to constant critical review by both CK staff and our engagement partners. Suggested revisions to the taxonomy are compiled and maintained in a development agenda, with input from:

• members of the Corporate Knights research team, each of whom have been assigned focus areas (portfolios) that align with the CKSET categories and for which they monitor current technology, business, national and supranational taxonomies, and policy developments that are relevant to the CKSET;
• industry contacts who engage with Corporate Knights in the process of providing data for their operations, and who often have suggestions for taxonomy revisions; and
• academic and subject-matter experts contacted by Corporate Knights for advice and assistance in formulating definitions and benchmarks for inclusion in the taxonomy.

At least once a year, the research team conducts a rigorous review of all the definitions and benchmarks in CKSET, confirming they are still fit for purpose based on the current scientific literature and state of disclosure. This definition review, combined with the development agenda of proposed taxonomy revisions, results in a set of candidate taxonomy changes that are subject to critical review and testing. The result is a set of documented recommendations for inclusion in a revised release of CKSET that is put before the CKSET Governance Committee for final review. Recommendations that are accepted by the Governance Committee (as modified according to their instructions) are then incorporated in a new release of CKSET, which is published along with documentation of all changes since the previous release.

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“You could hear a pin drop – not just in the Great Hall of Justice, but across thousands of homes, classrooms, and offices around the world tuned in to watch,” Christiana Figueres, the influential climate activist and a key architect of the Paris Agreement, wrote in a post on LinkedIn about the opinion delivered by Judge Iwasawa Yuji on July 23.

“In short, phasing out fossil fuel production is no longer only a scientific demand – it’s a legal imperative,” Natalie Jones, a policy adviser for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, wrote. “A state’s fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, granting of fossil fuel exploration licenses, and the provision of fossil fuel subsidies may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that state.”

But will countries Russia, Saudi Arabia or China pay attention to the ruling? Yes, Figueres later wrote: “Even if this opinion is not binding, it clarifies and consolidates existing legal duties. It strengthens the legal foundation upon which more and more climate litigation is being built, and it gives moral and jurisprudential weight to the demands of citizens, youth, and vulnerable nations.”

“The highest UN court made it clear that climate issues are inherently linked to international law and human rights, and that past and present responsibilities for its consequences can be attributed,” Ana Toni, CEO of the COP30 climate conference in Brazil, wrote. “The opinion also leaves no doubt that, although climate change affects everyone, its most vulnerable victims have faces, colors, genders, and nationalities.”

Read more excerpts from posts written by climate lawyers, scholars and activists responding to the ICJ opinion:

Legal wings

Today, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), delivered the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on climate change.

It is the most far-reaching legal statement ever made on the responsibility of states to protect the rights of current and future generations to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

And it is the clearest legal affirmation to date that cooperation among states to address climate change is not optional – it is a binding obligation.

I confess I am writing through tears. With each increasingly bold sentence from the Court, my mind and heart turned to my beloved colleagues at the UNFCCC UN Climate Change Secretariat who worked tirelessly from 2010 to 2015 to bring the Paris Agreement to life. To each of you, my deepest gratitude once again. You didn’t just make history then – you laid the very path that allowed the ICJ to make history today.

I also thought of the 27 Pacific Island law students – visionaries who first dared to imagine this moment. As the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, they mobilized the government of Vanuatu, then others, until 130 governments formally brought this request before the Court via a resolution of the United Nations. Those students – now lawyers, organizers, public servants – are surely crying too today. Their courage and perseverance have changed the legal landscape. And they’ve lit a fire of hope for young people everywhere.

And I thought of the vast network of lawyers, activists, scholars, and diplomats who carried this effort over political, legal, and diplomatic thresholds – driven by love for our common home. Their joy is as profound as their achievement.

The road ahead remains steep. But today’s Advisory Opinion gives legal wings to countless efforts already underway – and to many more to come. We now walk forward not just with moral clarity, but with judicial affirmation.

This is a day for the history books. And a day for renewed resolve. —Christiana Figueres, global climate leader and co-host of the Outrage + Optimism podcast (Read post)

Read our interview with Christiana Figueres from the spring 2025 edition of the magazine:

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Persuasive authority

While not legally binding per se, this Advisory Opinion carries significant legal and political weight. The Opinion interprets binding international law to which countries have already committed. Courts are likely to treat this Opinion as a persuasive authority, and it will impact rulings that have binding effect under national or regional legal systems. —Andreas Rasche, professor and associate dean, Copenhagen Business School (Read post)

Stopping at a red light

Until yesterday it was not entirely clear that passing through a red light was illegal. But now, thanks to the Advisory Opinion, all drivers (States and private actors) know that driving without care and passing through a red light can be illegal. Does that mean that from one day to the other all drivers will stop at a red light? No, but they will think twice about it. If you are a responsible driver (State or private actor) you now know that: a) you have to stop at the red light and b) you will face a penalty if you pass through the red light. —Francesco Sindico, professor of international environmental law, University of Strathclyde Law School (Read post)

The work ahead

As a climate change lawyer who’s helped shape arguments in these very proceedings, I know this is just the beginning. The hard work now lies in: translating this clarity into domestic legal systems; building litigation and compliance strategies that reflect these standards; ensuring that vulnerable communities can access and benefit from this global legal shift. The ICJ has given the world a new foundation. Now we build on it. —Anushree Tripathi, climate change lawyer (Read post)

Read more of our stories on the legal battle for climate justice and accountability:

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The post Experts react to the ICJ’s landmark opinion on climate change appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“This is our moment of opportunity to build the energy system of the 21st century, meet the world’s surging electricity demand sustainably, [and] use trade, investment and finance to supercharge a just energy transition,” Guterres said.

This forceful assertion of clean energy’s ascendance coincides with a new ruling by the International Court of Justice, which found that governments that fail to curb the production and consumption of fossil fuels could be in breach of international law. The court also determined that historical emitters like Canada have a greater responsibility to address the climate crisis.

Mark Carney’s Liberal government, confronted by an unpredictable yet persistent trade war with the United States, enacted its One Canadian Economy Act on June 26. The act introduces two pieces of legislation that seek to break down interprovincial trade barriers and accelerate approvals for major projects that would increase Canada’s economic independence from its southern neighbour.

While fossil fuel projects like pipelines have dominated the public conversation, both the urgency of the accelerating climate crisis and the clear trends toward renewable-energy dominance in global energy systems suggest that Canada’s best opportunities lie in electrification.

To discuss these opportunities and how Canada can build on its strengths, Ralph Torrie, director of research at Corporate Knights, and Frederick Morency, vice president of sustainability at Schneider Electric, held a live discussion on Thursday, July 24. Watch the full conversation here.

Canada’s advantages in electrification: experience and expertise

There’s no shortage of opportunities, the panellists agreed. “The transition to a sustainable energy system is generating a huge spectrum of opportunities all along supply chains,” Torrie said.

Canada is the world’s seventh-largest electricity producer, of which more than 85% comes from non-emitting sources. The country’s electrical industry specializes in grid technology, power electronics, cleantech and energy efficiency, as well as a history of leadership in artificial intelligence.

“We have built one of the biggest electrical infrastructures in the world,” Morency said. “Electricity is going to be the blood of our economy for decades to come.”

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Canada is one of the only countries in the world that claims a wide diversity of electricity systems, Torrie noted. Within Canada’s borders are different generating systems, different regulatory approaches and different market structures from one province to another.

Altogether, this variety provides a broad scope of experience and expertise. “We need to think strategically about how we can take the electricity industry in this country and turn that into an integrated, collaborative and coordinated effort to offer this experience and these services to the rest of the world,” Torrie suggested.

For example, Canada has lots of experience providing electricity to remote communities, and that’s still a big issue in parts of the world.

Another area of strength lies in smart buildings and smart infrastructure, Torrie said. “We have some of the biggest commercial building landlords in the world. One of the key components of this transition is that we’re going to see the emergence of some very smart buildings,” he said.

“The system that’s emerging is multi-directional for transferring information,” Torrie said. “That’s an area that’s growing like gangbusters, and Canadian companies own many buildings around the world.”

Next steps: grid interconnection and energy efficiency

In order to build on our strengths in electrification and assume leadership in the energy transition, “we need to lean into the expansion of our renewable electricity supply,” Torrie argued. “In Canada, that means wind.”

Canada is too far north for solar to do the heavy lifting, and there isn’t enough hydroelectricity available for development to meet our future demands. “You could do it with nuclear, but the cost goes so high,” Torrie said. “You’re left with the conclusion that we need a large supply of wind power.”

But to generate wind power at the scale we need to satisfy Canada’s renewable-energy requirements, we need a trans-Canada high-voltage DC transmission line, Torrie said. “It can save literally $150 to $200 billion in the cost of the transition if we’re interconnected as opposed to continuing with the provinces that are balkanized with their independent grids all trying to decarbonize independently.”

Another important area of growth, Morency suggested, is energy efficiency. While provincial premiers are starting to put energy efficiency at the centre of their investments and strategies, “we are behind other nations in the world when it comes to [these] measures,” Morency said. “This is our biggest opportunity.”

Electrification itself is an incredibly powerful efficiency measure, Torrie pointed out. Electric vehicles use a quarter of the energy per kilometre per travel that internal combustion engines do; heat pumps use a fifth of the energy of a gas furnace. “It’s our number-one efficiency option.”

Frederick Morency has been with Schneider Electric for more than 25 years and is the quarterback for Sustainability in Canada, guiding net-zero actions across the company’s operations and value chain and supporting customers’ sustainability journeys.

Ralph Torrie is an expert in the field of energy and environment with 30 years of entrepreneurial and consulting experience that includes hundreds of initiatives in research, business development and advocacy.

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