The Asia Pacific 50 Most Sustainable Corporations ranking spotlights unique sustainability sectors throughout the eastern hemisphere: green finance and electric vehicles in China, wind power in India, hydroelectricity in New Zealand and advanced high-speed rail in Taiwan.

The average sustainable revenue among the companies on Corporate Knights’ Asia 50 ranking was 65.5%, notes Michael Yow, Corporate Knights’ director of rankings. By comparison, the iShares Asia 50 ETF, which tracks the S&P Asia 50 Index, had an average sustainable revenue of only 3.8%. “This disparity suggests that investors using conventional large-cap benchmarks may be significantly underexposed to companies generating revenue from sustainable economic activities, despite the growing materiality of sustainability-related risks and opportunities among Asian companies,” Yow says.

How the ranking was made

To compose the list, Corporate Knights researchers rank publicly listed companies with more than US$1 billion in revenue based on their sustainability performance. Three key questions guide their analysis: To what extent are a company’s investments geared toward sustainability? Where does its sustainable revenue come from? And how fast is its sustainable revenue growing?

To answer these questions, the Corporate Knights research group relies on three equally weighted indicators: the share of revenue from sustainable products and services; the share of investments directed toward sustainable projects; and what they call “sustainable revenue momentum,” which is the compound annual growth rate in sustainable revenue from 2022 to 2024. This last metric was introduced to the Corporate Knights sustainability rankings this year, to reflect the urgency of the energy transition and the shift to a green economy.

Companies can also earn a bonus of up to 5% for linking CEO pay to sustainability targets. Alternatively, they face deductions of up to 5% each for legal sanctions and workplace fatalities. Companies are benchmarked against industry peers across 64 groupings.

The top company for 2026

Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC) tops this year’s Asia 50 ranking – and not only because nearly all its revenues come from its low-carbon, high-speed rail service. Over the past year the company stepped up investments in its electrified network, completing major extensions, replacements and upgrades. Its revenue rose from 37 billion Taiwan dollars in 2022 to TWD 53 billion in 2024, driven by its consistently strong performance in the operation and management of its rail lines.

THSRC has ranked in the top 5% of listed companies in the Corporate Governance Evaluation, an annual assessment by the Taiwan Stock Exchange, for eight consecutive years, and has been a persistent selection for the FTSE4Good TIP Taiwan ESG Index, which tracks Taiwanese companies with stronger-than-average environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, since 2018. It has also become a regular presence on the Corporate Knights Global 100, placing fifth in 2025 and 2026 and fourth in 2024.

THSRC’s inherently low-carbon business model is only part of the story: it also uses measurable and improving environmental key performance indicators for its energy consumption, water conservation and waste recycling – reports transparently in line with global standards. Even though its trains are all-electric, Taiwan’s grid is largely powered by coal and natural gas, so THSRC discloses its greenhouse gas emissions with third-party verification and works to cut its carbon intensity. THSRC has also installed solar panels at some of its stations and depots to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations.

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But THSRC isn’t the only company that stands out from the list. Looking closely at the inaugural Asia Pacific 50 Most Sustainable Corporations, several stories emerge.

The fast track

Among the three companies with the highest sustainable compound annual growth rate (CAGR), one finances renewable-energy generation and the other two make electric vehicles.

1. Industrial Bank Co. Ltd. (#16), commonly known as CIB, significantly expanded its renewables portfolio over the past year, aggressively financing large-scale wind and solar projects under its “All-Green” strategy. Headquartered in Fuzhou, Fujian, CIB deploys green bonds and specialized credit lines to support China’s carbon-neutrality goals. The bank’s green loans are growing faster than traditional corporate loans, reflecting a strategic pivot toward sustainable infrastructure. As China’s first bank to adopt the Equator Principles for environmental and social risk management, CIB has prioritized clean energy over high-emission industries and integrated ESG metrics into its core credit-approval process. CIB’s sustainable revenue momentum stands out because while its sustainable revenue ratio is only 7%, its CAGR is 132%.
2. Seres (#26) is part of China’s new crop of automotive stars, even though it was founded almost four decades ago. Based in Chongqing, the company started out making components for shock absorbers and household appliances. But in the mid-2010s, its parent company, now known as Seres Group, launched a vehicle-manufacturing arm, and in 2019 Seres rolled out its first EV, the SF5. Although that debut met with only muted market response, Seres has since partnered with Huawei Technologies to co-develop better-selling Aito-branded EVs. Seres saw its revenue increase in 2024 by more than 300%; this past year brought more strong performance, with higher margins and increased investment in research and development.
3. Li Auto Inc. (#10) is coming off a hard year, which saw the pioneering EV company deliver 19% fewer vehicles than 2024. The downshift followed several years of high demand for its extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which carry small gas-powered engines to top up the battery, and where the carmaker had been an early leader. But as competition heats up and technology improves for more affordable battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), Li Auto is fighting to retain its leadership position. The company plans to double down on EREVs while still transitioning to BEVs.

The waste-to-wealth winner

Among companies at the forefront of the circular economy, the Australian supply-chain logistics company Brambles Ltd. (#9) stands out for its “share and reuse” system for pallets, crates and containers. This model eliminates the need for customers to purchase and manage their own equipment, instead allowing them to borrow standardized platforms and then return them for reconditioning and redistribution. The company’s pooling approach also offers a sustainability advantage: shared assets reduce the total number of pallets and containers in circulation, thereby cutting down on waste, deforestation and carbon emissions compared to traditional pallets and crates.

The transition enabler

Looking at banks with high sustainable lending, Taiwan’s Chang Hwa Commercial Bank Ltd. (#42) is exceptional, with a CAGR of 48% thanks to its marked increase in lending to renewable-energy, circular‑economy and low‑carbon-manufacturing projects. Chang Hwa has set a target to phase out investment and financing for coal and unconventional fossil fuels by 2040. Notably, this 120-year-old bank also ranked 42nd on the World’s Safest Banks 2025: Emerging Markets Top 50 by Global Finance, thanks to its strong balance sheet and conservative risk profile.

The long-game player

We looked for companies with small sustainable revenue but high sustainable investment to see who’s leaning hardest into the green shift. StarHub (#50) showed that targeted, long-term investment – not revenue growth alone – defines value. The Singapore-based telecommunications company has channelled capital into cloud transformation, renewable energy and cybersecurity, and backed this up with science‑based climate targets, long‑term renewable power-purchase agreements and executive pay tied directly to ESG performance.

The pure-play behemoth

When you’re near the ocean, you keep an eye out for whales. Likewise, on a ranking like this, it’s interesting to look out for the big pure-play companies with high sustainable revenue and investment. One major standout in the clean-energy revolution is LG Energy Solution (#14), the battery arm of LG Corp., which has grown its manufacturing business by securing long-term supply agreements with major global automakers including General Motors, Stellantis and Hyundai. LG now boasts joint-venture gigafactories in North America and Europe alongside Asia to meet surging demand. The company has also capitalized on the rapid global build-out of grid-scale and commercial energy storage, emerging as one of the leading suppliers for utilities and renewable projects.

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The GMT was designed inside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over many years to ensure that large multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay at least a 15% effective tax rate wherever they operate. For years, governments have competed to attract investment by lowering corporate tax rates or offering incentives. The GMT is an effort to set a floor beneath that competition. The rules allow governments to collect “top-up” taxes if a company’s effective rate in a particular jurisdiction falls below 15%. They do this through three core tools: the “income inclusion rule,” the “undertaxed profits rule” and the “qualified domestic minimum top-up tax.”

It is “the first time we’ve seen a globally coordinated tax system of this scale,” says Cory Perry, a partner in Grant Thornton’s Washington National Tax Office. More than 50 countries have adopted similar rules, marking a shift from the long-standing model in which each country independently designed its corporate tax regime. The GMT is not just a technical adjustment to international tax rules; it marks a shift in how nations compete, how corporations plan and how value is measured across borders.

Canada has already moved from discussion to implementation. The Global Minimum Tax Act (GMTA), enacted in late 2024, applies to MNEs with at least €750 million in global consolidated revenue in two of the previous four fiscal years. For these organizations, the question is no longer whether the rules matter; it’s how they will adapt their reporting and internal systems to comply. The Canada Revenue Agency opened registration for the GMTA in October 2025, but the official “GloBE Information Return” form is still pending. The first reporting deadline is June 30, 2026.

Harry Chana, a cross-border tax services leader at BDO Canada, points to “confusion when it comes to regulations within the act that are relatively ambiguous” and which are generating unexpected impacts. For example, once a parent company’s global revenue passes the MNE threshold, the Canadian entity is automatically brought within scope.

Another misconception Chana highlights is the assumption that Canada’s relatively high corporate tax rates will shield companies from the new rules. “When you work through the actual rules and the complexities around how to calculate the 15%, in many cases it could apply to Canadian companies,” he says. Incentives and credits can lower a company’s effective rate below the threshold, making it subject to top-up calculations. For many businesses, this change will mean retooling accounting systems, building new data pipelines and preparing for higher administrative and compliance costs.

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The global picture

Wesley Boldewijn, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in Amsterdam who advises multinational clients across Europe, describes GMT implementation as uneven and complicated. “Every country is implementing the OECD framework in its own way, creating a patchwork of interpretations,” he says. “This means large companies may now face a more complex compliance environment that may result in higher taxes, double taxation and the challenge of applying multiple reporting standards within one organization. Some multinationals may end up paying more in fees to advisory firms to implement and monitor these new tax rules than they currently pay in top-up tax.”

Some companies are responding by restructuring their subsidiaries to consolidate taxable profit in jurisdictions where calculations are predictable. Others are weighing the value of tax incentives that could, under the GMT, have the opposite of their intended effect. The incentive landscape is already shifting: countries are moving away from direct tax breaks and toward refundable credits that preserve competitiveness while staying within the GMT’s guardrails.

According to Abdul Muheet Chowdhary of the South Centre, in the United Kingdom, “the GMT has virtually no benefits” for developing countries and may even increase reliance on subsidies in place of traditional tax incentives. Tommaso Faccio, head of the Secretariat of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, sees the core issue as the rate itself. He argues that the floor should be 25% instead. Still, some lower- and middle-income countries have begun adopting the minimum, particularly where tax incentives have historically drained public revenue.

The politics behind the GMT

Recent G7 discussions signalled that U.S. companies may be treated differently under a “side-by-side” framework that acknowledges the United States’ own minimum tax regime. That raised questions abroad about whether the GMT still ensures a level playing field. The European Union has moved forward with broad implementation, while U.S. policymakers have voiced concerns, proposed carve-outs and in some cases sought to undermine adoption entirely.

Perry, with Grant Thornton, stresses that for many companies, the real challenge isn’t the tax itself. “What we’re seeing for many companies is that the impact is less about an increased tax burden and more about an increased compliance burden,” he says. Even companies that do not owe significant top-up taxes must reengineer parts of their planning systems, gather new data inputs and prepare to file returns in multiple jurisdictions. “In practice, it is often more of a resource strain than a cash tax strain,” Perry notes.

Certain sectors feel the effects more acutely. Infrastructure companies, for example – those operating in energy, transportation, utilities or water – rely on long-term investments, regulated returns and complex financing arrangements. These features interact with the GMT’s country-by-country effective tax rate calculations in ways that can produce unexpected results. Some organizations are already preparing for increased deferred tax adjustments and expanded disclosure requirements in financial statements.

The takeaway for multinational businesses is straightforward: start now. Map global structures, evaluate jurisdictional effective tax rates, test financing and revenue models, and plan for increased interaction with regulators and investors. The rules are still evolving, and transitional uncertainty will likely last years. But waiting will only make compliance harder.

Gordon Feller is a writer based in San Francisco.

The post What the new global tax regime means for companies appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The country feeds nearly 20% of the global population, but must do so with less than 9% of its arable land and only 6% of its water resources, according to Reuters. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and more frequent droughts and floods are battering Chinese agriculture, jeopardizing decades of food self-sufficiency policy. Wheat, rice and maize – the cornerstones of the country’s food system – are increasingly exposed to climate shocks.

“Climate change poses a severe threat to China’s food security,” former agriculture minister Tang Renjian said in early 2024, noting that extreme weather events have already reduced yields in several major grain-producing provinces. In the same year, the Ministry of Agriculture warned that “unusual changes in temperature and rainfall can slow down the growth of food crops, resulting in a drop in the average yield of grains.”

China’s agricultural sector is uniquely sensitive to climate change. The northern plains, home to a majority of China’s wheat production, are becoming hotter and drier. The southern provinces, which grow much of the country’s rice, are increasingly prone to flooding. According to the China Meteorological Administration, average national temperatures have risen faster than the global average, climbing more than 1.6°C since the 1950s.

The country has managed to preserve about 95% self-sufficiency in wheat for nearly two decades. But climate stress is forcing new strategies to the fore, both in agricultural practices and in international trade.

To address growing risks, the Chinese government has embedded climate adaptation directly into its agricultural-reform agenda. The country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021 to 2025) prioritizes investments in water-saving irrigation, climate-resilient seeds, precision farming technologies and early-warning systems for extreme weather.

In addition to bolstering domestic yields, China is hedging its food security by deepening trade relations along its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) network, especially with countries in the Global South, to secure grain from a broader base of suppliers.

China seeks to limit agricultural imports

Wheat has historical and cultural roots that run deep in China, and the stakes for maintaining supply stability are high. The country consumes more than 130 million tonnes of wheat annually, largely to produce staples like noodles, dumplings and steamed buns. While the bulk of demand is met by domestic harvests, higher-end processed foods increasingly rely on imported wheat with specific quality characteristics – particularly from countries like Canada, France, Australia and the United States.

But as Trump’s universal tariffs strategy demonstrates, trade relations are anything but predictable.

In 2019, Canada was China’s leading supplier of imported wheat. By mid-2020, that changed dramatically. The diplomatic row over the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou led to a sharp drop in Canadian wheat purchases, down from more than 50% of imports in 2019 to just 15% by mid-2020. The influential online Chinese media portal Sohu blamed “wrong decisions” made by Canada for the souring of trade ties.

Australia, once a beneficiary of Canada’s fall from favour, has seen its own wheat exports face heightened inspections in China. While this hasn’t triggered a formal ban, it’s a sign that bilateral tensions can quickly spill into food trade.

These shifting trade patterns highlight a deeper strategic calculus. China wants to limit its dependence on Western suppliers for food staples, just as it has for semiconductors and energy. Expanding partnerships with emerging economies such as Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Brazil are a cornerstone of this plan.

Challenges for China’s agricultural productivity

Meanwhile, internal agricultural productivity is under stress. In a 2022 report, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences estimated that climate-related yield reductions could amount to 5% to 10% by 2030 under current warming trends. One study estimated that China’s key cereal crops could lose around 2.6% yield per degree Celsius of warming, with more vulnerable regions facing up to 12.7% loss per degree across wheat, rice and maize. Another study with different crop modelling – in this case without carbon dioxide fertilization – projected up to 37% yield decline within decades if warming continues unchecked.

For a country where 1.4 billion people depend on food-system stability, even small disruptions can cascade.

China isn’t short on ambition to use technology to solve big problems. It leads the world in the development of hybrid rice varieties and is rapidly digitizing its farm sector with satellite monitoring, AI-driven pest prediction and big-data analytics for yield forecasting. Other innovations come from its “Smart Agriculture” program, which integrates advanced tools such as sensors, drones and blockchain technology into the food supply chain.

Historical memory still shapes China’s focus on food security, especially the famine of 1958 to 1962 that led to the deaths of an estimated 15 to 55 million people – one of the deadliest disasters of the 20th century. While today’s threats are different, the possibility of disruption carries echoes of the past. The Chinese government’s commitment to self-reliance now finds new motivation in the science of climate change.

Gordon Feller is a writer based in San Francisco.

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