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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By one estimate, Nvidia provides the hardware for more than 70% of the market for AI chips, and estimates from 2023/2024 suggested it was previously closer to 95%. This is because Nvidia chips are exceptionally efficient, performing the heavy computational tasks required for machine learning at a much lower energy threshold than common computer chips.

“This year we created a definition for sustainability in AI hardware based on energy processing per unit,” explains Michael Yow, director of rankings at Corporate Knights. The sustainability threshold used by Corporate Knights is measured in gigaFLOPS (floating-point operations per second) per watt, the number of computations performed per watt of energy. The threshold was first established by the Green500, a ranking in which Nvidia’s Grace Hopper chips power seven of the top 10 most energy-efficient supercomputer systems.

As a result, $75 billion of Nvidia’s 2025 revenues – about 57% of the total – was deemed sustainable according to the Corporate Knights methodology. That sustainable revenue was not only one of the largest gross totals in the ranking; it was also among the fastest growing, registering 123.5% growth since 2022. (All figures in U.S. dollars.)

The environmental impact of data centres populated with millions of these chips is increasingly well understood. One study in December reported that current AI infrastructure has roughly the carbon footprint of the city of New York (about 80 billion tons) and that its collective water use is in the range of the global bottled water industry (765 billion litres).

But these figures pale in comparison to the potential future impact. Last September, OpenAI’s Sam Altman issued an internal memo saying the company’s “audacious long-term goal is to build 250 gigawatts of capacity by 2033.” An analysis from Truthdig found that this would put ChatGPT’s energy use on par with India’s 1.5 billion people, which, depending how that energy is sourced, could produce carbon emissions twice that of ExxonMobil, currently one of the largest non-state emitters in the world.

Nvidia is the primary supplier of the chips populating OpenAI’s data centres, and the two companies recently announced a partnership to continue to build out this infrastructure.

The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight

The power sources

There is an irony to all this: the scale of these operations and their environmental impact is almost exclusively a result of the resource efficiency of Nvidia’s chips. Data centre operations for AI would be impossible if they relied on general-purpose servers. It’s the efficiency of Nvidia’s chips that has enabled this “insatiable demand” for computing power. This phenomenon, known as Jevons paradox, has a historical precedent: coal. In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that the more efficiently the industrial revolution’s primary fuel source could be used, the greater the demand grew.

In the United States, it’s estimated that AI data centres could account for as much as 12% of all energy consumption by 2028. Where is that power coming from? A 2025 report from the International Energy Agency found that coal currently accounts for about 30% of electricity generation for AI data centres globally, mostly in China and the United States. Renewables – wind, solar and hydro – account for 27%, and natural gas accounts for 26% (40% in the United States).

Corporate Knights’ Yow points out that Nvidia as a company cannot be held responsible for the power sources of the AI industry, even if its chips do make up much of its infrastructure. “Would we be having this conversation if all the electricity was 100% carbon-free?” he asks. “The problem is not with the product but rather with the lack of planning and faster deployment of renewable energy.”

Because of the outsized electrical needs, AI companies are exploring options for generating their own on-site power. Altman has, for example, personally invested in a start-up developing nuclear fusion, the holy grail of renewable power generation, and his company has joined the likes of Google, Microsoft and Amazon to invest in small modular nuclear reactor technology. Nevertheless, the most common on-site power sources at present are fossil fuels. At OpenAI’s Stargate facility under construction in West Texas, one of the largest in the world, they are currently deploying dozens of turbines adapted from aircraft engines.

That data centre is populated with Nvidia chips and operated by OpenAI and Oracle. Though the majority of Nvidia chips are not in Nvidia-owned or -operated data centres, the company reported that all offices and data centres under its control are powered exclusively by renewable energy and that it purchases additional carbon-free electricity to cover 100% of the footprint of its leased data centres.

The optimistic outlook

Nvidia has taken measures to address the water consumption at its own data centres, which use it to cool overheating servers. In its 2025 annual sustainability report, the company said it conducts annual water-risk assessments near all its facilities. Its sites in Santa Clara, California, and Hyderabad, India, have water treatment facilities so wastewater can be used for landscape irrigation. The company is also introducing closed-loop liquid cooling systems to reduce water use, and the Blackwell computing architecture – the successor to the Grace Hopper chips – is 300 times more water efficient than air-cooled architecture. (This does not address water use during manufacturing, however, which relies on ultra-pure jets of water to etch the silicone wafers, becoming contaminated in the process. Nor does it pertain to the data centres Nvidia does not control or operate.) A Nvidia spokesperson declined to participate in this story beyond referencing existing company communications.

Those bullish on the prospect of an AI-optimized future will argue that the environmental impact of AI itself will be dwarfed by the efficiencies the expansion of these systems will allow. On one blog, Nvidia cited reports looking at projected U.S. energy demand into 2035. If AI applications are “fully realized,” estimates suggest it could save nearly 2,500 petajoules of energy – about 25% of the entire country’s energy use in 2023.

Such savings would be transformative, and there is a much wider range of environmental applications that AI might come to revolutionize: wildfire detection and management, global climate simulations and extreme weather modelling, electrical grid applications to manage fires and outages, wildlife population tracking, materials science for cleantech applications, and other conservation or carbon-reduction efforts.

To date, the economy-altering value of these companies has been largely measured against their future potential, even as the imminent costs of doing business continue to mount. The environmental balance sheet isn’t so different.

Tristan Bronca is a magazine writer and editor based in Newmarket, Ontario.

The post There’s a paradox at the heart of Nvidia’s sustainability performance appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Adding insult to injury, Trump has moved to roll back funding for the industry, tried to halt new wind projects (a federal judge later vacated the pause), and delayed $25 billion worth of already-approved offshore wind projects that were set to provide electricity to millions of households. “Windmills,” Trump said in August, “we’re just not going to allow them. They are ruining the country.”

It is in this adverse context that the seven wind companies on Corporate Knights’ Global 100 ranking are operating, and it is worth noting that nearly all continued to grow their wind installations around the world through 2025.

ERG achieves balanced growth

The top-ranked company this year was ERG, an Italian power generator based in Genoa. Founded in 1938, the company bought up oil refineries through the middle of the last century. In the early 2000s, ERG launched a renewables arm, rapidly grew that side of the business, and finally sold off the last of its fossil fuel assets in 2024 to become a “pure play” wind and solar operator. According to its 2024 sustainability report, about 92% of the company’s energy output comes from wind power; the other 8% comes from solar.

Italy’s ERG proves you can trade oil for renewables and win

Despite offloading its oil and gas facilities, ERG’s power output increased about 25% between 2022 and 2024, from 4,460 gigawatt-hours to 5,992. “ERG not only weathered the downside, but they were also able to increase the amount of electricity they generated and sold,” notes Michael Yow, the director of rankings for Corporate Knights. “It’s a pretty impressive management feat.”

ERG has pursued a strategy of regional diversification, building and buying wind assets in nine European countries and in the United States, where it acquired a 75% stake in a 224.4 megawatt wind farm in Iowa and a 92.4 megawatt solar plant in Illinois in 2023.

Before Trump, the United States was a good place to undertake wind projects. The World Wind Energy Association reports that the country added 2.1 gigawatts of wind-power capacity in the first half of 2025, trailing only India and China. The added capacity came mainly from project pipelines secured under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and much of this growth is threatened by policy changes under the Trump administration. Analysis from Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association (ACP) found that ”regulatory uncertainty drove turbine orders down 50% in the first half of 2025.”

The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight

The unpredictability in the United States has prompted ERG to take a more cautious approach. The company’s strategy now focuses on acquiring working assets with existing power purchase agreements and projects already financed through tax credits. More broadly, ERG describes its growth plan as “value over volume,” concentrating on countries where it already operates and upgrading existing installations with better equipment.

“Since 2021, ERG has nearly doubled its asset portfolio, growing from approximately 2.1 gigawatts to nearly four gigawatts of installed capacity,” CEO Paolo Merli says. “This result was achieved through a balanced mix of organic developments and acquisitions.”

Plenty of runway for growth

Of all the wind companies on the Global 100 list, Ørsted (#9) has been most affected by the difficult market in the United States, where setbacks on U.S. projects forced it to cut about 2,000 jobs, or a quarter of its workforce, and focus on European projects. Wind companies like Ørsted that primarily develop offshore projects have struggled more than onshore wind developers because installing turbines in coastal waters requires a specialized global supply chain that’s more vulnerable to bottlenecks and disruptions. As one of the cheapest ways to produce power, onshore wind is an easier sell, though offshore enjoys its own advantages, like more reliable wind speeds.

There are signs the industry is experiencing a rebound, however. The United Kingdom has recently concluded a record-breaking auction for long-term price contracts for electricity from offshore wind, enabling the construction of 8.4 gigawatts of new capacity. That’s enough to power the equivalent of more than 12 million homes, according to statements by the U.K. government, which also said the agreed prices were 40% lower than the cost of building and operating a new gas power plant. “It’s good to see that we’re back on track, and we’re seeing substantial allocations coming through again, which is what the industry really needed,” says Jonathan Cole, CEO of offshore wind developer Corio Generation.

China has far outpaced other markets in adding wind capacity, installing 51.4 gigawatts of wind capacity in the first half of 2025. Other Asian markets like South Korea, the Philippines and Japan have introduced new frameworks for permitting offshore wind projects. Suzlon Energy, a wind turbine manufacturer based in India, is new to this year’s ranking and took 10th spot. The company reported 74% revenue growth in the last quarter of 2025. On January 27, Suzlon announced it had won a major order from ArcelorMittal for 248.85 megawatts of wind energy to make low-carbon steel at its facilities in India. This is the wind-turbine manufacturer’s fourth such order for decarbonizing steel production over the past 12 months.

Even in the United States, four of the five offshore wind projects that were hit by federal stop-work orders in December have since been unpaused and the efforts to block them overturned in federal courts. So far in 2026, the logic of wind development is proving more durable than last year’s “vibe shift” against renewables.

Tristan Bronca is a magazine writer and editor based in Newmarket, Ontario.

With files by Mark Mann.

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This was the animating spirit of the new methodology behind the Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking. The revised methodology introduces “sustainable revenue momentum” to measure how fast companies are growing their sustainable revenues. This metric now accounts for one-third of a company’s score, with overall sustainable revenues and sustainable investments accounting for the other two-thirds.

“We’re firing a shot across the bow that speed matters,” Corporate Knights CEO Toby Heaps says.

A change of method

The new momentum metric marks a broader shift in the ranking methodology. Last year, sustainable revenues and investments together accounted for 50% of the score, and the other 50% was scored across 22 common environmental, governance and social performance indicators (KPIs) such as water use, emissions, workplace fatalities, and diversity on the board and among executives.

The change has reordered the deck in a big way. The revenue growth criteria helped Pandora, a popular Danish jewellery manufacturer, shoot up from 48th spot in the 2025 rankings to number two.

The companies in fourth and sixth place – Fluence Energy, the maker of utility-scale battery energy storage systems headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and the Denver-based healthcare company DaVita Inc. – are both new to the ranking. Seven other U.S. companies joined the G100 this year, bringing the U.S. total to 20, the most of any country. “[It’s] an interesting rebuttal,” Heaps points out, “to the noise that the United States is bailing on the sustainable economy.”

For fairness, some energy companies were granted a temporary act-of-war exemption from the momentum criteria. The provision is necessary, Heaps says, to prevent companies from being penalized for distortions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which drove prices sharply higher in 2022 before they fell again in 2024.

The G100 leader, ERG SpA, an Italian power generation company, rose dramatically from 18 to number one. Even amid the extreme wartime volatility and the sale of all its fossil fuel assets, ERG managed to increase its power output from wind and solar sources by more than 2,000 gigawatt-hours between 2022 and 2024.

Overall, 33 companies from last year’s ranking failed to make this year’s list, and four were no longer eligible either because they went private or their revenues fell under $1 billion, while 37 new companies entered the ranking. Only two companies – Ørsted, the power generator out of Denmark, ranked ninth, and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp, ranked fifth – retained their positions from last year.

A dramatic departure?

The big changes may seem to signify a dramatic departure, but the designers of the methodology disagree. The rankings retain the same exclusionary screens and flags captured by many of the previous KPIs. For example, companies that register workplace fatalities, fines, et cetera, are penalized or excluded as they were in the past. The ranking also retains quotas for various industries so that manufacturers compete on the same sustainability terms as other manufacturers, banks against banks, wind and solar companies against other renewable-energy providers, and so on.

“What really matters to us is the contribution [these companies] are making to the low-carbon economy,” says Michael Yow, the director of rankings for Corporate Knights. According to Yow, the new streamlined methodology at once simplifies and standardizes reporting while differentiating the rankings from other international lists.

“In terms of performance, the G100 companies are back in top form, beating the benchmark MSCI AWCI index over the past year,” Heaps says, referring to a stock market index of 85% of global investable equities across almost 50 countries. He adds that the G100 underperformed the financial benchmark in recent years because of the Russia/Ukraine war, which led to spikes in oil prices, higher interest rates and increased military spending, improving the fortunes of companies excluded from the G100 list.

Sustainable revenues account for up to 61% of total revenues for ranked companies, versus just 17.3% for all other publicly listed companies. And despite it being a much larger chunk of their business, sustainable revenues for G100 companies are growing on average at double the rate of all their other revenues.

That momentum matters more than ever. The target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C has fallen conclusively out of reach, and the consequences from each additional 10th of a degree of warming are compounding exponentially. At the same time, the race to seize the opportunities from the green transition is heating up. G100 companies see the future and they’re moving toward it – some faster than others.

Tristan Bronca is a magazine writer and editor based in Newmarket, Ontario.

Not applicable: Companies in the CKPG asset management, banks and insurance companies are not scored on the sustainable investment KPI.

N.A.: Companies were not scored on the sustainable revenue momentum KPI because of the absence of 2022 sustainable revenue data. In the case of EU-based CKPG power generation and power transmission and distribution, the sustainable revenue momentum KPI was not applied because of high volatility in electricity prices in 2022 due to the Russia-Ukraine war.

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“I am delighted – but actually not at all surprised – to see your results,” U.K.-based author and entrepreneur John Elkington says. “The U.K. has been a globally significant incubator of thinking on sustainable development, CSR [corporate social responsibility], ESG and climate solutions for decades, with things coming to a head around the time of COP26 [the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow].”

Exeter in particular has been instrumental in international policy discussions. For the past several years, a team led by professor Pierre Friedlingstein has spearheaded the global carbon budget, one of the COP’s central metrics. Other Exeter initiatives, such as the Global Tipping Points Report led by professor Tim Lenton, also figured centrally in this year’s summit discussions. In fact, several of the United Kingdom’s most influential climate scientists are on faculty at Exeter, and they are part of a team of 1,500 research and education specialists.

These top global MBAs for sustainability are maximizing impact

Likewise, sustainability is deeply embedded in Exeter’s curricula, but that doesn’t make it an exception among the ranking schools. Beth Patmore, MBA course leader at Nottingham Business School (ranked 16th), points out that this is part of a broader “systemic shift” in the United Kingdom, where sustainability has also been embedded in national policy frameworks, corporate governance codes and educational standards. “[It] is increasingly seen not as a niche concern but as a foundational lens through which strategy, finance, operations and leadership are taught,” she says.

Take, for example, the business school ranking by the Financial Times in London, a popular resource for MBA applicants. It now gives roughly 20% collective weighting to ESG-related curriculum content, the school’s carbon footprint, and faculty and student diversity among the key criteria in its methodology.

Sustaining a virtuous circle

“To me, this is also a question of supply and demand,” says Frederik Dahlmann, an associate professor of strategy and sustainability in Warwick’s MBA programs. “We know that sustainability matters to our students, for their roles, organizations and future career development, because they tell us it is an important factor when deciding where to study for their MBAs.”

Almost all the programs we contacted for this piece said the same. There is what Dahlmann calls a virtuous circle that is created within this system, where faculty are making meaningful policy and research contributions, attracting students who will go on to do the same, which in turn incentivizes universities to continue to make such contributions.

But what explains this dynamic in the United Kingdom in particular? ESG has waned in popularity in the United States and Canada, with major companies and institutions reneging on sustainability commitments following the election of Donald Trump amid fears of an unfriendly business environment. There were similar fears with businesses pulling back from commitments, fearing penalties from anti-greenwashing legislation (which has since been scaled back).

According to Donald Lancaster, program director of Exeter’s MBA, the likelihood of a similar state of affairs coming to pass in the United Kingdom is low. This is not only because the U.K. government’s pioneering sustainability initiatives have broad cross-party support, but also because strong markets and talent pools have developed around them. Even prior to the election of Trump, Lancaster points out, shareholder value has long been the overriding consideration in the U.S. context. Despite many exemplary sustainability-oriented MBA programs in the United Kingdom, they operate within a different cultural milieu than in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Hugh Wilson, a professor of marketing in Warwick’s MBA programs, suggests that the reason for this cultural discrepancy may be rooted in history. “As the epicentre of two world wars in the 20th century, Europe swung towards greater social and economic equality after each,” he says. European countries have sharp memories of the problems that can accrue in a society where these social and economic factors fall out of balance. Though that postwar ethos has been diluted over time, he proposes that it continues to influence the United Kingdom’s business and educational climate.

“We depend on a socially and environmentally sustainable world; environmental and social crises tend to hit us early and hard,” Wilson says. “[The U.K.] business community is acutely aware of the risks and opportunities that these create.”

Tristan Bronca is an award-winning magazine writer and editor based in Toronto.

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The “impact” metric was introduced to the Corporate Knights MBA ranking several years ago as a bonus, but this year is the first that it has become part of the official ranking. Corporate Knights evaluated 179 programs and ranked the top 40 for their focus on sustainability. Ninety percent of the score these rankings are based on is awarded for the content of the curriculum, and now 10% has been awarded for impact – what schools’ alumni are doing post-graduation.

The school with the highest score on this measure this year was Bard College in New York, with an impact rating of 56%. Out of 62 graduates, Corporate Knights identified 35 who are either in sustainability roles or working at companies recognized for their sustainability efforts. By comparison, the average alumni rating was 16% among other schools that made the ranking. Only the University of Vermont’s MBA program had a comparable impact rating of 52%. 

For the last three years, Bard has consistently ranked in the top five MBA programs for sustainability. Bard stands out as one of the few business schools specifically designating its MBA as an MBA in Sustainability, another being the University of Vermont. “They are not shy about putting the program’s sustainability focus front and centre,” says Corporate Knights research analyst Muhammad Talha. 

We need our students out changing the world at scale in a hurry.

– Eban Goodstein, founder of the MBA in sustainability, Bard College

Bard’s graduates have compelling stories: a schoolteacher who went on to become a vice president of ESG (environmental, social and governance) for the Americas at Deutsche Bank within just one year of graduating; the emergency medical technician who became a managing consultant at the global firm Guidehouse. Perhaps the most famous example is Chelsea Mozen, who developed the idea for Etsy to offset its carbon emissions from shipping during her capstone project at Bard. Just four years after graduating, she was the chief sustainability officer for Etsy, making it one of the first major global companies to commit to a climate pledge.

“Our students’ interests range from food to fashion to energy. There’s a lot of variability,” says Eban Goodstein, an economist and the founder of Bard’s program. He explains that the program is highly experiential. “I think of it as 20 four-day retreats spread out over two years,” he says. “It’s almost more like a fine arts degree where you are learning directly from artists.”

In Bard’s MBA, students begin working on real-world projects in their first year, often with major industry players. The goal, according to Goodstein, is not just to respond to, but entirely shift how we address – and prevent – mounting environmental and social challenges. “We need our students out changing the world at scale in a hurry,” he adds.

All of the MBA programs on the list open up a multitude of options to get that done. For many of these students, it means taking on a key corporate sustainability role at a global leading company, or launching their own enterprise with values of social responsibility and environmental sustainability embedded in the organization’s DNA. But in a different economy, the approach post-graduation might look very different.

2025 Better World MBA top 40

Take, for example, the top-ranked “large” school, defined as a program with more than 80 graduates annually. This year, the spot belongs to Centrum’s PUCP in Peru. Centrum was one of just two South American schools on the top 40 list (the other, Colombia’s Universidad Externado, jumped from 112 in last year’s ranking to 40 in this year’s).

Centrum operates in a different context than the majority of schools in the ranking, which are overwhelmingly from the Americas or Europe. The Peruvian economy is largely “informal,” associate dean Sandro Sánchez explains. While many Centrum graduates are vying for corporate jobs (about 20 graduates of the last two years landed at companies like Vestas and Schneider Electric), the majority of these students go on to work in – or start – smaller companies, including those outside the urban centres in sectors like mining and agriculture, which remain the engines of the Peruvian economy. 

This is not the same business environment where you tend to see corporate sustainability officers or climate pledges. But this is precisely what makes this training so important. It’s here that graduates’ vision for social and environmentally positive change – a vision they develop in their MBA program – will have the greatest impact.

Tristan Bronca is an award-winning magazine writer and editor based in Toronto.

2025 Better World MBA top 10 large schools

METHODOLOGY

The 2025 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Top 40 ranking examines the performances of 179 business schools, drawn from the most recent FT100 MBA Ranking, the Princeton Review Best Green MBA, the Top 40 from the 2024 Better World MBA ranking, and all current PRME Champions; and business schools accredited by the Association of MBAs, the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) or the EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) QualityImprovement System (EQUIS) and also signatories to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education that opt in for evaluation. Based on publicly disclosed information on their websites, schools are evaluated on the sustainability content of their core courses and can review and request revisions to the analysis. Additionally, schools may voluntarily provide the number of recent graduates employed with impact organizations, which is worth 10% of the overall score.

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For the world’s largest companies, there is a lot of money at stake when deciding how to portray their sustainability efforts, and some companies are leaving billions on the table by under-communicating their progress.

Apple’s complex record on sustainability

The post ‘Greenhushing’ bears a steep cost for the world’s biggest brands, report finds appeared first on Corporate Knights.

It should come as little surprise, then, that in Corporate Knights’ inaugural Europe 50 ranking, the top company, Schneider Electric, also achieved the highest marks in the 2025 Global 100 ranking. The French company is the only one to have topped the Global 100 twice (the other time back in 2021), and it has played a unique role in electrification efforts across a wide variety of sectors, from manufacturing light switches to pioneering new software and clean energy solutions for data centres and smart cities. Today, 74% of its €54 billion in annual revenue comes from sustainable sources, and nearly 80% of its sizeable investment portfolio has been directed into sustainable solutions.

For a company with offices in more than 100 countries and a 180-year history, these movements are a bellwether for the rest of the world. Last year, Schneider Electric joined luxury fashion group Hermès and cosmetic giant L’Oréal as one of the five largest companies in France. Its shares jumped 58% in 2024, and its market capitalization peaked in January at €152 billion.

But for Corporate Knights publisher Toby Heaps, the most interesting thing about this rise is the inflection point it represents: Schneider Electric’s valuation leapfrogged France’s largest oil and gas producer, TotalEnergies, for the first time.

“A few years ago, the sustainable economy was a niche thing,” Heaps says. “Now it’s the main game, and it’s going to determine who wins and loses, who rises and falls.” If you want to know how that game is playing out, Europe is a telling indicator.

50 companies, 31 industries, 14 countries

In many rankings of how companies perform on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, there is a tendency for “pure play” clean energy companies – or those with a sole specialization in renewables – to dominate. In the Corporate Knights methodology, revenue from sustainable sources and sustainable investment together account for half of the total score that then determines rankings. But critically, the evaluation criteria are relative. “We do not compare the performance of a bank against the performance of a mining company; we compare it against other banks,” explains Michael Yow, the director of ratings for Corporate Knights.

In the Global 100, as in other indices like the MSCI ACWI index, there are also a designated number of industry-specific spots. This not only helps avoid overrepresentation; it also makes the rankings a useful point of comparison.

The Europe 50 ranking has no industry allocations, however; it is a straight ranking. Even so, the list exhibits exceptional diversity. “I would be concerned if there were 12 or 15 companies from one industry, but that’s not the case,” Yow says.

Power generation does appear most often, with six companies making the ranking, including highly rated companies from the 2025 Global 100 like Vestas, the Danish wind-power generator, which earned the top spot in the Global 100 in 2022. But there are 30 other industries represented on the Europe 50, including retailers, a wide variety of manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, real estate companies, IT companies and more.

Take Mercedes-Benz, the only auto manufacturer on the Europe 50, which has made exceptional strides in electrifying the luxury vehicle market. Or Puma, the German sports apparel giant whose products are made, on average, of 22% recycled materials. Or Outokumpu Oyj, the Finnish steel manufacturer, which produces nearly 90% of its stainless steel sustainably and has made significant investments in new sustainability initiatives.

Other notable placements from the ranking include Pirelli, the Milan-based tire manufacturer, and Pentair, the London-based metal products company; both scored highly for the racial diversity of their boards. Unilever, the multinational consumer goods company, earned a high score for the racial diversity of its executives. Severn Trent, the U.K. wastewater treatment company, scored highly for female representation at both the executive and board levels.

The European outlook

What explains the outsized influence of European companies amidst this shift toward sustainability in global affairs? How do we make sense not only of the outsized presence of European companies on the Global 100 ranking, but also the tremendous diversity of companies on the Europe 50? There are a few key factors, Heaps suggests. The first is the regulatory environment. Rules around disclosure of sustainability performance simply do not exist to the same extent anywhere outside of Europe.

Regulations on what kinds of labels can be used, and even what kinds of products can be manufactured, for example, extend to performance, Yow explains: “Companies have to perform well on sustainability because it’s the law.”

Another key factor is leadership. Denmark has a population of just six million people, yet seven Danish companies won positions on the Europe 50. Only the United Kingdom had as many companies represented, and its population is more than 10 times that of Denmark’s. “They always punch above their weight,” Heaps says.

As of 2021, 25% of Denmark’s largest 100 companies – and 60% of the country’s stock market capitalization – are controlled by “industrial foundations,” a unique feature of the Danish economy. The controlling interest of these companies is focused not exclusively on profits, but on fostering societal advancements, innovation and long-term thinking. These companies are, in other words, operating on different time horizons by design. While the dominant Western paradigm has focused exclusively on shareholder returns to the exclusion of “externalities” like planetary and human health, the European approach is achieving a broader range of benefits and still paying off.

“Over the past five years, sustainable revenues of European companies are growing at twice the rate of all other revenues,” Heaps says. Corporate Knights will be tracking the financial performance of the Europe 50 on a go-forward basis.

The unstoppable shift toward more sustainable business models is driven primarily by sound business practices, which also happen to prioritize the planet and its people. These European companies are lighting a path that is not only more sustainable and sensible, but also more rewarding.

Tristan Bronca is a writer and editor in Newmarket, Ontario.

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Canadian public-sector companies represent an outsized share of the effort, representing more than half, or 13, of the top 25, in addition to companies from across Europe and Australia.

From the ranking leader Hydro-Québec’s $155-billion green-energy expansion plan, to 12th-place Bpifrance bank’s financing solar and wind power loans, the inaugural list shows how investments in renewable energy pay off. There’s a continued push toward innovation, such as that displayed by the Royal Canadian Mint (#4) and the purchase of equipment that boosts the amount of material it recovers from its silver bullion blanking process. While the United Kingdom’s Network Rail Ltd. (#7) has drawn revenue by electrifying routes, Farm Credit Canada has seen returns on “women entrepreneur loans” totalling more than $2.9 billion.

1. Hydro-Québec

Hydro-Québec has been a leader in clean hydroelectric energy for the last 75 years, the exports of which have enriched the province to the tune of $4 billion in 2024 alone. Now, the company is boosting its investments in windenergy. Already, 44 wind farms generate more than 4,000 megawatts (MW), and that figure will climb to 10,000 MW as part of Hydro-Québec’s Action Plan 2035. This future power output – enough for about two million households – is a critical element of its strategy to decarbonize sectors like transportation and building heating. This all part of the utilities program to invest between $155 and $185 billion in green energy by 2035.

2. Toronto Hydro

Toronto Hydro is the final leg of electricity delivery to nearly 1.7 million households in Canada’s largest city. By 2040, the company has pledged to reach net-zero emissions in its operations, which will expand in an effort to help the city reach its own net-zero goals. Toronto Hydro estimates it will invest $10 billion in climate infrastructure across the city – EV charging, equipment renewal, etc. – before 2050, and 75% of the city’s net-zero strategy relies on these investments. Toronto Hydro reported that in 2022, there was an 8% reduction in its emissions over the previous year, representing a 40% reduction over 2018.

3. Statnett

“We are facing an increasingly challenging threat landscape,” says Statnett CFO and executive vice president Cathrine Lund Larsen, referring to geopolitical tensions in Europe and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. Despite these challenges, the owner-operator of Norway’s transmission grid recorded 1.7 billion kroner in profit for 2024. The company plans to more than double its investment in the country’s power systems over the next 10 years. It will do so under new sustainability reporting requirements, with carbon dioxide pricing on construction contracts, and with a focus on minimizing the impact on Norway’s natural areas.

4. Royal Canadian Mint

In 2023, Canada’s coin producer released its inaugural Impact Report and committed to making its manufacturing carbon-neutral by 2030. To meet this goal, the Royal Canadian Mint has taken major steps, including a massive investment in new geothermal power infrastructure at the Winnipeg Mint. In 2023, the Mint offset 491 tonnes of emissions, and it is now pioneering more sustainable methods of gold refining and mineral sourcing. Today, thanks to the Mint’s sustainability and recycling efforts, 88% of coins in circulation are recirculated, dramatically curbing the demand for new coin production.

5. Alectra

Alectra is a utilities company that services more than one million homes and businesses around the Greater Toronto Area. Since the inception of its Green Energy and Technology Centre – described by Brian Bentz, the company’s president and CEO, as “the think tank, collaboration hub, and ground zero for innovation” – Alectra has launched new initiatives to modernize the grid, use AI for infrastructure management and explore multiple pilot projects for incorporating new technology. Since 2016, the company has achieved about a 17% reduction in its own emissions and has pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

6. Société de Transport de Montréal

The Société de Transport de Montréal has been a force for economic growth and sustainable development in Quebec. The service transports 1.1 million people on average on a business day, and its ridership has been growing, with 2024 seeing a 9.2% increase over 2023. According to its Sustainable Development Plan 2030 and a 2016 study, roughly 20 tonnes of emissions can be saved for every one that STM emits. STM is currently electrifying its fleet and implementing new improvements to its bus and rail infrastructure; currently, 48.6% of its bus fleet is either hybrid or electric. Two of STM’s projects have been LEED Gold-certified, and two major infrastructure projects have received the Envision award.

7. Network Rail

Network Rail owns, operates and develops more than 20,000 miles of track; 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts; and thousands of transit stations across the United Kingdom. The company is aiming to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2050 and has taken major steps toward achieving that goal, including electrifying the busiest parts of its system, purchasing more renewable energy and trialling new hydrogen and battery trains. These sustainability plans also require building more resilient infrastructure to account for increasingly severe weather events, and the creation of biodiverse havens across 52,000 hectares of land occupied by its rail networks.

8. Export Development Canada

Export Development Canada is a crown corporation that strategically invests to help Canadian companies expand internationally. Since pledging to reach net-zero emissions in 2050, EDC set a number of interim targets that it has achieved ahead of schedule. In 2023, EDC provided a record $12.2 billion in support for cleantech businesses, beating its target of $10 billion by 2025. The corporation also reduced its exposure to its most carbon-intensive sectors – including upstream oil and gas – by 69% over 2018, exceeding the original 45% target. This year, EDC introduced a new framework to classify, track and report on the sustainability of all its investments.

9. Fingrid

Finland has a famously clean energy system. Last year, 95% of the country’s power production was emission-free thanks to the preponderance of nuclear and wind power. Now that the country’s energy needs are rising quickly, Fingrid, the public company that administers the country’s grid, has risen to meet the challenge. The amount of energy produced by wind energy is expected to rise to 9,500 MW, up from just 1,800 MW five years ago, and the company is now offering green bonds to help finance €4 billion in investments to help the country meet its net-zero targets by 2035.

10. Statkraft

Statkraft is Norway’s energy producer and the largest generator of renewable energy in Europe, including hydropower, wind power – with a portfolio that has expanded to include projects in South America and India – and solar. In total, about 97% of the energy Statkraft generates comes from renewables, and 100% of its profits are reinvested in renewables, both in own operations and across a wide range of initiatives in biofuels and green hydrogen.

11. Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board

Manitoba Hydro has been quantifying and reporting its own greenhouse gas emissions for the last 30 years. The crown corporation is one of the largest integrated electricity and natural gas utility companies in Canada, serving more than 600,000 electricity customers and nearly 300,000 for natural gas. Nearly all of Manitoba’s electricity – an estimated 99.6% – comes from renewables. The company had set a voluntary threshold for emissions on its operations of 520 kilotonnes (kt) based on stepwise reductions from 1990 levels. In 2023, it came in at just 128 kt: 75% lower than its target.

12. Bpifrance

Bpifrance is a French public-sector bank that bills itself as a “one stop shop for entrepreneurs.” The bank has more than €100 billion in assets and strategically invests in initiatives to promote a “more inclusive and sustainable French economy.” That now includes €7.6 billion in financing for projects powering the country’s ecological and energy transition, and a commitment to exclude coal, gas and oil from its investments. Bpifrance has also committed to reducing its own emissions by 55% before 2030 and has received exemplary assessments from five separate ESG ratings agencies.

13. EPCOR Utilities

“The ironic thing about sustainability is that it’s hard to sustain” – it’s an odd sentiment to hear in a sustainability report, but it’s one that underscores EPCOR’s commitment to getting its strategy right. Formerly the Edmonton Power Corporation, EPCOR manages the city’s water, wastewater, natural gas and electricity distribution. It also operates in other Canadian provinces and in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The utility spent years fine-tuning its sustainability strategy to ensure that it made sense long-term. That evolution has resulted in reductions in EPCOR’s gas emissions, a 95% wastewater reuse rate in parched regions of the United States, and $4.9 billion in economic value delivered across multiple jurisdictions.

14. Vygruppen

The Vy Group is the largest land-based transport group in the Nordic countries. Owned by the Norwegian government, it operates rail passenger services, bus fleets, freight services, as well as in various tourism capacities. Last year, the company transported 213 million passengers, an emissions savings of about 400,000 passenger vehicles. Vy has developed a set of guidelines aimed at saving the country one million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by the end of this year. In pursuit of this goal, it has already electrified nearly half of its fleet of buses and continues to expand less carbon-intensive forms of transport.

15. British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority

BC Hydro services 95% of British Columbia’s population – more than five million people. The company boasts some of the cleanest power generation anywhere in North America, with 91% of its power coming from hydroelectric sources. Its subsidiary, Powerex, is a net exporter of clean energy to Alberta, Washington State, Oregon and California. Though BC Hydro contributes less than 1% of the province’s total emissions, by 2023 the company had already achieved a 61% reduction in emissions over its baseline. New studies and programs are underway to help the company better deal with climate-related risks, including fires, drought and storms.

16. NBN

NBN is Australia’s broadband provider, a company tasked with building and operating the network that connects the island continent. About seven in 10 homes and businesses in rural and regional Australia are currently served by fixed-line technology, but by the end of this year, NBN’s network upgrades will ensure that 1.6 million more Australians have access to fibre connections. In a country that is uniquely vulnerable to climate risks, NBN’s goal is to “operate a climate-resilient, resource-efficient network.” In 2024, the company lowered its emissions 19% compared to its 2021 baseline and pledged to implement 100% renewable-energy use for its own operations by the end of this year.

17. Alliander

Alliander is the developer and operator of the Netherlands’ energy networks. Last year, the Dutch company’s operations were carbon-neutral, a feat it achieved by greening its fleet of vehicles, reducing energy use in its buildings and IT systems, and limiting grid losses. But there is more work to be done. Electricity accounts for about 18% of the country’s total energy use, but that figure is expected to rise to 50% by 2050. Last year alone, the company invested €1.8 billion in its infrastructure, and there is now additional focus on eliminating supply-chain-related emissions.

18. European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank is the European Union’s investment bank and one of the largest financial institutions in the world. It is also one of the biggest green financiers globally. It was the world’s first financial institution to issue green bonds, back in 2007, and in 2019, it announced that it would stop funding fossil fuel projects – a move that accompanied a promise to invest €1 trillion in climate and environmental projects by 2030. Most recently, those projects include a major hydroelectric project in Spain and renewable-energy initiatives in Chile, among many others. In 2024, the bank invested an estimated €44.8 billion in climate action and environmental sustainability, which was about 60% of its total financing.

19. Farm Credit Canada

With the global population expected to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050, Canada remains one of very few nations capable of meeting the projected demand for agricultural production. Facing unprecedented natural threats, Farm Credit Canada has mobilized new resources to support a wide range of producers – from Quebec’s maple syrup sector, whose yields suffered from unseasonable warmth in 2023, to B.C. winemakers whose vines were destroyed by the 2022 winter, to Alberta farmers affected by record-breaking wildfires. Last year, FCC invested $2.2 million in new agricultural tech and awarded more than $825,000 to promote new sustainable farming practices.

20. PostNord

PostNord is a logistics company jointly owned by Sweden and Denmark. In 2023, it delivered 243 million parcels across a network that spans virtually all the countries in the world. PostNord has taken steps to make its fleet emissions-free by 2030. This effort began with its “green corridors” initiative. PostNord’s routes between its largest cities and terminals are now fossil-fuel free, a move that has already saved more than 3,000 tonnes of emissions. As a result, today about 40% of deliveries to Swedish recipients – about 3.9 million parcels – are made sustainably.

21. Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation

SaskTel is Saskatchewan’s telecom company. It operates the province’s landlines, mobile networks and internet services. Since 2008, it has been publicly recognized as “one of Canada’s greenest employers,” not only for its work reducing emissions in its operations, but for minimizing waste and for its employee-driven community initiatives. In total, SaskTel donated $2.9 million in not-for-profit and charitable sponsorships last year, recycled more than 143,000 phones, and raised additional funds to support new biodiversity projects.

22. Electricity Supply Board

Ireland aims to decarbonize its electricity system by 2040. The Electricity Supply Board, which is owned and operated by the Irish government, supplies electricity and gas to almost 1.9 million customers across the island. In 2024, it connected 534 MW of new renewable electricity generation to the grid. By 2030, the company aims to meet 80% of demand from renewables, including not just wind and solar, but dedicated zero-emission gas-fired power generation from biomethane and hydrogen. These efforts also include a plan to actively restore ecosystems affected by ESB’s projects – both on land and offshore.

23. Ontario Power Generation

Ontario Power Generation administers approximately 160 power stations, including more than 150 hydroelectric stations, thermal stations, solar facilities and wind generation stations. But almost half of the 18,000-plus MW of power generated comes from just three nuclear power plants. Now, the Darlington plant is the first in North America to develop small modular reactors.

24. Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (Codelco)

The mining industry has a sustainability problem, says Codelco CEO Rubén Alvarado Vigar. In a 2023 letter, the head of the largest copper producer on the planet wrote that his “obligation is to trigger a profound break so that we become a sustainable industry that cares about the environment.” The company has made six commitments to this end, including implementing a clean electrical matrix, reducing inland water use, recycling 65% of non-hazardous waste, introducing new controls around tailings facilities, and improving air quality.

25. Canada Post

As of early 2024, there were fewer than 10 companies globally in the logistics and transportation sector to have a net-zero target recognized by the Science Based Targets initiative; Canada Post was one of them. In 2023, the Crown corporation delivered 168 million carbon-neutral shipments, alongside several other environmental achievements, including a 18.9% reduction in emissions and the diversion of 67% of waste from landfills. The company continues to pursue its goal of reaching net-zero emissions across its entire value chain by 2050.

Tristan Bronca is an award-winning magazine writer and editor based in Toronto. 

Read more: The 2025 Private 25 most sustainable private companies in the world

*N/A: Not applicable. Banks, asset management and insurance peer groups are not assessed on the sustainable investment KPI. The weight of this KPI has been reweighted to the sustainable revenue KPI. 

Methodology

Our methodology for the new Corporate Knights Private 25 and Public 25 rankings uses a mix of fixed- and variable-weight ESG and sustainable-economy KPIs to score companies against their peers. We measure the share of revenues and investments that are included in the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy and percent rank those ratios against the company’s CKPG (Corporate Knights Peer Group). We then give equal weight to the ratios and the percent ranks in awarding up to 25 points for sustainable revenue and up to 25 points for sustainable investment, for a total of 50 possible points.

The other 50 points are allocated to 10 ESG KPIs, including productivities for energy, carbon, waste and water, along with board and executive gender and racial diversity, taxes paid and injury rate. In addition, penalties are levied against overall scores for a number of factors, including injuries and fatalities.

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