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.

Corporate Knights’ annual Global 100 ranking adds more grist to that mill. Of the nine automakers on this year’s list, six are based in China: XPeng (20), Li Auto (29), Nio (30), Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology (43), Seres (63) and Yadea (60), which mainly makes electric two-wheelers. Tesla is a U.S. company, but about half of its production is in China, and BorgWarner, headquartered in Michigan, also has plants in China. A significant number of Western automakers use Chinese batteries in their EVs, too.

But China’s EV market can be hard to parse. In November, The Atlantic published an explosive article contradicting the main narrative around the growth of its industry and purporting that “China’s EV Market Is Imploding.” In the article, Beijing-based writer Michael Schuman points to the pervasive practice of selling zero-mileage “used” cars and claims that the Chinese Communist Party artificially keeps struggling manufacturers afloat.

China, with its cheap electric cars, is teaching Western automakers a lesson, as they build unaffordable, large, luxurious electric models.

– Colin Pratte, transportation researcher, IRIS

In the West, popular perception varies widely, suggesting the distorting effects of online misinformation and a lack of independent data. Chinese cars are thought to be more technologically advanced than their Western counterparts, but their production is considered dirtier than in Europe or North America because of coal-heavy electricity and pollution from upstream processes like mining and mineral processing. But Colin Pratte, a transportation researcher at the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques in Quebec, suspects that the latter perception is influenced more by racism than reliable data and that steep tariffs on China’s EVs in Canada and the United States reflect pure protectionism, not high ecological standards.

A big lead

China isn’t the only country propping up its automotive sector, argues Thomas Hundal, a Toronto-based automotive journalist: “To some extent, subsidies are offered everywhere, and people exploit them.” That’s a problem that’s not unique to China, or to EVs, he says, adding that pre-registration, or listing new cars as used, has been a practice in Europe for ages.

According to Reuters, the top 10 countries buying China’s EVs are Mexico, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

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China’s EV industry is more technologically advanced than the West in two main areas, Hundal says. The first is its battery supply chain: “They can produce huge numbers at low cost compared to North America. China is also years ahead of the Western manufacturers in terms of chemistry, with more impressive discharge rates and higher energy density.” China also has a big lead in charging; their stations are substantially more powerful than North America’s, according to Hundal. Broadly, China has been working on its EV market “in a larger and more serious capacity than the West has,” and for longer.

“China, with its cheap electric cars, is teaching Western automakers a lesson, as they build unaffordable, large, luxurious electric models,” Pratte says. China’s small, inexpensive cars compete directly with the big electric SUVs that Western automakers are pushing with the backing of their own governments. If governments really wanted to reduce greenhouse gases by electrifying transportation, they would welcome cheap Chinese EVs with open arms, Pratte says.

Following a pattern

As few as 15 of the 129 Chinese EV brands are predicted to achieve financial viability by 2030, according to the financial advisory firm AlixPartners. Looking at the stiff competition and excess manufacturing capacity in China’s EV sector, Hundal expects to see major upheaval. “If we go back 100 to 120 years, there were thousands of manufacturers in Canada and hundreds in [the United States]; some survived but most didn’t. I expect that to be the sort of trajectory we will see in China,” he says.

The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight

The threat posed by companies like Nio, Li Auto and XPeng is reminiscent of Toyota’s introduction to the West, when it rapidly gained market share by focusing on affordability and fuel efficiency. Western carmakers at the time emphasized size, power and styling, but Toyota’s big challenge pushed them to overhaul their manufacturing processes and improve their quality and durability. Chinese automakers could force a similar overhaul today by exposing weaknesses in the Western firms. However, its disruptive potential must first overcome the nationalist and protectionist tendencies that have long been the hallmarks of the auto industry.

Ophélie Dénommée-Marchand is a Quebec-based independent journalist with a focus on fact-checking and investigation. She’s also an encyclopedist for the Canadian Encyclopedia.

The post Western carmakers face growing pressure from Chinese EVs appeared first on Corporate Knights.

That strategy seems to have paid off: revenue has grown 45% since 2019, according to Mads Twomey-Madsen, Pandora’s senior vice president of communications and sustainability. In that same period, he says, Pandora has cut emissions by 17% across the board.

“We can grow and become more sustainable at the same time,” he says. Adopting sustainable practices was a natural next step in Pandora becoming “future-proof,” he adds. “It’s not something that we did as a marketing play. We’re quite aware that many consumers are very interested in sustainable options . . . but it’s more something that we did to stand strong as a brand overall.”

Whatever the reason, the moves make Pandora stand out. And they have helped earn it the number two spot in the Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking, all the way up from 48 in 2025.

The fashion industry contributes up to 8% of global emissions, but a minority of brands are committed to incorporating circular processes. According to the 2022 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, which surveyed 70 brands in the textile, apparel and luxury goods industry, 44% of brands had at least one circular fashion program in place.

Pandora isn’t alone in its sustainability ethos. Some of the biggest brands in fashion have launched recycling initiatives in recent years. The German athletic apparel giant Puma, for instance, now uses polyester textile waste saved from factory off-cuts, faulty goods and used clothes to make new garments under the brand’s Re:Fibre program. On average, about 25% of Puma’s products contain recycled materials.

The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight

Inditex Corp., the parent company of Zara, aims to use only textiles that have a low environmental impact by 2030. The brand claims to have used 39% recycled fibres in 2024. It is also working to scale up purchases of recycled materials – such as fibre made from cotton-rich textile waste and polyester made from textile waste – through offtake commitments. The brand also has several eco-certifications, including the Recycled Claim Standard.

Kering S.A., the holding company that owns some of the largest luxury brands, including Gucci, also carries a Recycled Claim Standard certification. The company works with Econyl, a brand-name nylon made from waste products, and partners with start-ups such as Worn Again, which has developed the technology to create fabric from non-reusable textiles.

A steep hill to climb

Despite these types of initiatives – several of which are still in their infancy – the overwhelming majority of textile waste ends up in landfills. According to Boston Consulting Group, only 12% of global textile waste is reused, with less than 1% recycled into new fibres. When it comes to jewellery, recycled gold makes up a larger percentage of the overall supply than recycled silver but these metals are still being mined extensively.

Pandora mostly deals with silver, which makes up about 67% of the brand’s product volume. “The world is not very good at recycling silver,” Twomey-Madsen says, adding that the metal often ends up in the landfill through electronic waste.

Pandora’s big bet on sustainability pays off

It took four years for the brand to completely transition into recycled metals. The process required Pandora to convince its suppliers – 40 total – to source recycled metal certified by the Responsible Jewellery Council Chain of Custody standard. The transition will add an additional US$10 million to annual operating costs, which includes investing in new equipment for suppliers to establish a separate recycled-metal process from their non-recycled metals.

That’s a cost of doing sustainable business that Pandora is willing to pay, Twomey-Madsen says. The added benefit, he says, is that Pandora’s suppliers can now offer recycled metals to other brands, too. “It’s available now for other companies that want to do the same. And I think that’s something that you encounter in these circularity changes,” he says. “These value streams aren’t really established yet. So when you go first, you need to invest in making that happen.”

Ayesha Habib is a Vancouver-based journalist who has written for The Globe and Mail, Maisonneuve and Chatelaine.

The post These big retail brands are rallying around circular fashion 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.

The post Offshore wind turns the corner on a turbulent year appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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.

The post The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Since 2005, the Global 100 has been one of the world’s most valued and transparent rules-based sustainability ratings that emphasizes the impact of a company’s core products and services. It is the best-performing global sustainability index (ticker: CKG100), with more than 10 years of history. All publicly traded companies with more than US$1 billion in revenue are assessed across three sustainable economy key performance indicators, including percentage of sustainable revenue and percentage of sustainable investment. Companies engaging in “red flag” activities such as thermal coal, blocking climate policy and deforestation are disqualified. Our methodology illuminates the “say–do” gap. Only those companies making sustainable solutions a core part of their business offerings and allocating meaningful investments to reduce their carbon footprints make the grade. 

The post Global 100 resources appeared first on Corporate Knights.

If there’s one thing the private sector craves most from government, it’s clear, stable policies. But in the coming year, many businesses will have no such luck as they navigate major changes to the global tax and regulatory environment that has been encouraging investment in more sustainable technologies and practices.

While the new U.S. president will be taking aim at legislation that resulted in nearly US$300 billion in private-sector investments in clean energy, battery manufacturing and clean power generation, most business leaders recognize that concerns about a worsening climate crisis will grow regardless of shifting political winds. The costly impacts of climate change and, more than anything, the declining costs of low-carbon technologies continue to drive investment in solutions.

Corporate Knights’ Global 100 ranking of the world’s most sustainable firms, now in its 21st year, shows that the top firms continue to increase their investment in the green transition. Even with higher interest rates in recent years, leading corporations have expanded their sustainable investments, which has resulted in a growing share of income being derived from sustainable revenue sources.

“We’re finding that growth in sustainable revenues is outpacing all other revenues,” says Toby Heaps, co-founder and CEO of Corporate Knights. “Over the last five years for major global public companies, sustainable revenues are growing twice as fast as other revenues, and they now represent over $5 trillion of annual revenues for the 3,000 biggest companies that we track.”

“With sustainable investment, it’s the same story,” Heaps says. “Sustainable capital expenditure is growing twice as fast as all other capex.” That green investment is key to a more sustainable future, telling us where companies are going as opposed to where they currently derive their revenues.

The firms in the 2025 Global 100 ranking allocated 58% of their investments to sustainable projects in 2023, up from 55% in the prior year. That figure compares with sustainable investments of just 15% for the 8,259 other publicly traded companies with revenues of more than $1 billion in the Global 100 universe.

2025 Global 100

Note: 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.

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Bumpy Road

For most of its 20-plus-year history, the Global 100 has outperformed its MSCI ACWI benchmark on total investment return. However, the MSCI ACWI nudged ahead of the Global 100 this year thanks mainly to the updraft in AI stocks, and, to a lesser extent, the rally of oil and weapons stocks, sectors that are not particularly strong on sustainability. This updraft effect, combined with high interest rates that depressed stock prices of firms spending big on transforming their assets (such as those leading the clean energy transition), led to the Global 100 underperforming over the past two years.

That said, the world’s top companies are staying the course, knowing that speed bumps won’t stop progress toward a more sustainable and inclusive economy.

French-based Schneider Electric SE climbed to the top of the 2025 Global 100, up from seventh place last year, thanks to a high level of sustainable investment and revenue, its leading performance on gender diversity, and the low carbon intensity of its production. Like the majority of companies on the Global 100, Schneider isn’t a consumer-facing household name; rather, it provides the nuts, bolts and technology for the green transition, including building energy controls, off-grid solar and EV charging and grid automation (read our top company profile). It also happened to rake in record-breaking revenues in 2024, built on continued demand for energy management.

Last year’s leader, Australian waste management company Sims Ltd., is in second place this year, while Danish wind manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems S/A is in third. Both Sims and Vestas are pure-play companies that derived 100% of their revenue from and allocated 100% of their investment to sustainable projects.

New to the Global 100 ranking for 2025 are Türkiye Sinai Kalkinma Bankasi, a national industrial bank based in Istanbul, and American manufacturer BorgWarner Inc., which produces battery systems, fast chargers and electric motors for mobility applications. Michigan-based BorgWarner’s high growth in sustainable revenue was particularly fuelled by the popularity of EV components, such as its electric powertrains.

Danish jewellery manufacturer Pandora also joined the ranking for the first time as its recycled gold and silver inputs jumped to 97% in 2023, from 61% the previous year.

Canada has 11 companies represented in the Global 100, second only to the United States, which has 15. The Canadian contingent is led by engineering firms Stantec Inc., which aimed 82% of its capital expenditure at sustainable investing in 2023, and WSP Global Inc., which earned 64% of its revenue from sustainable sources that year.

Canadian insurers Sun Life Financial Inc. and Manulife Financial Corp. both earned spots in the Global 100 ranking, as did telecommunications giants BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Cogeco Communications Inc. (The Corporate Knights ranking allocates spots by sectors to reflect the global economy. For example, 16% go to financial institutions and 7% are reserved for telecoms.)

Green snakes and ladders

Staying on the ranking can be a challenge. The Bank of Montreal had been dropped from the 2024 ranking but regained its place in this year’s version. The bank improved on a number of metrics, notes Matthew Malinsky, director of sustainable economy intelligence for Corporate Knights. BMO saw gains in sustainable revenue, its CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio, racial diversity and its sustainability pay link in which 10.3% of the CEO’s pay is tied to achieving the company’s social and environmental goals. The bank has a rapidly growing green loan book and has provided just under $40 billion in renewable-energy financing since 2019.

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Anglo American is also new to the ranking, bumping off Canada’s Teck Resources (which had been on the list for six straight years) as a result of Anglo’s sustainable investment growth of 19% and increases in sustainable revenues from mines tied to low-carbon-economy minerals such as copper and nickel.

Brookfield Renewable Partners also dropped from the ranking, despite its strength in sustainable investing and revenues. Brookfield was red-flagged by the non-profit shareholder advocacy group As You Sow over its investments in Westinghouse Electric Company, which manufactures rods that produce tritium used for nuclear weapons.

2025 Global 100 vs. the rest

Indicator	2025 G100	2024 G100	2025 average*	2024 average
Sustainable revenue (% total revenue)	53%	51%	15%	16%
Sustainable investment (% total investment)	58%	55%	15%	17%
Executive gender diversity	25%	24%	18%	19%
Board gender diversity	36%	35%	25%	25%
Executive racial diversity	10%	11%	10%	8%
Board racial diversity	12%	14%	12%	10%
Cash taxes paid (% of profits)	14%	14%	9%	14%
Carbon productivity ($ sales/tonnes GHGs)1	$1,305,869	$927,244	$640,248	$491,909
Energy productivity ($ sales/GJ energy used)2	$95,316	$479,161	$93,071	$160,630
Sustainability pay link	80/100	64/81	2830/8062	1882 / 6330
CEO–average worker pay ratio	79:1	85:1	60:1	74:1

* Large publicly traded companies (with more than PPP$1 billion in annual revenue), excluding the Global 100.

1 – For comparison purposes, the scope 2 portion of the Carbon Productivity numbers in this chart are calculated according to a market-based methodology. Please note that in prior year publications, scope 2 emissions were calculated using a location-based methodology

2 – Companies that have no net non-renewable energy use do not receive an energy productivity value but receive a 100% energy productivity score.

Room for improvement

There are areas where all Global 100 firms can improve. The top firms may be leaders in pursuing gender diversity on their boards, but only a handful (Autodesk, SMA Solar and Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co Ltd) have reached gender parity at the executive level. And Global 100 companies perform no better in terms of racial diversity than the broader universe of large publicly traded companies.

The road to decarbonization and a more inclusive economy will become bumpier in the coming years given the current political backlash. However, corporate sustainability leaders appear to be committed to progressing down that path, as evidenced by more than two decades of the Global 100 rankings. 

Shawn McCarthy is an Ottawa-based writer.

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Methodology

The Global 100 methodology uses a mix of fixed and variable-weight ESG and sustainable-economy key performance indicators (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 peer group (CKPG). 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 in the Global 100 are allocated to 22 ESG KPIs, covering environmental, social, governance and supplier sustainability themes.

In addition, penalties can be levied against overall scores for low performance on the following indicators: productivities for water, waste, VOC, NOx, SOx and PM; cash taxes paid; injury rate; and fatalities. Up to five points are deducted for companies that have been levied fines above a percentage threshold of their revenue compared to other companies. Lastly, the political influence KPI may earn a company 2.5 bonus points.

After analyzing data for 25 KPIs, using the Corporate Knights methodology, this year’s overall scores were converted to letter grades.

Awarded to the top company​

Above 75%

70% – 75%

65% – 70%

60% – 65%

55% – 60%

50% – 55%

45% – 50%

40% – 45%

35% – 40%

30% – 35%

25% – 30%

To learn more about Corporate Knights research, head to corporateknights.com/research-products.

view full methodology

Previous Rankings

2024 GLOBAL 100

2023 GLOBAL 100

2022 GLOBAL 100

2021 GLOBAL 100

View All

The post 2025 Global 100 list: World’s most sustainable companies are still betting on a greener world appeared first on Corporate Knights.

While Blum may have just arrived in the CEO role, he’s a well-known commodity within Schneider, having spent more than 30 years at the company. His fingerprints are all over the changes that have led to Schneider being the first company to top the Global 100 more than once (it first earned top spot in 2021).

Blum led Schneider’s first steps in emission reductions and corporate social responsibility (CSR) 20 years ago. At first, sustainability targets were seen as extra initiatives to be achieved while the organization carried on operating in much the same way. “Very quickly we realized this concept of corporate social responsibility living in a separate part of the [company’s] universe didn’t make a lot of sense,” Blum says. 

With revenues of €36 billion in 2023 and offices in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric’s universe is vast. It manufactures and sells everything from light switches to electrical panels. It’s also a world leader in helping data centres reduce power consumption, as well as offering AI-based solutions for smart energy and building management, software, micro grids, EV charging, water management and energy management – the division that Blum led prior to his appointment as CEO.

A structure that supports diversity

Much of the company’s marketing material extols the benefits of the smart city of the future – where most everything is electrified, renewable generation and consumption are closely managed, and efficiency drives down energy demand. 

But it is on employee diversity where Blum’s enthusiasm really comes through. Rather than having diversity targets separate from the company’s activities, Schneider learned from its CSR experience and changed its entire structure to promote diversity.

Schneider was a traditional French company with a French headquarters and a leadership that was, consequently, largely French. To break out of this mould, the company invented what it calls a “multi-hub model,” says Blum, who led Schneider’s diversity efforts for five years as head of human resources. The company now has three regional hubs, in the United States, Europe and one serving the Middle East and Asia (Blum is based in Schneider’s Dubai office and was previously in France, India, China and Hong Kong).

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The benefits are very clear to Blum. “If you are working in China, you don’t need to go back for a decision to Paris or to the U.S. to move fast and to have an approval. The second benefit is that when you’re 25 years old, you enter Schneider, for instance, in the U.S., in China, in India, now in the Middle East. You look at that and you say, ‘Oh, I can go to the top of the company even staying in my region.’”

‘Whether we like it or we don’t like it’

But a global company also attracts global criticism. Corporate Knights received dozens of  complaint letters in 2023 after announcing that Schneider Electric was once again ranked one of the 100 most sustainable companies. The complaints centred on the use of Schneider’s technology in a pipeline linking Uganda with the Tanzanian coast.

“I always understand that some people can have a different point of view, but we are very at ease with our position on those kinds of projects,” Blum says. “It will take time to move from fossil fuels to renewables; it’s a fact whether we like it or we don’t like it. So we prefer Schneider to be involved in those projects and to help our customers to build pipeline infrastructure” that consumes less energy and therefore emits fewer emissions. 

Roughly 5% of Schneider’s revenues do not meet the EU’s rules on “environmentally sustainable” economic activities or are products with sulfur hexafluoride (used in insulating electrical parts); 74% is considered sustainable.

Despite more pipelines being built, Blum is confident that global momentum for decarbonization is growing at all business levels.

Enduring demand for decarbonization technology

The 2015 Paris Agreement created a big incentive for Schneider to double down on its sustainability focus, but that decision was not echoed in its customer base. Blum reckons that it took three or four years for the enormity of the Paris Agreement to transform into business decisions at many large corporations: “2019 is when we started to see a large number of enterprises taking a lot of interest [in decarbonization]. I was leading strategy and sustainability at that point of time.” 

>>Access Sustainable Economy Intelligence on thousands of large companies>>

Then COVID hit, and rather than impede corporate decarbonization efforts, things started to accelerate – a trend that continues as more climate-reporting obligations in Europe and around the world have spurred even more interest in the last two years. “Many large companies in the world have realized that they have to be part of that story,” Blum says. This has a knock-on effect well beyond the direct emissions of large corporations. “Many of [their suppliers] are small and medium-sized enterprises. And SMEs are seeing that if they want to stay relevant, then for their large customers they also need to have a decarbonization strategy,” he says.

The end result is growing demand for the decarbonization technology that Schneider Electric offers. The company has been tracking all the companies that publicly commit to net-zero with science-based targets, and the list, Blum says, is doubling in size every year.

“Now is a very interesting place because we meet all the largest companies in the world, and all of them put sustainability in their strategy,” he says.

Adrian Hiel is a Canadian writer who has spent the last two decades in Brussels.

The post This French energy-solutions powerhouse is the world’s most sustainable company of 2025 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

While the CEOs and decision-makers that attended the annual World Economic Forum meeting seemed more worried about things other than climate change (the potential for another Donald Trump presidency and artificial intelligence), they were also more excited about the gathering multitrillion-dollar economic opportunity presented by the transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy. Business is better at playing offence than defence, so I think this may be a good thing.

Corporate Knights’ annual Global 100 ranking of the world’s most sustainable corporations turned 20 this year in Davos. And the corporations that make up the Global 100 are proving that companies that set the standard for sustainability excellence can also outperform the market over time. Now is the time to double down.

These companies show that the climate crisis is far from the back burner for many major players in the business world. Maybe it seems like it has been placed on the back burner simply because it’s becoming ingrained in the way we do business. There isn’t only a moral imperative for corporations to work toward a more sustainable planet; there’s a financial one, too. Here are eight ways the sustainable economy is taking over.

1. In 2024, the average Global 100 company earned 51% of its revenue from sustainable solutions in alignment with the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy (which measures corporate contributions to the sustainability transition). That’s three times better than the average large publicly traded company with more than US$1 billion in overall revenue, which earned 16% of its revenue from sustainable sources.

2. When it comes to sustainable investments, it’s the same story. Global 100 companies allocated 55% of their total investments (capital expenditure, research and development, and acquisitions) to sustainable themes, versus 17% for the broader universe of companies analyzed.

3. Financially speaking, the Global 100 index has stood the test of time, outperforming its benchmark over the past two decades. It has posted a 295% total return since its inception in February 2005 to the end of 2023 (versus 278% for the MSCI ACWI).

4. The really good news is that the exponential growth of the sustainable economy is not contained to the Global 100 companies; it is now embedded as a dominant macroeconomic growth trend, with large publicly traded companies growing their sustainable revenues and investments at double the rate of general revenues and investments over the past three years. A look inside the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Intelligence Database shows that sustainable capital expenditures grew by 56% from 2019 to 2022, compared to 23% for general capital expenditures, while sustainable revenue grew by 84% versus 40% for general revenues over the same period.

5. None of this means we can rest on our laurels. The fossil fuel industry is flush with cash, existentially motivated and ferociously well organized to put up political barriers that delay the inevitable transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy. But fear not: the companies that want swifter climate action in alignment with the Paris Agreement – publicly traded companies signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) – have seven times more economic power (earning US$28 trillion in the most recent fiscal year, according to Corporate Knights calculations) than the US$4 trillion haul made by the fossil fuel industry (itself a huge rise from its recent average of US$1.5 trillion).

6. This economic power must be translated into political power to address barriers to climate action, chief among them unacceptably long permitting times for renewable-energy projects. This is beginning to happen with work led by the Corporate Knights Global 100 Council and others to galvanize the voice of business – not just the green energy companies – as a voice for speeding up climate action. This was demonstrated at COP28 (the first COP agreement to include a renewable-energy target), where business calls spanning all sectors for more clean energy were met with a pledge to triple installed renewable energy to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030.

7. While the fossil fuel industry is more powerful politically, both science and economic power are on the side of companies that want to speed up climate action.

8. While much climate action discussion is devoted to absolute net-zero goals decades away, which can raise hackles and unnecessary existential questions, the current imperative is to focus on speeding up action here and now.

Corporate Knights is here to help organize and provide secretariat support for companies that want to speak out together and ensure that their industry associations are part of the program, so we can make 2024 the year of climate action acceleration.

Our skis are pointed in the right direction, and we’re closing in on the summit (with an electric assist).

Toby Heaps is co-founder and publisher of Corporate Knights. 

The post Eight ways the sustainable economy is (still) taking over appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As 2023 came to a close, the World Meteorological Organization declared it to be the hottest year on record. One week later, the Global Carbon Project shared more discouraging news: that despite global pledges to reduce emissions, greenhouse gases from fossil fuels hit a record high again in 2023. 

As the climate crisis exacts a punishing toll around the globe, we’re also getting better at solving problems. Corporate leaders are flowing a growing share of their revenues into investments that will accelerate the green transition, according to Corporate Knights research.

Now in its 20th year, Corporate Knights’ Global 100 ranking of the world’s most sustainable companies reveals the top firms that are increasing their investments in green solutions such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and the circular economy.

“When we launched the Global 100 in 2005, the green economy was a quaint idea. Many companies didn’t publish in-house sustainability reports. There were no standardized key performance indicators, and none of the companies were reporting the percentage of their revenue or investments that were green,” says Corporate Knights co-founder and CEO Toby Heaps. “We did the best job possible with limited qualitative corporate disclosure.”

“Now we can measure this green business exposure for the majority of companies and are able to count annual green investments that run into the trillions, growing six times faster than the economy at large,” Heaps says.

While many companies, particularly in the fossil fuel and banking sectors, resist any major departure from their lucrative business-as-usual path, the leaders are doubling down on sustainability. 

In the 2024 Global 100 ranking, the top-ranked firms allocated 55% of their investments to sustainable projects, up from 47% the year prior. That compares with sustainable investments at a paltry 17% among the broader universe of publicly traded companies with more than US$1 billion in annual revenue.

When we launched this ranking in 2005, the green economy was a quaint idea.

–Toby Heaps, co-founder and CEO, Corporate Knights

The increase in sustainable investment is a welcome sign that companies are changing course. “The fact that these companies are plowing more money into sustainable capital expenditure and R&D means that we expect them to have higher sustainable revenues in the near future,” says Matthew Malinsky, research manager for Corporate Knights.

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2024 Global 100 ranking 

2024 rank	2023 rank	Company	HQ location	Peer group	Carbon productivity	% Taxes paid	CEO to average worker pay ratio	% Gender-diverse board of directors	% Sustainable revenue	% Sustainable investment	Final grade	Climate commitments
1	14	Sims Ltd	Mascot, Australia	Waste management	$ 38,525	16%	36:1	38%	100%	100%	A+
2	3	Brambles Ltd	Sydney, Australia	Furniture and general manufacturing	$ 123,791	12%	61:1	36%	100%	100%	A	1.5°C, SBTi
3	2	Vestas Wind Systems A/S	Aarhus, Denmark	Machinery manufacturing	$ 141,969	19%	70:1	42%	100%	100%	A	1.5°C, SBTi
4	9	Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp	Taipei, Taiwan	Transit and ground transportation	$ 7,698	0%	11:1	15%	100%	100%	A
5		Nordex SE	Hamburg, Germany	Machinery manufacturing	$ 160,887	73%	82:1	33%	100%	100%	A	1.5°C, SBTi
6	15	Banco do Brasil SA	Brasília, Brazil	Banks	$ 1,106,800	17%	9:1	50%	29%	0%	A-	1.5°C, SBTi
7	7*	Schneider Electric SE	Rueil-Malmaison, France	Electrical equipment manufacturing	$ 102,400	16%	97:1	50%	72%	80%	A-	1.5°C, SBTi
8	18	Chr Hansen Holding A/S	Hørsholm, Denmark	Food and beverage manufacturing	$ 38,696	14%	34:1	50%	47%	71%	A-	1.5°C, SBTi
9	7	Stantec Inc	Edmonton, Canada	Business, engineering and personal services	$ 118,360	12%	60:1	50%	59%	60%	A-	1.5°C, SBTi
10		SMA Solar Technology AG	Niestetal, Germany	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 135,701	22%	15:1	33%	100%	100%	A-	SBTi
11	5	Autodesk Inc	San Francisco, U.S.	IT services except telecom and hosting	$ 517,478	19%		50%	93%	0%	A-	1.5°C, SBTi
12		WSP Global Inc	Montreal, Canada	Business, engineering and personal services	$ 152,031	16%	109:1	33%	57%	92%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
13		Clean Harbors Inc	Norwell, U.S.	Waste management	$ 3,048	8%		45%	100%	100%	B+
14		Enphase Energy Inc	Fremont, U.S.	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 209,362	4%		14%	100%	100%	B+
15	65	Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson	Stockholm, Sweden	Telephones and telecom equipment manufacturing	$ 174,040	18%	83:1	29%	47%	71%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
16	35	SunPower Corp	Richmond, U.S.	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing		0%		22%	100%	100%	B+	SBTi
17	13	Ørsted A/S	Fredericia, Denmark	Power generation	$ 8,192	10%	35:1	50%	65%	99%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
18		Alstom SA	Saint-Ouen, France	Non-road transport equipment manufacturing	$ 111,827	11%	31:1	38%	84%	92%	B+	SBTi
19	29	Neste Oyj	Espoo, Finland	Refining, petrochemicals and basic organic chemicals	$ 15,844	10%	14:1	25%	39%	92%	B+
20	10	Dassault Systèmes SE	Vélizy-Villacoublay, France	IT services except telecom and hosting	$ 318,772	14%	27:1	50%	66%	6%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
21	51	Giant Manufacturing Co Ltd	Taichung, Taiwan	Non-road transport equipment manufacturing	$ 56,418	18%	227:1	9%	100%	100%	B+
22	28	City Developments Ltd	Singapore, Singapore	Real estate	$ 25,789	17%	38:1	20%	54%	64%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
23		Trane Technologies PLC	Swords, Ireland	HVAC equipment manufacturing	$ 44,213	25%	126:1	45%	38%	29%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
24		United Utilities Group PLC	Warrington, U.K.	Water and sewage treatment	$ 10,544	3%	71:1	40%	42%	100%	B+	1.5°C, SBTi
25		XPeng Inc	Guangzhou, China	Cars and trucks manufacturing, including parts	$ 264,119	0%		14%	100%	100%	B
26		Wheaton Precious Metals Corp	Vancouver, Canada	Asset management	$ 33,251,733	0%	5:1	30%	21%	0%	B	SBTi
27	4	Brookfield Renewable Partners LP	Hamilton, Bermuda	Power generation	$ 25,165	4%	58:1	33%	97%	100%	B
28	54	ERG SpA	Genoa, Italy	Power generation	$ 2,342	9%	22:1	42%	52%	100%	B	1.5°C, SBTi
29	74	Kesko Oyj	Helsinki, Finland	Grocery stores	$ 124,317	9%	110:1	29%	3%	10%	B	1.5°C, SBTi
30		Risen Energy Co Ltd	Ningbo, China	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 14,582	23%	21:1	0%	100%	100%	B
31	58	Severn Trent PLC	Coventry, U.K.	Water and sewage treatment	$ 5,751	2%	64:1	56%	50%	100%	B	1.5°C, SBTi
32		Hydro One Ltd	Toronto, Canada	Power transmission and distribution	$ 19,867	1%	9:1	40%	36%	98%	B
33		Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co Ltd	Zhuzhou, China	Electrical equipment manufacturing		28%		9%	100%	100%	B
34	46	First Solar Inc	Tempe, U.S.	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 4,270	15%		25%	100%	100%	B	1.5°C, SBTi
35	53	Eisai Co Ltd	Tokyo, Japan	Pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing	$ 188,590	16%	10:1	18%	49%	22%	B	1.5°C, SBTi
36	1	Radius Recycling	Portland, U.S.	Waste management	$ 19,067	5%	103:1	50%	95%	100%	B
37	87	Beazley PLC	London, U.K.	Insurance companies	$ 2,864,982	10%	11:1	45%	15%	0%	B	NZIA
38	20	Cascades Inc	Kingsey Falls, Canada	Packaging	$ 4,763	3%	66:1	38%	88%	86%	B	SBTi
39		EDP Renováveis SA	Madrid, Spain	Power generation		2%	7:1	33%	100%	100%	B	SBTi
40	32	Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd	Hong Kong, China	Water and sewage treatment	$ 3,828	8%		20%	94%	100%	B
41	49	Atea ASA	Oslo, Norway	Computers and peripherals manufacturing	$ 483,930	12%	23:1	38%	57%	38%	B	SBTi
42	64	Yadea Group Holdings Ltd	Wuxi, China	Non-road transport equipment manufacturing	$ 49,209	8%	7:1	13%	100%	100%	B
43		Li Auto Inc	Beijing, China	Cars and trucks manufacturing, including parts	$ 107,512	3%	95:1	13%	100%	100%	B-
44	69	Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd	Singapore, Singapore	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 4,422	8%		0%	100%	100%	B-
45	31	Kering SA	Paris, France	Retail, except grocery and auto	$ 261,469	28%	151:1	46%	26%	5%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi, FCCA
46	86	Tesla Inc	Austin, U.S.	Cars and trucks manufacturing, including parts	$ 133,544	6%		25%	100%	100%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi
47		Umicore SA	Brussels, Belgium	Basic inorganic chemicals and synthetics	$ 57,259	17%	32:1	40%	12%	63%	B-	SBTi
48	41	SAP SE	Walldorf, Germany	IT services except telecom and hosting	$ 168,329	28%	30:1	44%	30%	3%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi
49	22	McCormick & Company Inc	Hunt Valley, U.S.	Food and beverage manufacturing	$ 80,976	14%		36%	46%	22%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi
50	79	NIO Inc	Shanghai, China	Cars and trucks manufacturing, including parts	$ 42,750	1%		17%	100%	100%	B-
51	42	BCE Inc	Verdun, Canada	Telecom providers	$ 75,217	8%	137:1	36%	24%	78%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi
52	76	Investec Ltd	Sandton, South Africa	Banks	$ 130,634	20%	43:1	43%	14%	0%	B-	NZBA
53		Novo Nordisk A/S	Bagsvaerd, Denmark	Pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing	$ 336,603	19%	76:1	46%	4%	0%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi
54	47	Puma SE	Erlangen, Germany	Textiles and clothing manufacturing	$ 312,773	17%	226:1	33%	54%	0%	B-	SBTi, FCCA
55	63	Samsung SDI Co Ltd	Yongin-si, South Korea	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 14,103	9%	135:1	29%	87%	94%	B-
56		Rivian Automotive, Inc	Irvine, U.S.	Cars and trucks manufacturing, including parts		0%	55:1	43%	100%	100%	B-
57	59	Intesa Sanpaolo SpA	Turin, Italy	Banks	$ 195,778	26%	102:1	42%	16%	0%	B-	1.5°C, SBTi, NZBA
58	23	Novozymes A/S	Bagsvaerd, Denmark	Pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing	$ 7,348	16%	35:1	27%	67%	14%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
59		Elisa Oyj	Helsinki, Finland	Telecom providers	$ 57,863	11%	31:1	38%	16%	63%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
60	89	Arçelik AS	Istanbul, Turkey	Appliances and lighting fixtures manufacturing	$ 224,900	6%		17%	10%	15%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
61		Pirelli & C SpA	Milan, Italy	Plastic and rubber product manufacturing	$ 14,318	12%	548:1	20%	23%	16%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
62		Singapore Telecommunications Ltd	Singapore, Singapore	Telecom providers	$ 37,135	7%	28:1	43%	12%	60%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
63	12	Xinyi Solar Holdings Ltd	Wuhu, China	Glass and ceramics	$ 891	10%	213:1	11%	100%	100%	C+
64	48	Cisco Systems Inc	San Jose, U.S.	Telephones and telecom equipment manufacturing	$ 86,080	22%	366:1	42%	42%	0%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
65	68	KB Financial Group Inc	Seoul, South Korea	Banks	$ 142,713	25%	11:1	33%	6%	0%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi, NZBA
66	61	Sanofi SA	Paris, France	Pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing	$ 93,914	17%	98:1	38%	27%	10%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
67	39	HP Inc	Palo Alto, U.S.	Computers and peripherals manufacturing	$ 259,083	15%	787:1	46%	78%	0%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
68	52	Essity AB (publ)	Stockholm, Sweden	Packaging	$ 6,803	13%	65:1	38%	33%	10%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
69		Equinix Inc	Redwood City, U.S.	Data processing, hosting services	$ 2,970	4%		40%	48%	1%	C+	SBTi
70		Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE	Paris, France	Real estate	$ 29,790	4%	26:1	50%	50%	8%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
71	73	Apple Inc	Cupertino, U.S.	Telephones and telecom equipment manufacturing	$ 351,888	16%		33%	70%	1%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
72	80	Ricoh Co Ltd	Tokyo, Japan	Computers and peripherals manufacturing	$ 70,161	19%	17:1	13%	51%	34%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
73	45	Cogeco Communications Inc	Montreal, Canada	Telecom providers	$ 77,783	6%	54:1	50%	26%	28%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
74		Solaredge Technologies Inc	Herzliya, Israel	Semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing	$ 73,903	19%		50%	94%	43%	C+
75		Telefônica Brasil SA	São Paulo, Brazil	Telecom providers	$ 250,602	2%	90:1	33%	12%	53%	C+
76	38	Unilever PLC	London, U.K.	Personal products (retail chemical)	$ 53,579	23%	98:1	38%	2%	4%	C+	1.5°C, SBTi
77	36	Xerox Holdings Corp	Norwalk, U.S.	Computers and peripherals manufacturing	$ 56,147	6%		25%	75%	11%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
78	43	Coloplast A/S	Humlebæk, Denmark	Medical equipment manufacturing	$ 71,029	19%	43:1	33%	9%	0%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
79	77	Sun Life Financial Inc	Toronto, Canada	Insurance companies	$ 549,255	15%	124:1	50%	6%	0%	C
80	34	StarHub Ltd	Singapore, Singapore	Telecom providers	$ 50,109	13%	17:1	25%	8%	57%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
81	67	Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co	Spring, U.S.	Computers and peripherals manufacturing	$ 93,302	7%		46%	33%	39%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
82	72	Svenska Handelsbanken AB	Stockholm, Sweden	Banks	$ 1,052,698	26%	17:1	57%	7%	0%	C	1.5°C, SBTi, NZBA
83	94	Nordea Bank Abp	Helsinki, Finland	Banks	$ 3,242,058	10%	35:1	50%	4%	0%	C	NZAM, NZAO, NZBA
84	70	Orkla ASA	Oslo, Norway	Food and beverage manufacturing	$ 33,788	17%	17:1	45%	23%	3%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
85	37	Telus Corp	Vancouver, Canada	Telecom providers	$ 64,565	8%	338:1	43%	26%	23%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
86	81	Henkel AG & Co KgaA	Düsseldorf, Germany	Personal products (retail chemical)	$ 58,936	19%	132:1	44%	21%	1%	C	1.5°C, SBTi, NZAM
87		Prologis Inc	San Francisco, U.S.	Real estate and leasing	$ 1,614,690	3%	170:1	27%	2%	4%	C	1.5°C, SBTi
88		UniCredit SpA	Milan, Italy	Banks	$ 225,131	10%	60:1	42%	10%	0%	C	NZBA
89	85	Commerzbank AG	Frankfurt am Main, Germany	Banks	$ 423,236	16%	36:1	45%	5%	0%	C	SBTi, NZAM, NZBA
90	71	BNP Paribas SA	Paris, France	Banks	$ 320,421	13%	55:1	53%	8%	0%	C	SBTi, NZAM, NZAO, NZBA
91		Assicurazioni Generali SpA	Trieste, Italy	Insurance companies	$ 1,273,258	25%	72:1	46%	3%	0%	C	NZIA
92	78	Teck Resources Ltd	Vancouver, Canada	Metal and coal mining	$ 4,846	13%	79:1	29%	19%	28%	C
93	27	Vitasoy International Holdings Ltd	Hong Kong, China	Food and beverage manufacturing	$ 9,681	14%	70:1	18%	46%	4%	C
94		Bank of China Ltd	Beijing, China	Banks	$ 100,123	13%	4:1	15%	17%	0%	C
95	97	AstraZeneca PLC	Cambridge, U.K.	Pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing	$ 100,380	15%	111:1	38%	13%	0%	C-	1.5°C, SBTi
96	92	IGM Financial Inc	Winnipeg, Canada	Asset management	$ 4,947,231	17%	49:1	33%	3%	0%	C-	NZAM
97		Biomérieux SA	Marcy l’Étoile, France	Medical equipment manufacturing	$ 75,374	18%	18:1	44%	6%	0%	C-	SBTi
98		Manulife Financial Corp	Toronto, Canada	Insurance companies	$ 206,669	11%	155:1	58%	6%	0%	C-	1.5°C, SBTi
99	57	Sino Land Co Ltd	Hong Kong, China	Real estate	$ 10,127	20%	50:1	8%	50%	12%	C-	1.5°C, SBTi
100		Sysmex Corp	Kobe, Japan	Instrumentation and other electronic manufacturing	$ 154,501	20%	22:1	8%	37%	0%	C-	SBTi

*Indicates a tie as a result of a data correction

Note: 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.

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The 2024 Global 100 companies earned 51% of their revenues from sustainable sources in the fiscal year 2022, up from 50% the prior year. That compares with just 16% for the broader universe of companies. 

“Sustainable investment data identifies those companies that are going to be poised to succeed in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” Malinsky says. “We can see which of these companies are going all in on sustainable investment and have watched the ratio grow for some of these companies from 20, to 30, to 50% over a three-year period.”

Two Australian companies, Sims Ltd. and Brambles Ltd., top the 2024 ranking. Sims, this year’s number one company, recycles scrap metal in 30 countries, and Brambles rents reusable pallets and containers around the globe. Both companies score 100% on sustainable revenue and sustainable investment.

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Malinsky says that the success of Sims and Brambles is emblematic of the growing number of companies associated with the circular economy, in which waste streams are recycled into new products. 

Two decades of Global 100 versus benchmark

The Global 100 also awarded a “pivot prize” to Italian energy firm ERG SpA, which completed its multiyear transition from black to green halfway through 2023. ERG had sold off its oil assets in 2013 and announced the divestiture of its gas assets in 2022 but was blocked by Italy’s anti-trust regulator. The company redoubled its efforts to sell its last non-renewable assets and finally sold its gas-fired power plant to Achernar Assets in June 2023. 

“With this operation we complete the path of transformation towards a pure wind and solar business model,” ERG CEO Paolo Merli said in a statement. 

ERG landed in 28th place on the 2024 Global 100 and will no doubt move up the rankings next year.

As its chair Edoardo Garrone said in a statement to investors, “We have shown that the transition to a sustainable business model is possible and profitable.”

 Among the Canadian firms to make the Global 100 are engineering firms Stantec of Edmonton and WSP Global, based in Montreal. First-time Canadian entries include Ontario’s transmission company Hydro One and life insurance giant Manulife Financial Corp., which joins its competitor Sun Life Financial Inc. on the list.

We have shown that the transition to a sustainable business model is profitable and possible.

 

-Edoardo Garrone, chair, ERG

The Global 100 rates companies in 38 industry groups, including banking, utilities, mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing, based on 25 metrics. It applies different weighting to certain metrics given the nature of the sector. Sustainable revenue and sustainable investment are key measures; others include gender and racial diversity, CEO pay versus employee average, CEO bonuses based on sustainability performance, taxes paid and contributions to employee pensions.

The Global 100 score far better on overall environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics than do their peers. For example, 79% of Global 100 firms had sustainability-linked pay; only 30% of the broader corporate universe linked executive pay to the achievement of environmental or social sustainability targets.

It is a similar story for gender and racial diversity, though the difference is less stark. Some 35% of Global 100 boards of directors are gender diverse, while 25% of the broader peer group had gender-diverse boards. (Manulife was a leader with 58.3 % of its board listed as gender diverse.)

Racial diversity continues to lag both in the Global 100 group and the larger universe of companies. Only 13% of Global 100 company board directors were racially diverse compared to 10% for the larger cohort. 

All told, 10 global banks are represented in the Global 100, reflecting the large presence of financial institutions on the All Country World Index (MSCI ACWI) of publicly traded companies. The 10 banks on the Global 100 are leaders in their sector.

While the two Canadian life insurance companies made the cut, no Canadian bank did. In fact, Bank of Montreal fell out of the ranking after making it last year. The Bank of Montreal “has been pretty stagnant over the last few years in terms of their exposure to sustainable financing,” Malinsky says. 

Stagnation helps explain why a number of other companies fell off the list this year – to remain leaders, corporations need to continue to up the ante. “A number of other banks in the universe have seen their proportion of sustainable revenues earned from sustainable financing activities grow quite significantly, ” Malinsky adds.

As leaders in corporate sustainability, the Global 100 companies have also provided attractive investment returns for their shareholders. Corporate Knights compared the returns on its Global 100 index against the MSCI ACWI Index.

Between February 1, 2005, and December 15, 2023, the Global 100 saw a return of 287% on a U.S. dollar basis, while the MSCI ACWI had a return of 272%. The Dow Jones Sustainability World Index posted a return of 254% over that period.

The profitability of and solid investment returns from sustainability leaders are critical signals to the laggards that doing well can go hand in hand with doing good. And indeed, a growing number of investors are demanding greater transparency on data in order to align their investment and underwriting with their environmental and social commitments. 

Nowhere is that more true than with regard to climate change and the clean energy transition. Leaders in the transition will be rewarded and laggards penalized as the growing crisis drives governments and businesses alike to reassess their strategic interests and align their plans with a net-zero world. 

CLIMATE COMMITMENTS	1.5˚C Business Ambition for 1.5˚C	SBTi Science Based Targets Initiative	FCCA Fashion Charter for Climate Action	NZAM Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative	NZAO Net-Zero Asset Owners Alliance	NZBA Net-Zero Banking Alliance

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Get the complete Excel scorecard for the Global 100 most sustainable companies of 2024

Methodology

 All companies are scored on applicable metrics relative to their peers, with 50% of the weight assigned to sustainable revenue and sustainable investment. Nine of the indicators have fixed weights; the rest are assigned weights according to each industry’s relative impact in relation to the overall economy. After quantitatively analyzing data for 25 key performance indicators, using the Corporate Knights methodology, this year’s overall scores were converted to letter grades. 

HQ location: Where the company’s headquarters are located

Peer group: Peer group against which company was rated (based on the Corporate Knights peer groups)

Peer group rank: Company’s ranking in peer group

Carbon productivity: Based on company’s revenue to Scope 1+2 CO2e ratio

% Taxes paid: Based on company’s cash taxes paid to profit ratio over past five years

CEO–average worker pay ratio: Ratio of CEO compensation to average worker’s compensation

% Gender-diverse board directors: % of board directors who are not male

% Sustainable revenue: % of revenue earned from products and services that are categorized as “sustainable” under the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy

% Sustainable investment: % of capital expenditures, R&D and acquisitions that are categorized as “sustainable” under the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy

Overall score: The weighted average percentile rank scores across up to 25 metrics

Awarded to the top company​

Above 75%

70% - 75%

65% - 70%

60% - 65%

55% - 60%

50% - 55%

45% - 50%

40% - 45%

35% - 40%

30% - 35%

25% - 30%

2023 GLOBAL 100

2022 GLOBAL 100

2021 GLOBAL 100

2020 GLOBAL 100

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The post The Global 100 list: How the world’s most sustainable corporations are driving the green transition appeared first on Corporate Knights.