The term "sustainable"--like "green" and "all-natural" before it--conveys an abstract sense of do- gooding that many companies have been happy to adopt. Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based media company, applies hard metrics to the otherwise fuzzy term, and Saturday it released its seventh-annual list of the world's most sustainable companies.
"Transparency is a prerequisite," says Toby Heaps, Corporate Knights' editor-in-chief. "Also, how are companies squeezing more wealth from the resources that they use? How are they doing a better job of respecting the social contract, like paying taxes or having diverse leadership?"
In Pictures: The World's Most Sustainable Companies
Corporate Knights worked with a research firm to winnow down its list of publicly traded companies from 3,000 to 300, based on financial performance and other criteria. Then the Corporate Knights research group worked with two different asset management firms to evaluate those 300 companies based on 10 environmental, social and governance performance metrics, including energy productivity, waste productivity and CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio. An eleventh indicator was added for "transparency."
Corporate Knights includes the top-performing companies in each of several sectors. It relies on the companies to give it accurate data. When a company doesn't provide information for one of the 10 metrics, Corporate Knights assigns it a null score for that category, and penalizes the company with an unfavorable transparency score.
The list's most sustainable company comes from the oil and gas industry--a counterintuitive pick. The Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil ( STO - news - people ) leads the list, thanks in part to improvements in its water productivity. It's also a healthy contributor to Norway's coffers and has a diverse board, Heaps says.
Rounding out the top 10 list are Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ - news - people ), Danish biotech company Novozymes, Nokia ( NOK - news - people ), Belgian tech company Umicore, Intel ( INTC - news - people ), AstraZeneca ( AZN - news - people ), Credit Agricole, Norwegian financial services company Storebrand, and Danske Bank.
Last year's top-ranked company, General Electric ( GE - news - people ), fell to the No. 11 spot this year. It "dropped less because of anything that changed at GE and more because its peers made more progress improving their carbon and energy productivity," says Heaps. Also, GE scaled back its R&D budget, he adds, and placed lower among its peers on R&D spending. However, its tax and diversity scores remained strong.
Last year's second-ranked company, American utility provider PG&E ( PCG - news - people ), dropped 48 places this year, largely because it scored lower on its diversity and taxes. According to Heaps, today only 18% of its directors are women, compared with 30% last year. "The company scored 11th percentile for water productivity and 57th percentile for carbon productivity, which had the effect of lowering its overall score," Heaps says.
Heaps hopes that the list will help prove that sustainability is good business. For the seventh consecutive year, he says, companies on the Global 100 list have outperformed those on the MSCI ACWI index. The Global 100 has posted a total return of 54.95%, he says, outperforming the MSCI by more than 16 points.
In Pictures: The World's Most Sustainable Companies
"Transparency is a prerequisite," says Toby Heaps, Corporate Knights' editor-in-chief. "Also, how are companies squeezing more wealth from the resources that they use? How are they doing a better job of respecting the social contract, like paying taxes or having diverse leadership?"
In Pictures: The World's Most Sustainable Companies
Corporate Knights worked with a research firm to winnow down its list of publicly traded companies from 3,000 to 300, based on financial performance and other criteria. Then the Corporate Knights research group worked with two different asset management firms to evaluate those 300 companies based on 10 environmental, social and governance performance metrics, including energy productivity, waste productivity and CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio. An eleventh indicator was added for "transparency."
Corporate Knights includes the top-performing companies in each of several sectors. It relies on the companies to give it accurate data. When a company doesn't provide information for one of the 10 metrics, Corporate Knights assigns it a null score for that category, and penalizes the company with an unfavorable transparency score.
The list's most sustainable company comes from the oil and gas industry--a counterintuitive pick. The Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil ( STO - news - people ) leads the list, thanks in part to improvements in its water productivity. It's also a healthy contributor to Norway's coffers and has a diverse board, Heaps says.
Rounding out the top 10 list are Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ - news - people ), Danish biotech company Novozymes, Nokia ( NOK - news - people ), Belgian tech company Umicore, Intel ( INTC - news - people ), AstraZeneca ( AZN - news - people ), Credit Agricole, Norwegian financial services company Storebrand, and Danske Bank.
Last year's top-ranked company, General Electric ( GE - news - people ), fell to the No. 11 spot this year. It "dropped less because of anything that changed at GE and more because its peers made more progress improving their carbon and energy productivity," says Heaps. Also, GE scaled back its R&D budget, he adds, and placed lower among its peers on R&D spending. However, its tax and diversity scores remained strong.
Last year's second-ranked company, American utility provider PG&E ( PCG - news - people ), dropped 48 places this year, largely because it scored lower on its diversity and taxes. According to Heaps, today only 18% of its directors are women, compared with 30% last year. "The company scored 11th percentile for water productivity and 57th percentile for carbon productivity, which had the effect of lowering its overall score," Heaps says.
Heaps hopes that the list will help prove that sustainability is good business. For the seventh consecutive year, he says, companies on the Global 100 list have outperformed those on the MSCI ACWI index. The Global 100 has posted a total return of 54.95%, he says, outperforming the MSCI by more than 16 points.
In Pictures: The World's Most Sustainable Companies
| Company Name | Country | Leadership Diversity | Carbon Productivity | % of Tax Paid | |
| 1 | STATOIL ASA | Norway | 40% | $5,641 | 100% |
| 2 | JOHNSON & JOHNSON | United States | 27% | $48,471 | 100% |
| 3 | NOVOZYMES | Denmark | 11% | $3,671 | 80% |
| 4 | NOKIA OYJ | Finland | 18% | $1,731,813 | 100% |
| 5 | UMICORE | Belgium | 10% | $18,952 | 95% |
| 6 | INTEL CORP | United States | 27% | $11,012 | 100% |
| 7 | ASTRAZENECA PLC | 25% | $47,200 | 88% | |
| 8 | CREDIT AGRICOLE SA | France | 29% | $1,616,159 | 100% |
| 9 | STOREBRAND ASA | Norway | 40% | $3,855,625 | n/a |
| 10 | DANSKE BANK A/S | Denmark | 20% | $584,853 | 100% |
| 11 | GENERAL ELECTRIC CO | United States | 25% | $26,891 | 100% |
| 12 | ENCANA CORP | Canada | 27% | $1,889 | 100% |
| 13 | VIVENDI | France | 33% | $152,557 | 90% |
| 14 | NITTO DENKO CORP | Japan | 0% | $14,622 | 100% |
| 15 | TNT NV | Netherlands | 22% | $14,580 | 97% |
| 16 | NOVO NORDISK | Denmark | 18% | $51,988 | 89% |
| 17 | DEXIA SA | Belgium | 6% | $3,645,240 | 100% |
| 18 | WESTPAC BANKING CORP | Australia | 30% | $128,239 | 87% |
| 19 | ORIGIN ENERGY LTD | Australia | 22% | $4,394 | 56% |
| 20 | NESTE OIL OYJ | Finland | 38% | $3,363 | 79% |
| 21 | VESTAS WIND SYSTEMS A/S | Denmark | 8% | $214,202 | 67% |
| 22 | ROCHE | Switzerland | 8% | $50,963 | 100% |
| 23 | AEON CO LTD | Japan | 0% | $44,140 | 100% |
| 24 | T&D HOLDINGS INC | Japan | 0% | $1,772,635 | 100% |
| 25 | HSBC HOLDINGS PLC | Britain | 14% | $106,711 | 100% |
| 26 | KESKO OYJ | Finland | 14% | $85,404 | 92% |
| 27 | TATA STEEL LTD | India | 0% | $2,064 | 99% |
| 28 | AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC | United States | 11% | $35,008 | 100% |
| 29 | Johnson Controls Inc | United States | 0% | $22,452 | 100% |
| 30 | SONY CORP | Japan | 13% | $44,312 | 100% |
| 31 | WEYERHAEUSER CO | United States | 27% | $2,048 | n/a |
| 32 | MITSUI OSK LINES LTD | Japan | 9% | $911 | 100% |
| 33 | INDITEX | Spain | 22% | $45,317 | 100% |
| 34 | ENBRIDGE INC | Canada | 17% | $1,740 | 58% |
| 35 | MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES | Japan | 0% | $75,120 | 100% |
| 36 | NEXEN INC | Canada | 8% | $1,088 | 77% |
| 37 | SWISSCOM | Switzerland | 11% | $426,340 | 86% |
| 38 | ADIDAS AG | Germany | 13% | $249,581 | 100% |
| 39 | IBERDROLA SA | Spain | 13% | $692 | 86% |
| 40 | RSA INSURANCE GROUP PLC | Britain | 22% | n/a | 100% |
| 41 | PROLOGIS | United States | 20% | $122,308 | 100% |
| 42 | INSURANCE Australia GROUP | Australia | 25% | $130,936 | 100% |
| 43 | Anglo Platinum Limited | South Africa | 0% | $1,117 | 63% |
| 44 | PROCTER & GAMBLE CO | United States | 15% | $12,803 | 91% |
| 45 | KRAFT FOODS INC | United States | 33% | $15,721 | 100% |
| 46 | NORSK HYDRO ASA | Norway | 33% | $1,045 | n/a |
| 47 | UNIBAIL-RODAMCO | France | 8% | $172,435 | 100% |
| 48 | HENNES & MAURITZ | Sweden | 56% | $52,824 | 100% |
| 49 | TOKYO GAS CO LTD | Japan | 9% | $66,887 | 28% |
| 50 | P G & E CORP | United States | 18% | $3,769 | 5% |
| 51 | STORA ENSO OYJ | Finland | 22% | $2,366 | 100% |
| 52 | GEBERIT | Switzerland | 14% | $23,163 | 100% |
| 53 | DAIWA HOUSE INDUSTRY CO LTD | Japan | 0% | $43,546 | 100% |
| 54 | NIPPON YUSEN | Japan | 7% | $1,117 | 100% |
| 55 | STOCKLAND | Australia | 11% | $9,522 | 62% |
| 56 | SUN LIFE FINANCIAL INC | Canada | 15% | n/a | 100% |
| 57 | L'OREAL | France | 20% | $123,000 | 36% |
| 58 | PHILIPS ELECTRONICS | Netherlands | 11% | $29,830 | 100% |
| 59 | YAMAHA CORP | Japan | 0% | $26,374 | 100% |
| 60 | VODAFONE GROUP PLC | Britain | 9% | $43,423 | 100% |
| 61 | HENKEL | Germany | 0% | $25,269 | 100% |
| 62 | CENTRICA PLC | Britain | 20% | $2,915 | 99% |
| 63 | SIMS METAL MANAGEMENT LTD | Australia | 0% | $20,234 | 100% |
| 64 | ABB LTD | India | 0% | $22,294 | 100% |
| 65 | BG GROUP PLC | Britain | 8% | $1,844 | 81% |
| 66 | Natura Cosmeticos Sa | Brazil | 0% | $8,751 | n/a |
| 67 | KINGFISHER PLC | Britain | 10% | $66,622 | 77% |
| 68 | DANONE | France | 0% | $18,472 | 28% |
| 69 | NTT DOCOMO INC | Japan | 0% | $36,944 | 96% |
| 70 | KONICA MINOLTA INC | Japan | 0% | $27,293 | 100% |
| 71 | RICOH CO LTD | Japan | 0% | $61,651 | 50% |
| 72 | TOKYO ELECTRON LTD | Japan | 0% | $43,764 | 100% |
| 73 | INTESA SANPAOLO | Italy | 11% | $235,504 | n/a |
| 74 | TAISHO PHARMACEUTICAL CO LTD | Japan | 0% | $44,162 | 92% |
| 75 | HEWLETT-PACKARD CO | United States | 18% | $54,471 | 47% |
| 76 | SWISS REINSURANCE CO LTD | Switzerland | 11% | $671,159 | 100% |
| 77 | GLAXOSMITHKLINE PLC | Britain | 8% | $20,115 | 87% |
| 78 | COCA-COLA ENTERPRISES | United States | 23% | $14,469 | 97% |
| 79 | NEC CORP | Japan | 7% | $36,374 | 50% |
| 80 | PANASONIC CORP | Japan | 0% | $23,434 | 98% |
| 81 | NISSAN MOTOR CO LTD | Japan | 0% | $15,000 | 100% |
| 82 | TOYOTA MOTOR CORP | Japan | 0% | $27,969 | 100% |
| 83 | STMICROELECTRONICS | Switzerland | 0% | $6,979 | 100% |
| 84 | UNILEVER PLC | Britain | 20% | $21,026 | 88% |
| 85 | LOGICA PLC | Britain | 13% | $61,015 | 100% |
| 86 | SUNCOR ENERGY INC | Canada | 14% | $1,129 | 76% |
| 87 | PRUDENTIAL PLC | Britain | 23% | $593,068 | 100% |
| 88 | Petroleo Brasileiro Sa | Brazil | 0% | $2,053 | 14% |
| 89 | Repsol | Spain | 13% | $2,414 | 100% |
| 90 | BCE INC | Canada | 17% | $50,471 | 20% |
| 91 | BANCO BRADESCO | Brazil | 1% | $2,890,893 | 73% |
| 92 | TORONTO-DOMINION BANK | Canada | 31% | $93,283 | 100% |
| 93 | SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD | South Korea | 0% | $7,762 | n/a |
| 94 | SAP AG | Germany | 6% | $35,015 | 100% |
| 95 | GPT GROUP | Australia | 13% | $2,471 | 100% |
| 96 | RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD | India | 0% | $2,000 | 71% |
| 97 | MTR CORP | Hong Kong | 18% | $2,066 | 34% |
| 98 | ROYAL BANK OF Canada | Canada | 20% | $488,045 | 83% |
| 99 | BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC | United States | 15% | $16,732 | 58% |
| 100 | CITY DEVELOPMENTS LTD | Singapore | 0% | $72,692 | 65% |
