Among the winners is U.K.-based BP PLC, the world’s second largest oil and gas company, which owns a cutting edge solar power business and is introducing lower-emissions fuels such as natural gas at its retail outlets. BP has also invested in renewable energy technology (fuel cells, wind energy, and photovoltaic) and entered cross-industry R&D sustainability partnerships.
Another winner is Japan’s Toyota Motor, one of the world’s leading automakers, recognized for developing and successfully commercializing the marquee environmental technology of the decade for the auto industry: the hybrid-drive vehicle. Toyota’s hybrid Prius model was the fasting selling car in the United States in 2004.
U.S.-based Alcoa also made the list. As the world’s leading primary aluminum producer, Alcoa is on track to reaping $100-million worth of environmental and energy cost-savings. The company is also poised to benefit from the auto industry’s adoption of aluminum, with its excellent strengthto- weight ratio that helps create fuel efficient vehicles that produce lower tailpipe emissions.
The ‘Top 100′ companies emerged from a pool of over 2,000 firms, representing such large global indices as the S&P 500, MSCI World, FTSE 350 and Eurostoxx. Companies were selected on their ability to manage strategic opportunities in new environmental and social markets.
“All companies may be created equal but not all are the same. The Global 100 sets out in one crisp list the best all-round global companies, trailblazers that are potential allies in helping to create a better world,” said Toby Heaps, Editor of Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based media company that produces the world’s only mainstream magazine focusing on corporate social responsibility in which the Global 100 list will appear annually.
Companies were rated on such criteria as strategic governance, environmental initiatives, and human capital/labour relations practices. Research and analysis was conducted by Innovest, a leading environmental investment advisory firm with offices in New York, London and Toronto.
“How companies perform on environmental, social, and strategic governance issues is having a rapidly-growing impact on their competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance,” said Dr. Matthew Kiernan, founder and CEO of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors . “We at Innovest congratulate the Top 100 sustainability companies; we consider each of them to be particularly well-positioned to capture opportunities in this new world we are all entering.”
Global 100 Rankings by Country:
Great Britain 32
US 20
Germany 9
Sweden 7
Canada 6
Japan 5
Netherlands 5
France 4
Finland 3
Denmark 2
Spain 2
Switzerland 2
Australia 1
Belgium 1
Norway 1
Dutch Companies on the Global 100 Sustainability list:
ABN AMRO
ING Group
Philips Electronics
Reed Elsevier
Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell)