Wednesday 13 June 2012

From Denmark to India: Top 100 Companies Leading the World in Clean Capitalism

According to Corporate Knights, media, research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating clean capitalism drivers for decision makers, “In business, sustainability is when what is good for a company is also good for the planet, and vice-versa”, says Toby Heaps, editor-in-chief.

In other words, we can say that sustainability is a company’s power to align efforts towards balancing money, people and the environment.

In this sense, Corporate Knights just announced 2012- List of the 100 World’s Most Sustainable Companies. “For us at Corporate Knights, sustainability is closely tied to what we call ‘clean capitalism,’ which we define as an economic system in which prices fully incorporate social, economic and ecological costs and benefits, and actors are clearly aware of the consequences of their marketplace actions,” says Doug Morrow, vice president of research at Corporate Knights.

The research group evaluated 400 companies using 11 environmental, social and governance performance measures, including energy productivity, waste productivity, CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio and employee turnover. Premise: to assume that companies were sharing reliable information, be objective and if there is no data available then penalize the criteria.


As you are about to see, 8 of the top 10 are European companies and 16 of 100 are based in the United Kingdom, making it the country with the most companies on the list. Japan was second, with 11 companies, while the U.S. and France tied for No. 3, with 8 companies each. Even though I believe the 100 companies are making outstanding efforts to excel, there is still a long...very long… way to walk. The first company scored 74.37% and an Indian company in the 100th position scores 8.06%! This makes me think: Is this really a good result? What is a reasonable score to be praiseworthy? What is the gap between the 100th and the rest of the world?


At the end, these companies do not invest and change their business mindsets towards sustainable initiatives just because they have “good heart” or are “planet conscious”, but most importantly because they are aware that sustainability is a key differentiator, a competitive advantage that will maintain them profitable and ongoing over the mid to long term.

2012 is the 8th year that this ranking take place, hope that in future releases more companies get on board and consider all the benefits of this study, including improving their global image and strenghten their brands.

1.       Novo Nordisk
Country: Denmark
Sector: Health Care
Score: 74.37%
2.       Natura Cosmeticos
Country: Brazil
Sector: Consumer Staples
Score: 67.09%
3.       Statoil
Country: Norway
Sector: Energy
Score: 65.73%
4.       Novozymes
Country: Denmark
Sector: Materials
Score: 64.81%
5.       ASML Holding
Country: Netherlands
Sector: Information Technology
Score: 64.79%
6.       BG Group
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Energy
Score: 63.24%
7.       Westpac Banking Corporation
Country: Australia
Sector: Banking
Score: 61.74%
8.       Vivendi
Country: France
Sector: Telecommunications
Score: 59.53%
9.       Umicore
Country: Belgium
Sector: Materials
Score: 58.44%
10.   Norsk Hydro
Country: Norway
Sector: Materials
Score 58.24%

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