Geneva, 26 January 2021: WBCSD member Schneider Electric SE is named the world’s most sustainable company in Corporate Knights 2021 Global 100 index, with members Neste and Kering closely following in fourth and seventh place. Another 11 WBCSD members also rank in the top 100 list.
This is the 17th annual index of the world’s most sustainable corporations by the media company famed for these rankings as well as award-winning sustainable business magazine “Corporate Knights”. Global 100 companies are three times more likely to take bold climate action and earn 41% of their revenues from products or services aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Corporate Knights analyzes 8080 publicly-trading corporations with a revenue of more than USD $1 billion and applies 21 red flags and 24 key indicators including the percentage of clean revenue and investment, as well as carbon productivity. Several new key performance indicators were used to determine rankings this year, reflecting some of the social concerns that the pandemic and Black Lives Matter highlighted during 2020.
There were fears that sustainability considerations would take a back seat as a result of the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, as was the case after the financial crisis of 2008/9. But, Gilles Vermot Desroches, senior vice-president for sustainable development and strategy at Schneider Electric, speaking to Corporate Knights, said “the opposite is true.” Rather than abandon sustainability pledges, governments around the world have seized on the opportunity presented by the need to kick-start their economies, and many companies are signing on to net-zero.
Corporate Knights explains the shift in attitudes is in part because of the fall in the costs of renewable energy, which is now the cheapest source of new power in many parts of the world, alongside increasing evidence of the harm that climate change can cause and growing concern from consumers and voters.
The Global 100 index also continues to demonstrate that sustainability is good business and enables companies to outperform their peers. From its inception on February 1, 2005, to December 31, 2020, the Global 100 index has generated a total return of 263% versus the 220% increase of its benchmark, the MSCI ACWI (All Country World Index).
WBCSD members ranked in Corporate Knight’s 2021 Global 100 index:
1 – Schneider Electric SE
4 – Neste Oyj
7 – Kering SA
19 – Iberdrola SA
26 – Trane Technologies PLC
31 – Acciona SA
33 – ABB Ltd
35 – BT Group PLC
42 – Natura &Co Holding SA
46 – BNP Paribas SA
57 – Sims Metal Management Ltd
61 – Accenture PLC
79 – Unilever PLC
88 – Henkel AG & Co KgaA
For more information on the Global 100 index, please see here.