The Global 100: Most Sustainable Corporations in the World
February 7th, 2007 by Vihar ShethPosted in Capitalism, Corporations, Governance, Responsibility, Society, Sustainability
This is only one list of many but I thought it provided a good representation of sustainable corporations in a variety of industries, from a variety of countries. According to the website:
The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World is a project initiated by Corporate Knights Inc. with Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc., a leading research firm specializing in analyzing extra-financial drivers of risk and shareholder value, including companies’ performance on social, environmental and strategic governance issues. Innovest was selected as the exclusive research analytic data provider for the Global 100. Launched in 2005, the annual Global 100 is unveiled each year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The site asks, “What is the difference between a company that makes the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World list and a ‘sustainable corporation’? ”
The concept of sustainability is a contentious one, to say the least. Debates have been raging in various circles (e.g. academia, business, government, the UN, etc.) for a number of years over exactly how to define sustainability, and more importantly over what it should look like in practice. We do not have the pretence to know how to resolve this dispute, let alone be able to produce an authoritative blue-print for ‘sustainable behavior’. What we do know is that social, environmental and governance factors are increasingly relevant to financial performance, and that companies which show superior management of these issues are fast gaining an edge over their competitors – an edge which we believe will translate into outperformance in the long haul. The Global 100 companies are therefore sustainable in the sense that they have displayed a better ability than most of their industry peers to identify and effectively manage material environmental, social and governance factors impacting the opportunity and risk sides of their business.
I hope the companies on this list get a good bit of publicity for what they’ve done or are trying to do. Of course there’s always room for improvement when a company like Royal Dutch Shell PLC is on the list.
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