World’s top 100 sustainable companies announced

Corporate Knights released the 2016 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World ranking on Thursday with BMW coming top of the list.

The Canadian-based media and research company launched the new ranking in the winter issue of Corporate Knights, the magazine for clean capitalism.

Firms that make the Global 100 ranking are the top sustainability performers in their respective sectors.

Companies are selected from a starting group of 4,353 listed businesses with a market capitalisation greater than US$2 billion.

French software company Dassault Systemes came second on the list with Finnish engineering firm Outotec coming third.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia and German sports giant Adidas completed the top 5.

Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights, said: "Global 100 companies demonstrate ambition and achievement on a broad spectrum of indicators. Striving to make the world a better place, they are where people want to work, firms we want to buy from and invest in for the long term."

Results for the 2016 list indicate show that 87 per cent of the Global 100 firms provided a monetary bonus to executives who achieved sustainability targets.

German automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) has topped the list for this year's Global 100 index, moving up from 6th place in 2015.

BMW has been recognised for its efficient use of water, energy and its waste management.

BMW also excelled for its responsible approach to paying taxes, investments in innovation, low employee turnover and low CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio.

Nineteen U.S. companies feature on the 2016 list, with France having 11 companies, and 10 from Scandinavia.

Canada and the UK each have nine on the list and the city state of Singapore has four companies listed.

The ranking is determined using 12 sustainability indicators, including the amount of revenue companies generate per unit of energy consumed, the ratio of CEO to average worker pay and the percentage of taxes that have been paid.

The full Global 100 list can be accessed HERE