For the first time, TIME has partnered with Statista to identify the World’s Most Sustainable Companies for 2024, aiming to highlight corporate responsibility and promote sustainable practices. In an era marked by significant environmental challenges and social inequalities, it is crucial to recognize and reward companies prioritizing sustainability. By featuring these leading entities, the ranking sets a benchmark for other businesses, fostering transparency and accountability and encouraging the integration of sustainability into core corporate strategies.
Methodology
The ranking process began with a comprehensive selection from over 5,000 of the world's largest and most influential companies, considering factors such as revenue, market capitalization, and public prominence. The process involved a rigorous 4-step methodology to identify the top 500 companies, evaluated on more than 20 key data points.
- Exclusion of Non-Sustainable Businesses: The first step excluded companies involved in non-sustainable industries like fossil fuels or deforestation. Additionally, companies appearing on negative lists related to sustainability issues, such as those identified as carbon majors or associated with environmental catastrophes, were automatically disqualified. This step also considered significant scandals or controversies related to sustainability.
- Commitment & Ratings: The second step involved assessing companies based on external sustainability ratings and commitments from reputable organizations. Key criteria included CDP ratings, adherence to the UN Global Compact, alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative, inclusion in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook, participation in the UNFCCC Race to Zero, and MSCI ESG & SRI evaluations.
- Reporting & Transparency: The third step evaluated the availability and quality of sustainability reports. This included verifying whether companies published an ESG report for 2022, ensuring these reports had undergone external assurance, and assessing compliance with international reporting standards such as GRI, SASB, and TCFD.
- Environmental & Social Stewardship: The final step involved researching various environmental and social Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from companies' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports. Environmental metrics included emission intensity, emission reduction rates, energy intensity, and the proportion of renewable energy used. Social metrics covered aspects like gender diversity on board and in leadership, gender pay gap, work safety, and employee turnover rate.
An overall sustainability score was calculated, with a maximum achievable score of 100. The top 500 companies with the highest scores were awarded the title of World’s Most Sustainable Companies 2024. These companies are spread across more than 30 countries, with the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom hosting the highest numbers.
About Statista
Statista R is a world leader in the creation of company, brand, and product rankings and top lists, based on comprehensive market research and data analysis: Statista R recognizes the best. With a team of over 100 expert analysts and in cooperation with more than 40 high profile media brands across all continents, Statista R creates transparency for consumers and business decision makers and helps companies build trust and recognition across a plethora of industries and product categories. Statista R is a division of Statista. The leading data and business intelligence portal provides an extensive collection of statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries.
About GRI
GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is an independent, international organization that helps businesses and other organizations take responsibility for their impacts, by providing them with the global common language to communicate those impacts. The GRI Secretariat is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and they have a network of seven regional offices to ensure support for organizations and stakeholders worldwide. GRI provided the data for the evaluation.
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