BMW comes top in global sustainability rankings

Corporate Knights, the Canadian-based media and research company, has published its 2016 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World (Global 100) ranking.

Companies that make the Global 100 ranking are the top overall sustainability performers in their respective industrial sectors, selected from a starting universe of 4,353 listed companies with a market capitalization greater than $2 billion (USD) on 1 October 2015.

“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,” said Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights.

One of this year’s encouraging findings is the link in executive pay for sustainability performance. In 2016, 87% of the Global 100 companies provided a monetary bonus to executives who achieved sustainability targets.

The top-ranked company in this year’s Global 100 index is BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) AG, moving up from sixth place in 2015. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, BMW makes luxury cars and motorcycles, including the BMW i3 electric series.

Corporate Knights say that BMW turned in a top-quartile performance against peers for its efficient use of water, energy and lack of waste.

The company also excelled against its peers with top quartile results for its responsible approach to paying taxes, large innovation investments, low employee turnover and low CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio.

American organisations earned 19 positions on this year’s index;France is home to 11 companies; there are 10 Scandinavian companies, with Canada and United Kingdom each accounting for nine on the list.

The island state of Singapore, known for its high natural resource productivity, placed four companies on this year’s list.