Neste is the world’s third most sustainable company

Neste has been ranked as the world’s third most sustainable company on the Global 100 Index. But there’s a wider story behind this recognition. Here are the 5 facts you need to know about the ranking.

1. Neste is the third most sustainable company in the world in 2020

The Global 100 league table of sustainable corporations, published each year during the World Economic Forum in Davos by sustainability monitors and advocates Corporate Knights, has awarded Neste a placement that underlines Neste’s leading position at the forefront of sustainable businesses worldwide. Neste was included among the top 3 most sustainable companies in the world for the third consecutive time.

2. The Global 100 ranking is not an award but the world’s most authoritative single global measure on corporate sustainability

While the burgeoning number of awards for sustainable business only recognise those who enter or are nominated, the Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking is the result of an independent, investigative trawl through corporations worldwide. Submissions from companies are not required and the ranking is based on publicly disclosed-data such as financial filings and sustainability reports. The companies on the Global 100 shortlist are only contacted for data verification.

3. The Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking goes way beyond environmental criteria

The Global 100 ranking’s methodology is based on up to 21 key performance indicators (KPI’s). They cover everything from environmental performance to resource management, employee management, financial management, clean revenue and supplier performance.

This enables the ranking to take an accurate all-round gauge of a company’s sustainability performance across all areas of its business.

This approach to quantifying a business’s sustainability in a holistic way is known as ESG, or Environmental, Social, Governance. It allows investors, the public, employees and government to take a true view of just how sustainable the business is, from employee remuneration and policies to its impact on local communities as well as environmental factors.

4. The Global 100 ranking is part of the current global shift towards greater transparency and accountability for businesses

”As more and better data becomes available,” Toby Heaps, CEO and founder of Corporate Knights, told Neste in a recent interview, ”you can get insight into the souls of the companies and the investors by looking at the Excel sheet. You just look at what percentage of revenues, and profits, are invested in sustainable resources.”

The Global 100 ranking measures publicly listed companies with gross revenue of US$1 billion or more annually. Every sector and geographical area is assessed and considered, before a rigorous screening.

5. Neste’s ranking reflects not just its standing as one of the world’s most sustainable businesses, but its high level of transparency and commitment to openness

Heaps also praised Neste’s transparency and acknowledged its role as one of the pioneers of the move to place sustainable thinking at the top of the global agenda, from Davos to Wall Street.

”Neste, to their great credit, makes all of its data available. They open up their datasets to allow oversight. And even when in the past there have been things in there that they have needed to fix, they were open and transparent about it.”

”We need more companies to do that. Because that is what allows us, and consumers, and investors, to make informed decisions about who we deal with. Neste was one of the companies committed to doing that early on. Now things are changing, and it is becoming more normal.”

To view the Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies ranking for 2020, see https://www.corporateknights.com/reports/2020-global-100/

Read also: press release on 21 January 2020.