Why We Do It

If all corporations are not the same, which ones are better? That’s the purpose of the Global 100: to reinforce, raise awareness and highlight, annually, the World’s leaders in clean capitalism, laying out in one clear page the global firms most willing and able to deal with the key social and environmental factors they face in their everyday operations.

We want to mainstream sustainability in the business community.  By applying objective corporate social and environmental measures that clearly show which companies stand above their peers, our aim is to create a virtuous cycle where the most sustainable companies attract the most capital and earn the best returns.

The Global 100 companies deserve to be recognized, because they are models for the art of the possible, living proof of how billion dollar entities can squeeze more wealth from less material resources while honouring the social contract.

We believe that a company's ability to manage its environmental, social and governance (ESG) file is a powerful proxy for its overall management quality. Management quality, in turn, is an important determinant of corporate financial performance, both in accounting measures and in terms of shareholder return. The aim of this initiative is thus to promote better managed and better performing corporations.

In a competitive market, there’s little doubt that businesses can derive a range of benefits from sound management of their social, environmental and governance (ESG) areas, such as reputational advantages, license to operate, and employee recruitment and retention benefits, amongst others. In an age of information overload, it is important that stakeholders, including shareholders, policy-makers, employees and consumers, be provided with a way to pick out the true leaders from the pack.

There is also a growing investment case for strong management of extra-financial risks and opportunities. As we move deeper and deeper into the era of knowledge-value based on sustainability issues, conventional methods of company analysis will capture and reflect less and less of a company’s true value and competitive potential. These sustainability value drivers are difficult to measure, but they are absolutely central to companies’ competitiveness and profitability going forward.