American weekly news magazine Newsweek, in partnership with Corporate Knights Capital, HIP Investor Inc, and “leading sustainability minds from non-governmental organizations and the academic and accounting communities”, has ranked the world’s largest companies on corporate sustainability and environmental impact. The report was released earlier this month.
The Newsweek ranking is done at two levels — one is at the national level and the other at the global level. The national level ranking — US 500 — includes 500 largest publicly-traded companies in the US by market capitalization.
The global ranking — Global 500 — includes 500 of the world’s largest publicly-traded companies by market capitalization as determined by Bloomberg on March 4.
A company is given a particular rank based on its scores in eight specific indicators. The indicators are: combined energy productivity; combined greenhouse gas productivity; combined water productivity; combined waste productivity; green revenue score; green pay link; sustainability board committee; and audited environmental metrics.
And the ranking is based on the performance year data from 2013. The time-lag occurs because companies submit their reports in late 2014 or early 2015, Newsweek has stated. It has also added that the analysts have used several methods to ensure accuracy of the assessment and ranking.
Under the ranking, each company is classified based on Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS).
The structure of GICS includes 10 sectors, 24 industry groups, 68 industries and 154 sub-industries, into which all major public companies have been categorized.
Ajith Kumar S