Westpac Banking Corporation, a leading financial service provider in Australia with annual revenues of US$38 billion, has been ranked No.1 in the Global 100 index by Corporate Knights.
Westpac has a long history of leadership and innovation in corporate sustainability. It was the first bank to join the Australian government’s Greenhouse Challenge Plus and the first financial institution in Australia to create a matching donation program.
Now in the tenth year, Global 100 index has been recognized as the gold standard in corporate sustainability analysis. Companies named to the Global 100 index are the top overall sustainability performers in their respective industrial sectors.
Inclusion in the Global 100 index is determined using twelve quantitative sustainability indicators, including the amount of revenue companies generate per unit of energy consumption, the ratio of CEO to average worker salary and lost time injury rate.
The Global 100 index can be used as a benchmark, or as a basis for financial production construction, including exchange traded funds and structured products.
“The Global 100 follows a rules-based index construction methodology,” said Doug Morrow, managing director at Corporate Knights. “We unpackage “sustainability” into its component parts, and build the index from the ground up using clearly defined ratios and performance indicators.”
The top five rounded out in the list include Biogen Idec, the U.S.-based biotech firm; Outotec Oyj, a Finnish mining technology and capital goods company; Norwegian oil giant Statoil and Dassault Systèmes, a French company that specializes in the production of 3D design software.
Beginning February 1, 2014, the Global 100 index will be calculated by Solactive, the German index provider.
U.S firms captured 18 of the 100 spots in this years Global 100 index. Canada followed with 13, while the U.K and France tied for the third with eight spots each. Emerging markets accounted for three positions on the Index, consisting of firms from Brazil and China.
The Financials sector took twenty-two spots on the index, followed by the Consumer Discretionary and IT sectors, each with twelve constituents.