While climate change takes a harsh toll around the globe, the world is also getting better at solving problems. Corporate leaders are flowing a growing share of their revenues into investments that will accelerate the green transition, according to Corporate Knights research as it publishes its global 100 ranking of the world’s most sustainable companies. Amongst the world’s 100 frontrunners, six Danish companies are driving sustainable change.

As part of the top ten, Vestas Wind Systems comes in third due to its industry-leading sustainability strategy and contribution to the global renewable energy transition. Launched in 2020, Vestas’ sustainability strategy established sustainability performance as a core priority across its entire value chain and supplier networks. As part of the strategy, Vestas launched an ambitious circularity roadmap and governance structure, along with having carbon emissions reduction targets for internal operations validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, as being in line with the 1.5-degree scenario of the Paris Agreement.

Ranking number six overall, Chr. Hansen remains in the world’s elite of the most sustainable companies, earning best-in-class sustainable revenue and investment ratio from its bio-based food culture and enzyme product line. Uniquely positioned to drive positive change through microbial solutions, Chr. Hansen is a global, differentiated bioscience company that develops natural ingredient solutions for the food, nutritional, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.

Ranking 17 across all sectors, the renewable energy company Ørsted has been named the world’s most sustainable energy developer. Once a carbon-intensive company, Ørsted have managed to go from “black to green”, transitioning to renewables faster than any other major energy company. The company put sustainability at the core of its business and development strategy en route to becoming the world’s largest developer of offshore wind.

Novo Nordisk (53), Novozymes (58) and Coloplast (78) are the other three Danish entries in the global 100 index.

About the Corporate Knights Global 100 index 

The Corporate Knights Global 100 index is an annual ranking of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations. The ranking is cross-sectoral, including the industrial, financial, IT, consumer, and healthcare sectors.

To determine the 2024 ranking, Corporate Knights has analysed 6,733 companies against global industry peers on a suite of up to 25 quantitative key performance indicators, weighted to reflect each industry’s impact profile.

The analysis shows that companies in the Global 100 invested more than half of their capital expenditures, R&D, and acquisitions in the green economy, compared to an average of 17 percent among listed corporates.