How TIME and Statista Determined the World's Most Sustainable Companies of 2026
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For the third time, Statista and TIME Magazine have joined forces to identify the World’s Most Sustainable Companies for 2026, aiming to highlight corporate responsibility and promote sustainable practices. By featuring these leading entities, the ranking sets a benchmark for other businesses, fostering transparency and accountability and encouraging the integration of sustainability into core corporate strategies.
The ranking process began with a comprehensive selection from over 5,000 of the world's largest and most influential companies, considering factors such as revenue, market capitalization, and public prominence. The process involved a rigorous 4-step methodology to identify the top 750 companies, evaluated on more than 20 key data points.
1. Exclusion of Non-Sustainable Businesses: The first step excluded companies involved in non-sustainable industries like fossil fuels or deforestation. Additionally, companies appearing on negative lists related to sustainability issues, such as those identified as carbon majors or associated with environmental catastrophes, were automatically disqualified. These lists include the 2024 Forest 500 Report, the 2024 Carbon Majors, and the 2023 PERI Top 100 Polluter Indexes: Air, Water, Greenhouse, Toxic Greenhouse, Suppliers, Coal. This step also considered significant scandals or controversies related to sustainability.
2. Commitment & Ratings: The second step involved assessing companies based on external sustainability ratings and commitments from reputable organizations. Key criteria included CDP ratings, adherence to the UN Global Compact, alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative (near-term and long-term), inclusion in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook, participation in the UNFCCC Race to Zero campaign, and MSCI ESG & SRI evaluations.
3. Reporting & Transparency: The third step evaluated the availability and quality of sustainability reports. This included verifying whether companies published an ESG report for 2024, ensuring these reports had undergone external assurance, and assessing compliance with international reporting standards such as GRI, SASB, and TCFD (now part of the IFRS/ISSB standards).
4. Environmental & Social Stewardship: The final step involved researching various environmental and social Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from companies' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports. Environmental metrics included emission intensity, emission intensity reduction, energy intensity, renewable energy ratio, waste intensity and the proportion of recycled waste.
Social metrics covered aspects like gender diversity on the board of directors and in leadership, gender pay gap, work safety, and employee turnover.
An overall sustainability score was calculated, with a maximum achievable score of 100. The top 750 companies with the highest scores were awarded the title of World’s Most Sustainable Companies 2026. These companies are spread across more than 40 countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan hosting the highest numbers.