Singtel, CapitaLand, CDL among world's 100 most sustainable firms: Corporate Knights

THREE Singapore companies have clinched places in the 14th annual Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World rankings by Corporate Knights Inc, although two of these companies have slipped in their rankings compared to the previous year.

In 63th place globally is telco Singtel, followed by property developers CapitaLand and City Developments (CDL) in 98th and 100th places respectively.

A year ago, it was CDL in 30th place, Singtel in 52th, and telco StarHub in 69th.

The list of 100 was selected from a pool of 5,994 publicly listed companies, each evaluated on a set of up to 17 environmental, social and governance indicators relative to their industry peers using publicly available information.

The list also represents the top 2 per cent in the world on sustainability performance and the ranking is widely noted as the global standard in corporate sustainability analysis.

The top ranked company in this year's list is French multinational software company Dassault Systèmes, whose digital technologies assist companies and governments in reducing waste, adopting renewables, and creating smarter cities.

Finishing 11th last year, its climb is due to strong female representation on the board (six of 11 current directors), a relatively small pay gap between the CEO and average worker, and a strong financial contribution to society (paid taxes equal to 26.5 per cent of Ebitda - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation - over the past five years).

The full rankings were unveiled during the World Economic Forum 2018 in Davos, Switzerland.