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committee oversight of environmental
issues and third-party audits.
People power
“The upward tick in environmental
disclosure identified in the rankings is
a well-documented macro trend,” says
Heaps, whose company is headquar-
tered in Toronto, Canada’s largest city.
“We believe this reflects growing pres-
sure for expanded corporate reporting
from investor groups and the growing
number of jurisdictions that require
environmental disclosure.”
company on carbon emissions, but rath-
er to a company in a like industry,” says
Heaps. “That allows us to roll up data
into a finite comparison table that does
make comparisons between different
companies. It’s similar to how univer-
sity biology students are rated against
their peers in their biology courses for a
grade point average that can be com-
pared with the grade point average of
students in a different discipline such as
engineering,” explains Heaps.
The evolving nature of corporate
financial reporting has affected sustain-
ability reporting.
“One hundred years ago companies
didn’t report profits to their stakehold-
ers. Then there started to be various
parts of the stakeholder realm that
involved regulatory responses and
formal reporting requirements. It’s not
a perfect system, but today we have
a fairly articulated system of financial
reporting. And we have the same hap-
pening with non-traditional reporting
factors,” says Heaps, who credits early
sustainability reporting pioneers for
creating different standards for defining
carbon emissions such as the Global
Reporting Initiative, the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development,
and the World’s Resource Institute.
“And of course the Carbon Disclosure
KONE placed 12th
on the
Newsweek Green Rankings,
which is one of the world’s
foremost corporate environmental
rankings. The project ranks
the 500 largest publicly traded
companies in the United
States (the US 500) and the
500 largest publicly traded
companies globally (the Global
500) on overall environmental
performance. The 2014 rankings
follow five core principles:
There are many reasons why sustain-
ability is important, but having the best
people is at least three times more im-
portant than any other reason.
“From talking to executives from
major companies around the world,
the top factor that comes up time and
time again is employees. If you want
to inspire, attract and keep the best
employees, the most powerful motiva-
tor is providing a place they’re proud
to work,” he says.
“That means a company that does
things to solve the core challenges of
the world we live in. Good companies
have a competitive edge; in order to
keep their edge they need to have the
best people.”
In addition to environmental aware-
ness, there’s another key reason employ-
ees look for responsible workplaces. “In
Western societies, as per Maslow’s hier-
archy of needs, most people have food,
shelter, and their basic needs taken care
of. People are looking for meaning in
what they do,” says Heaps.
Understanding
methodologies
The Newsweek Green Rankings uses
methodology that takes context into
consideration.
“We don’t compare a bank to an oil
Transparency
The precise methodology of
the ranking and the results of
the process are fully disclosed.
Objectivity
Eligible companies will only be
assessed using quantitative data
and performance indicators.
Public data
Only data points that are part
of the public domain are used.
Comparability
Companies are compared
against their industry group peers
based on performance indicators
for which the underlying data are
reasonably well disclosed by their
industry group globally.
Engagement
Companies eligible for the rank-
ing will be informed prior to the
ranking, so as to have an opportu-
nity to ensure the necessary data
is made available publicly.
Source:
www.newsweek.com/2014-newsweek-green-rankings
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| PEOPLE FLOW