The index is published annually since 2005 by Canadian research company Corporate Knights.
Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore said that the ranking reinforced Umicore’s commitment to continue its sustainable development efforts as part of the company’s Vision 2015 strategy.
“Umicore has made significant investments in clean technologies such as automotive catalysts and rechargeable battery materials, and our recycling technologies support a truly unique closed-loop business approach,” he said. “Our products and services are addressing global issues such as resource scarcity, clean mobility and the generation and storage of clean energy. We complement this by ambitious objectives to further improve our environmental and social performance."
According to Grynberg, being recognised as the most sustainable company is foremost an encouragement to continue to grow Umicore's business in a sustainable way. "While we still have much work to do, this recognition shows that we are on the right track” he added.
Methodology. Corporate Knights screens companies according to their sustainability disclosure practices, financial health, product types and recent legal payouts. Any companies that remain are then scored, relative to their same-sector peers, on a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). A different suite of KPIs is used for companies in each industry, depending on recent reporting trends in each industry group. Corporate Knights said that Umicore achieved the top overall ranking in the 2013 Global 100 due to its strong, across-the-board sustainability performance.
Umicore is one of two Belgian companies included in the Global 100 index.