Teck tops record 10 Canadians among globe's most sustainable companies Ten Canadian companies have made it on to this year's list of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world. The annual Global 100 list, compiled by media and research company Corporate Knights, is being released Wednesday at the World Financial Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It ranks major corporations using a wide range of factors including relative energy and water consumption, carbon emissions, waste production and several corporate governance issues such as the number of women on the board and CEO compensation relative to average employees. The top-ranked company in the world is Umicore, a Belgium-based company that specializes in materials technology and recycling. Second on the list is Brazil's Natura Cosmeticos, a maker of personal care products. Canada's top company, Teck Resources Ltd., comes in at No. Barrick Gold Corp. is No. 40 and Canadian National Railway Co. is No. Last year only six Canadian companies made it onto the list, but this year Canada is tied with the United States for the most representation with 10 companies each. Doug Morrow, Corporate Knight's vice-president of research, noted that many of the Canadian companies on the list are from extractive businesses such as mining and energy. "It convincingly demonstrates that companies from conventionally dirty industries can still fare very well in our corporate sustainability assessment," he said. "These firms "tend to have more incentive than companies based in lighter footprint industries to manage their sustainability footprint, because they are under a microscope." To compile its list, Corporate Knights starts with 4,000 global mid- and large-cap stocks, then cuts this down to a short list of 350 firms. Each company is then contacted directly to determine the final standings. Companies are compared with others in the same industry, rather than across the whole universe. Corporate Knights also calculated the investment performance of the Global 100 companies and compares it to the MSCI All Country World Index. Since the list was first compiled in 2005, the Global 100 has generated a 59.9-per-cent total return, above the MSCI ACWI which has returned 50.4 per cent. Umicore (Belgium), materials Natura Cosmeticos (Brazil), cosmetics Statoil (Norway), energy Neste Oil (Finland) energy Novo Nordisk (Denmark), health care Storebrand (Norway), financial services Philips (Netherlands), electronics Biogen Idec (U.S.), health care Dassault Systemes (France), information technology Westpac Banking (Australia), financial services Teck Resources Ltd., mining Barrick Gold Corp., mining Canadian National Railway Co., transportation Telus Corp., telecommunications Nexen Inc., energy Enbridge Inc., energy Suncor Energy Inc., energy Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, financial services Royal Bank of Canada, financial services Cenovus Energy Inc., energy Source: Global 100 list, Corporate Knights