Responsible Production & Consumption

H&M Among the Most Sustainable Companies According to the Global 100 Index

Jan 26, 2016 10:00 AM ET

Recently the 2016 iteration of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World (Global 100) index was released during the World Economic Forum in Davos. H&M is included in the list for the sixth consecutive year and ranked number 20 overall.

“Working with sustainability is a natural part of our business, integrated in everything we do, and it is a prerequisite if we are to grow in the future. With our size and the impact we have, we are able to influence and create change, not only for H&M but for the industry as a whole”, says Anna Gedda, sustainability manager at H&M.

H&M is the only specialty retailer on the index and along with Adidas they are also one of only two fashion companies featured. Qualifying Global 100 companies are scored on indicators that range from energy and water use, to transparency, waste productivity and sustainability leadership. In total 4,608 companies were analyzed against global industry peers on a suite of these key performance indicators (KPIs).

Because the indicators are quantitative and clearly-defined, the results of the Global 100 are objective and replicable. The Global 100 follows a rules-based construction methodology and is more similar to a financial index than many other sustainability indices. The ranking’s complete methodology is available here. The full ranking is published in the annual Global 100 issue of the Canadian Corporate Knights magazine as well as on corporateknights.com on January 21.

Read more about Corporate Knights and the Global 100 results 2016.

This week the sustainability investment specialists RobecoSAM also published their Sustainability Yearbook 2016. H&M received the award as Industry Mover in the retailing industry. H&M receives the Industry Mover award for the third year running. The award recognises companies that have achieved the largest proportional improvement in their sustainability performance when compared to the previous year. Robecosam have been analysing the sustainability efforts of the worlds largest listed companies since 1999 and have one of the largest databases of sustainable enterprises. This year Robecosam assessed 2,126 companies across 59 industries. The top 15% per industry are included in the yearbook.

See the full list here.