No African company made the list of the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world for this year.

The annual Global 100 list, compiled by media and research company Corporate Knights, is was released today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It ranks major public corporations using a wide range of factors, including relative energy and water consumption, carbon emissions, waste production and several corporate governance measures, such as the number of women on the board and CEO compensation relative to average employees.

The list, available at global100.org, has Westpac Banking Corp. of Australia as the top-ranked company in the world. Biogen Idec Inc., a U.S. biotech firm, is second, and Outotec Oyj of Finland, which makes mineral processing machinery, comes third.

The United States has the most companies on the list, at 18, while Canada came second with 13. Britain and France each have eight companies on the list. Several countries from Asia are also on the list.

Environmental measures make up only about one-third of the sustainability criteria. On many others – such as safety performance, leadership diversity, employee turnover and innovation – some energy companies do very well.

Doug Morrow, Corporate Knights’ managing director, said: “Companies that are the most sustainable are the ones that are squeezing the most output out of every unit of input they bring in.”

Top 10 firms on the list:

1. Westpac Banking (Australia), banking

2. Biogen Idec (U.S.), biotech

3. Outotec (Finland), industrial

4. Statoil (Norway), energy

5. Dassault Systèmes (France), software

6. Neste Oil (Finland), energy

7. Novo Nordisk (Denmark), health care

8. Adidas (Germany), clothing

9. Umicore (Belgium), materials

10. Schneider Electric (France), energy

•Photo shows Lagos Central Business District in Africa’s second largest economy, Nigeria. The continent’s business managers have to work harder to make the global list.

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