Companies from the US, Germany and South Korea Are Top Winners for Sustainable business

The FINANCIAL — Companies from the US, Germany and South Korea are at the top of the 2013 international gold medal-table for sustainable business, according to The Sustainability Yearbook 2013.

The results are published in The Sustainability Yearbook as a guide to investors worldwide on which companies are doing the most to address the risks and opportunities of sustainability.

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Gold medals are awarded to the top-performing company within each sector and to those companies whose scores are within 1 percent of their sector leader’s score. A total of 67 companies have been awarded gold medals in The Sustainability Yearbook 2013, which corresponds to just 2.5 percent of all companies assessed.

The country with the highest number of gold medal winners was the US, with nine companies shining: Molson Coors Brewing Co (Beverages sector), Alcoa Inc (Aluminium), Sonoco Products Co (Containers & Packaging), Herman Miller Inc (Furnishing), UnitedHealth Group (Healthcare Providers), Baxter International Inc (Medical Products) and Waste Management Inc (Waste & Disposal Services). All these companies are leaders in their respective sectors. PepsiCo (Beverages) and MeadWestvaco Corp (Containers & Packaging) also scored highly enough to be awarded gold medals.

Germany and South Korea each account for six gold medal winners. German gold medalists are Siemens (Diversified Industrials), SAP (Software), BMW (Automobiles), Henkel (Non-durable Household Products), Adidas (Clothing, Accessories & Footware) and TUI (Travel & Tourism). Each one of them is a leader in its respective sector.

In South Korea, GS Engineering & Construction Co (Heavy Construction), Amorepacific Corp (Personal Products), SK Telecom (Mobile Telecommunications), KT Corp (Fixed Line Communications) and Lotte Shopping (General Retailers) set the standard as industry leaders. In addition, Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co is awarded a gold medal, which in total puts South Korea in second equal place internationally.

Australia, Taiwan and Canada also feature on the list of top 10 gold medal-winning countries proving that Europe is no longer the exclusive bastion of corporate sustainability and that sector-leading sustainability performance can now be found all over the world.