Corporate Knights has ranked Statoil number four, and the number-one energy company, on the Global 100 list of the world’s most sustainable corporations. The announcement was made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.The Canadian media company made its list from an initial group of 4,000 publicly traded companies. These were first narrowed down to 350 companies based on financial performance, sustainability disclosure practices, and other criteria. From there, the 350 companies were ranked based on 12 key performance indicators (KPIs) relative to their industry sectors.

The KPIs are energy productivity, water productivity, waste productivity, innovation capacity, percentage tax paid, CEO to average worker pay, pension fund status, safety performance, employee turnover, leadership diversity, clean capitalism pay link, and carbon productivity.

"This is a great recognition of Statoil and the efforts the various parts of our company have carried out over a long period of time," says corporate sustainability senior vice president Hege Marie Norheim.

"One of the four days in Davos was devoted to climate change, and the general agenda also covered environmental and social inclusion issues from various angles, industries and regions of the world. Sustainability and security go hand in hand, are at the core of business prosperity, and are on the minds of the global political and business leaders."

According to Corporate Knights, the aim of the Global 100 is to "reinforce, raise awareness and showcase, annually, world leaders in corporate sustainability, including those that have been able to balance environmental performance, social performance and economic performance while delivering superior returns to investors."

The top-ranked company in this year's Global 100 index was Australian financial services firm Westpac Banking Corporation, followed by US biotech firm Biogen, Finnish capital goods company Outotec Oyj, and Statoil. Corporate Knights has produced its sustainability rankings since 2005.