Following the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Corporate Knights announced that Hertford-based Umicore VM Zinc, manufacturer of zinc roofing, façade and rainwater systems has been voted top of the Global 100 list of the world's most sustainable companies.
Others in the top 100 included BMW, BASF, AstraZeneca, Unilever and Royal Dutch Shell as well as construction linked companies such as Geberit, Croda and Henkel.
The Global 100 are ranked on a range of sector-specific sustainability measures, with Umicore achieving topâ€quarter performance on six of the 12 indicators.
Commenting on this year's Global 100 Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore said: "Umicore has made significant investments in clean and recycling technologies which support a truly unique closed-loop business approach. Our products and services are addressing global issues such as resource scarcity and the generation and storage of clean energy.
"We complement this by ambitious objectives to further improve our environmental and social performance. Being recognised as the most sustainable company is foremost an encouragement to continue to grow our business in a sustainable way."
Damon Lusby of Umicore VMZINC UK added: "Sustainability, recycling and design life costing are key factors in UK construction so to win this award against companies of such worldwide reputation provides tangible endorsement of our approach to environmental issues."
Toby Heaps, Corporate Knights CEO, said: "The Global 100 are leading a resource productivity revolution, transforming waste into treasure and doing more with less. They are steering us away from ecological overshoot and on carbon, water, energy and waste are on track to double their resource productivity by 2025 in twoâ€thirds of cases."
