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World's Most Sustainable Companies of 2025
Methodology: How TIME and Statista Determined the World's Most Sustainable Companies of 2025
In the fight against climate change, companies are navigating compounding problems: supply-chain issues, tariffs, changing government incentives for environmental programs. Analysts predict that renewable energy construction and operation including wind and solar infrastructure as well as battery development and EV uptake could take a hit from tariffs and rollback of clean energy incentives. 'Many firms face profit margin pressure that could squeeze out investments in sustainable materials or renewable energy,' consultancy firm Argon & Co wrote in May. 'The shift of production to new locations in pursuit of tariff relief brings environmental and social risks, from higher carbon footprints to labour rights concerns.'
To track how top global firms across industries are rising to the challenge, TIME and data firm Statista partnered to rank the world's 500 most sustainable companies based on their public commitment to and progress toward sustainability targets during the calendar year of 2023 (the most recent year for which complete data are available).
Many companies that ranked high on the list provide mostly digital services, like banking, consulting, communications, and research; or, they supply renewable energy to others. The top ranked company on this year and last year's list, France-based Schneider Electric, does both. Schneider Electric makes energy management software and advises other companies on how to reduce their emissions, beating out competitors like Siemens AG, GE Vernova and ABB as the leading provider of energy grid digitalization technology. In its first quarter 2025 report, Schneider said it surpassed sustainability targets in 2024, helped RichLand Logistics launch new EV trucks for last mile delivery, and deployed Schneider Charge Pro EV charging stations in Europe. It has also directly helped other high-ranking companies on the list reduce their footprints. For example, through a program called Energize, it has helped pharmaceutical companies including Sanofi (no. 10) and Novartis (no. 11) procure renewable energy for their operations.
As a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Sanofi executives know it needs to do more than switch to renewable energy to cut its environmental impact; its sustainability report focuses on reducing waste and reusing materials, progressively replacing PVC with cardboard in secondary packaging, and stopping use of plastic in its vaccine syringe blister packs by 2028. Currently, '55% of our vaccines are blister free,' says Sandrine Bouttier-Stref, Sanofi Head of Corporate Social Responsibility. The new packaging is also smaller, lighter, and easier to transport and store. Sanofi is testing more eco-friendly design and manufacturing for all of their products, starting with other injectables, like insulin Toujeo and immune treatment Dupixent. They've also started experimenting with a reusable insulin pen that could replace 50 one-time injectors, as well as pilot take-back programs to collect and recycle used pens and needles.
And, to cut the industry-wide use of horseshoe crab blood to detect low levels of toxic bacteria in products and medicines, Sanofi has already shifted to a synthetic substitute in two vaccine plants in France, Bouttier-Stref says, with a third plant slated to make the switch this year.
In the last year, Novartis has been re-evaluating strategies to reduce water and chemical waste at their manufacturing sites, according to Chief Sustainability Officer Korab Zuka. The company redesigned its Cairo site to reuse treated wastewater in the cooling towers, and its Kundl, Austria, site recycles vial washer wastewater into boiler feedwater. Additionally, one manufacturing site in Switzerland is implementing a chemical solvent recovery and reuse project.
For automakers, the focus has long been clamping down on emissions, but tariffs led to bumpy roads. The highest ranked automakers on the list, Ford (no. 74) and Volvo Cars (no. 91), recently revised their climate goals. Geely-owned Volvo changed its goalpost of going fully electric from 2030 to 2040, which the company elaborated on in sustainability update March 2025. But all are continuing to push for progress.
'While we acknowledge the challenges facing the automotive sector, our vision remains firmly on an electric and more sustainable future, and our long-term ambition to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 is unchanged," says Vanessa Butani, Head of Global Sustainability at Volvo Cars. She adds that the company continues to make progress even in this time of external turbulence.
'We now have six fully electric models on the market and four more in the pipeline,' Butani says. 'To date, we have reduced emissions per car by 26% compared to our baseline 2018, and 78% of energy in our own operations comes from climate-neutral sources. The EX30 has the lowest carbon footprint of any fully electric Volvo car to date, and our flagship model, the EX90, features 15% recycled content [and] a battery passport.' (Battery passports give customers transparency into its supply chain and raw material origins. EU will mandate all EVs contain battery passports by 2027.)
Similarly, Ford reconsidered its plans to go all electric in the EU by 2030, in favor of an all hybrid lineup instead. 'Reality has a way of making you adjust your plans,' Marin Gjaja, Chief Operating Officer of Ford's Model E electrification division, told Autocar July 2024. However, its first quarter 2025 report showed that the electric future was arriving nevertheless: 73,623 electrified vehicles (hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric) were sold in the quarter, up 26% from last year. Ford also introduced three new electric vehicle models for the European market in March. —Charlotte Hu
