Most Sustainable Companies In The World Honored At 2019 SEAL Awards

11 Feb Most Sustainable Companies In The World Honored At 2019 SEAL Sustainability Awards

Posted at 20:01h in Uncategorized by Matt Harney

February 12, 2020 – SEAL Awards today announced the winners of the 2019 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards, celebrating their leadership, transparency, and commitment to sustainable business practices.

Global brands like Adobe, Cisco, Hilton, Pirelli, and Unilever were among those selected for the SEAL Organizational Impact Award. Selected by combining two premier ESG data sets – the CDP A-List and the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment – the 2019 SEAL Organizational Impact Award honors the 50 most sustainable companies globally.

adidas, AMD, Disneyland Resort, and Procter & Gamble’s Tide were among the organizations whose sustainability initiatives were recognized with a SEAL Environmental Initiative Award.

“Companies, CEOs and corporate boards have a simple but not easy choice before them: whether to exhibit real leadership by investing in sustainable business practices. The sustainability leaders – like our SEAL Award recipients – can secure lasting legacies for their grandchildren and corporate stakeholders alike; ESG leaders will have reputations and balance sheets that survive the climate crisis,” commented Matt Harney, SEAL Awards’ Founder. “Our mission at SEAL is to rigorously assess and then celebrate extraordinary sustainability leadership. We’re excited to present these elite and impactful 2019 award winners.”

2023 SEAL BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS

We are now accepting entries for the 2023 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards.

APPLY FOR 2023

The event featured two distinct award categories:

SEAL Environmental Initiative Award:
This award honors specific environmental and sustainability initiatives. Key criteria for selection included: Impact Metrics, Innovation, Sharing of Insights, and Investment Levels.

The Environmental Initiative winners were:

adidas
AMD
ASM
Ball Corporation
Bridgestone Americas
Coca-Cola Turkey
CoKoon
Compass Group
Connected Kerb
Coyuchi
DARIACORDAR
Disneyland Resort
Dubai Electricity & Water Authority
Essity
Event Network
Gotham Greens
Green Standards Ltd.
Hargol FoodTech
Humanscale
Intrepid Group
K.Raheja Corp.
Kiverdi
KPS Global
Mkopa
PATHWATER
PayByPhone
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
POP Displays
QTS Realty Trust
Radio Flyer
Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai
Sappi North America
Simple Syllabus
Stericycle Environmental Solutions
Stone Edge Farm MicroGrid
Sutter Health
Teadit Group
Tide Eco-Box
Vecor Ltd
Veolia North America
Young Living Essential Oils

One hundred percent of the award entry fees were contributed to SEAL’s ongoing Environmental Research Grant initiative, which has to date provided funding to 19 environmental researchers at institutions like UC-Berkeley, Duke, MIT, and UCLA.

SEAL Organizational Impact Award:
This award recognizes overall corporate sustainability performance and represents the 50 most sustainable companies globally.

Winners were selected by combining and ranking the aggregated results of two rigorous, world-class sustainability assessments – specifically, the recently released 2019 CDP A-List and the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment. Given SEAL Awards environmental focus, the ranking methodology weighted CDP and SAM CSA scores at 65% and 35%, respectively.

The Organizational Impact winners were:

Abbott Laboratories
Adobe
ASE Technology
Atos
Benesse Holdings
BillerudKorsnas
Biogen
British American Tobacco
Cisco Systems
CNH Industrial
Coca-Cola European Partners
Coca-Cola HBC
Delta Electronics
Dexus Property Group
Electrolux
Enagas
ENGIE
Essity
Ferrovial
Gecina
H&M Hennes & Mauritz
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Hilton
Kering
Koninklijke DSM
Koninklijke KPN – Royal KPN
Koninklijke Philips
LANXESS
LG Electronics
Marui Group
Naturgy Energy Group
Nestle
Owens Corning
Pirelli
Schneider Electric
Sekisui House
SGS
Siemens
Signify
Stanley Black & Decker
Stockland
Suez
Sumitomo Forestry
Taiwan Mobile
Tokio Marine Holdings
Unilever
UPM-Kymmene
Valmet
Vicinity Centres
Waste Management

SEAL Organizational Impact Award – Methodology Discussion:

In our discussions with sustainability executives, we consistently heard these understaffed departments are overburdened by ESG questionnaires and assessments.

Rather than create yet another assessment, SEAL Awards approach to this sustainability award is purely analytical and leverages existing ESG databases. Said another way, no company award entries were considered.

The CDP and SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) data sets were chosen based on their quality, rigor and global coverage.

For further perspectives on the strength of the CDP and SAM CSA, we encourage you to read SustainAbility’s 2019 report “Rate the Raters 2019: Expert Views on ESG Ratings.”

The SEAL Awards analysis used the “Climate Change” dimension of CDP’s 2019 A-List assessment, which represented a universe of 8,361 disclosing companies. The “Water Security” and “Forests” CDP dimensions were not considered due to smaller sample sizes.

This CDP data was combined with the most recent SAM CSA rankings, which covered 4,761 companies.

The SEAL Awards analyzed the distribution of rankings for each of CDP and SAM CSA to determine a numerical equivalent score that captured an equal level of selectivity.

CDP A-List “Climate Change” alphabetical scores were converted as follows:

“A” = 100 points
“A-” = 96 points (reflecting “A-” scores position within the top 4% of the 8,361 disclosing companies)
“B” = 89 points (reflecting “B” scores position within the top 11% of the 2019 CDP company universe)

These converted CDP scores were then combined directly with unadjusted SAM ESG scores, which are presented on a 1 to 100 basis.

From this combined data set, the SEAL Awards ranked the 50 most sustainable companies in the world.

While highly supportive of the “Social” and “Governance” elements of ESG, the SEAL Awards elected to give greater weight (65%) to the environmentally-focused CDP Climate Change data set.

Consistent with SEAL’s organizational focus, our methodology reflects a 78% weighting on the environmental dimension. Importantly, the SEAL methodology does incorporate “Social” and “Governance” components, thereby elevating the holistic ESG performance required for award winners.

The following graphics summarize the SEAL Organizational Impact Award on a geographic and sector basis:

ABOUT THE SEAL AWARDS

The SEAL (Sustainability, Environmental Achievement & Leadership) Awards is an awards-driven environmental advocacy organization.

Our core beliefs maintain that our environmental progress requires true leadership and sustainability leaders deserve recognition.

The SEAL Awards organizational pillars are:

Sustainability Awards – honors the most sustainable companies in the world.
Environmental Journalism Awards – representative past winners include journalists from Guardian, New York Times, and Vox
Environmental Research Grants

SEAL Awards is an independent organization that is not affiliated with the CDP or SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment. The selection process for the SEAL Organizational Impact Award drew entirely upon publicly available information from each of the CDP and SAM CSA.

2023 SEAL BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS

For organizations interested in applying for 2023 SEAL Environmental Initiative Award, please apply via:

APPLY FOR 2023

READ OUR WINNERS’ OWN ANNOUNCEMENTS

Humanscale Sustainability Awards Announcement

Stericycle Sustainability Award Press Release

British American Tobacco Sustainability Awards Announcement

Veolia Industry Coverage of Sustainability Award

K Raheja Corp Sustainability Awards Announcement

KPS Global Industry Coverage of Sustainability Award

SGS Sustainability Awards Announcement

Atos Sustainability Awards Announcement