This morning, the Danish bioscience firm Chr Hansen has been named the most sustainable company in the world at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Chr Hansen, which celebrates its 145th anniversary next month, finished top of Corporate Knights’ Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World Index. Some 82 percent of the company’s revenue directly supports the UN Global Goals.
“We are extremely proud and humble to receive this amazing honour. Chr Hansen is dedicated to promoting a wider adoption of natural solutions, and we are truly proud of products that are consumed by more than 1 billion people every day,” said Mauricio Graber, the CEO of Chr Hansen.
“Having a global reach like that is indeed a great responsibility as well as an opportunity to make a positive difference for people, animals and plants. We are fortunate to have customers all over the world who are with us on this journey – determined to promote sustainable and natural products to the end-user.”
READ MORE: Copenhagen and Denmark both take competitiveness strides
Ørsted up there too
Chr Hansen – which develops ‘good’ bacteria and enzymes to naturally preserve food, protect plants and reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture – was ranked ahead of Kering (France) and Neste (Finland), while another Danish company, the power company Ørsted, came fourth.
Further down the line, two other Danish companies made the list: wind energy giant Vestas (34) and pharma colossus Novo Nordisk (58).
The index compared over 7,500 companies across 21 different parameters, which included: CEO-to-average-worker-pay ratio, Cash-taxes-paid-to-profit ratio, Carbon productivity, Percentage of women on boards, and Executive pay linked to sustainability measures.
