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“Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations”: BNP Paribas, 1st European bank in terms of sustainable development
22.01.2019 | CSR
In 2019, BNP Paribas appears for the fifth year running on the list of the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations”, published annually at the occasion of the World Economic Forum opening in Davos, by the Canadian magazine Corporate Knights.
Having been included for the first time in the Corporate Knights index in 2015, BNP Paribas has climbed 58 places in the space of five years and is now ranked 24th over 100 companies.
BNP Paribas carried out both its best ever performance and an unprecedented progress in 2019 (+12 places compared to 2018), positioning itself as the 1st bank among European and French banks, and as the 3rd bank worldwide (on a total of 821 banks assessed).
This year, the BNP Paribas Group has especially excelled in the fields of positive impact financial products & services development, and of its social responsibility. In addition, the integration by the Group of CSR indicators into its top management’s deferred variable compensation (in which they account for 20% of the overall component) has also been valued in the rating process and is an element which makes the Group stand out in the banking sector.
This distinction came a few months after BNP Paribas was recognized as the most active European bank in the environmental fight, according to the recent report "Getting to Green" by the UK NGO ShareAction, which highlights the Group’s strategy on climate, its CSR governance, its 2020 performance targets, its commitments to carbon neutrality and to support the energy transition, as well as its responsible investment and financing policies in sensitive sectors.
View the 2019 ‘Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations’ rankings:
Corporate Knights, which publishes the ‘magazine for clean capitalism’, is a Toronto-based independent media, research and financial information specialist.
The “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations” ranking lists the 100 companies worldwide that have done most to promote sustainable development, and which succeeded in balancing financial performance with corporate social responsibility. To compile its 2019 ranking, Corporate Knights examined 7,536 publicly-listed companies with gross revenue of a minimum of 1$ billion for fiscal year 2018. These companies have been measured against their sector rivals on the basis of 21 performance indicators.
Extra-financial ratings
Extra-financial ratings are drawn up by assessing the environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies pursued by companies, sovereign states or other issuers of financial securities. The ratings are designed to enable a direct comparison of ESG practices between the issuers of listed and non-listed securities.
This type of corporate rating is also referred to as a ‘declarative’ rating, as opposed to a ‘requested’ rating, since the extra-financial ratings agencies are not commissioned and remunerated by the company being rated but by investors who wish to take account of ESG criteria in their long-term investment decisions.
The most recent ratings for BNP Paribas
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