About Corporate Knights

Corporate Knights

Corporate Knights is a Toronto-based media and research company focused on advancing a sustainable economy. It publishes the quarterly magazine Corporate Knights and produces global sustainability rankings, research reports, and financial product ratings — including the annual "Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World" and "Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada." Its website is corporateknights.com.

Overview

Corporate Knights describes its mission as promoting "clean capitalism" — a term coined by co-founder Toby Heaps for an economic system in which business serves the interests of people and the planet. The company operates at the intersection of media, research, and finance: its magazine covers climate change, responsible investing, and sustainable-economy innovation, while its research division produces data-driven rankings of corporate sustainability performance used by investors and policymakers.

The magazine's circulation is listed at 126,000+, and it has been distributed through the Globe and Mail, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. It carries the ISSN 1703-2016.

History

Corporate Knights Inc. was co-founded in 2002 by Toby A. Heaps, Paul Fengler, and Peter Diplaros. The magazine's first issue appeared in June 2002, in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, with the objective of holding companies more accountable. According to Heaps, the trio created the magazine as a "halfway house between Adbusters and Forbes" — combining activist critique with business readership. The founders' belief was that "if you want to make social change, it's through business."

The company's flagship ranking, the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, launched in 2005 — the world's first global corporate sustainability ranking. When it launched, the green economy was, in Heaps's words, "a quaint idea": few companies published sustainability reports, there were no standardized key performance indicators, and none reported the share of revenue or investment that was green. The ranking is released each year during the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Corporate Knights expanded beyond media into research and financial products: in 2011 it set up an investment advisory and research arm publishing company rankings and research reports on corporate sustainability performance. In 2012 it spearheaded the Council for Clean Capitalism, a multi-industry group of leading Canadian companies advocating for economic and social-policy changes rewarding responsible corporate behavior.

Heaps — who holds a B.A. in economics from McGill and an LLB from the London School of Economics, served as press secretary to Ralph Nader's 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, and has advised King Charles on sustainability — received an honorary doctorate from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2022 recognizing his sustainability leadership. He ran as an independent candidate in Toronto's 2023 mayoral race on a sustainability platform.

Content

The magazine covers climate change, responsible investing, clean energy, the circular economy, and the ideas, actions, and innovations shaping a sustainable economy. Its journalism highlights corporate sustainability leaders and laggards, policy developments, and green-economy trends. The research division's outputs — the Global 100, the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada, and financial product ratings — extend the brand from journalism into data and analysis used across the investment industry.

Coverage & Audience

Corporate Knights reaches a business and policy audience across Canada and the United States: executives, investors, policymakers, and sustainability professionals. With circulation above 126,000 and distribution through major newspapers, it is among the most widely distributed sustainability publications in North America. Its rankings reach a further global audience of financial and corporate decision-makers.

Ownership

Corporate Knights is an independent Toronto-based company co-founded in 2002 by Toby Heaps, Paul Fengler, and Peter Diplaros. Heaps serves as president (and has been described as founder and CEO). The company operates as a media, research, and financial-information business.

The 2026 Global 100

The ranking's currency is best measured at its most recent edition. The 2026 Global 100, released during the World Economic Forum in Davos (January 19–23, 2026), evaluated 8,229 public companies against their global industry peers. Genoa-based ERG SpA shot from 18th in 2025 to the top spot, on the strength of its completed transformation from an oil company into a pure-play renewables business — more than 2,000 additional gigawatt-hours of wind and solar output between 2022 and 2024, all fossil-fuel assets sold, and 100 per cent sustainable revenues and investments. Copenhagen jeweller Pandora took second place, reflecting its shift to lab-grown diamonds and fully recycled silver and gold; Madrid-based EDP Renováveis placed third. Thirty-seven new companies entered the ranking in 2026.

The methodology itself was the story: for 2026 Corporate Knights moved to three equally weighted metrics — sustainable investments, sustainable revenues (both defined under the company's Sustainable Economy Taxonomy), and a new Sustainable Revenue Momentum Score tracking growth in sustainable revenues from 2022 to 2024. The exercise covers publicly traded companies with at least US$1 billion in revenues, subject to exclusionary screens. First-time entrants like Philadelphia-based Enviri — ranked 55th overall and second in its industry group — routinely issue press releases celebrating the listing, which is itself a measure of the ranking's currency in corporate communications.

The Methodology as Argument

The ranking is not just a list; it is a thesis about what counts. By weighting sustainable revenue and investment alongside the momentum of their growth, Corporate Knights argues that sustainability is a growth story, not a compliance cost. The 2026 edition's accompanying analysis made the point explicitly: the world's corporate sustainability leaders delivered superior financial returns in 2025 despite the political backlash against ESG and climate action. That claim — that the Global 100 outperforms — is the product's commercial foundation: it is what makes the ranking useful to the investors and asset managers who are the company's real customers.

The Davos Ritual

The annual release at Davos is part of the product. ERG's executive vice-chairman Alessandro Garrone received the 2026 award at the World Economic Forum during an event presenting the results, attended by representatives of ranked companies alongside government and institutional figures. The ceremony converts a data product into a news event — covered by the trade press in every ranked company's home market — and the coverage converts back into authority for the next year's ranking. Twenty-one years after the 2005 launch, the Davos unveiling remains the moment when Corporate Knights' research operation becomes visible to the world it measures.

The Best 50: Canada's Own Ranking

The domestic counterpart, the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada, runs on the same machinery with a Canadian universe: all Canadian corporations with at least $1 billion in annual revenues — 344 were eligible for the 2025 edition — assessed on the share of sustainable investments and revenues plus up to 23 other metrics spanning carbon emissions, resource efficiency, board diversity and social equity.

The June 2025 edition told a renewable-energy story: Quebec-based Boralex climbed from 15th to first, with 103 wind farms, 13 solar facilities, 15 hydro stations and two storage units totalling more than 3,260 megawatts across four countries, all of its electricity sales revenue from renewables, and a net-zero value-chain target of 2050. Alberta engineering firm Stantec took second, Quebec's Innergex third; the Royal Canadian Mint placed fifth, and Teck Resources made the list for the 19th consecutive year. Heaps's accompanying comment restated the commercial thesis: the leading corporate citizens keep showing "strong continued evidence of better financial returns." The ranking's press-release economy — winners from Boralex to Alectra to the Mint all announcing their placements — is the same virtuous circle as Davos, played on home ice.

Digital Presence

The company's website at corporateknights.com hosts the magazine's digital content, its rankings and research reports, and information on its events and initiatives. The brand maintains a social media presence promoting its journalism and its annual Global 100 ranking. Its history is documented in its Wikipedia entry and in interviews with Heaps in business and sustainability media.