KONE ranked by Newsweek the world's 12th greenest company

KONE Corporation, a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, has been ranked the world's 12th greenest company by the American magazine Newsweek. Released by Newsweek and its research partner Corporate Knights Capital, the 2014 Newsweek Green Ranking evaluates the world's largest publicly traded companies using eight metrics that collectively provide a transparent measurement of overall corporate environmental performance. In the list, KONE is the only top 50 company representing the elevator and escalator industry.

In addition to uncovering sharp differences in environmental performance both within and among industries, the project found that a majority of the world's largest companies are now disclosing environmental data to the market.

"The upward tick in environmental disclosure identified in this project is a well-documented macro trend," said Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights Capital. "We believe this reflects growing pressure for expanded corporate reporting from investor groups and the growing number of jurisdictions that require environmental disclosure. The ranking offers unique insights about how the world's largest companies are positioned around a wide variety of themes, including climate change, rising energy costs and water scarcity," Heaps continues.

"What we're seeing more and more is a direct link between corporate sustainability, reputation, and financial success," said Elijah Wolfson, senior editor at Newsweek. "Many of the world's largest public companies have begun to recognize that in order to be successful moving forward, they need to openly account for their environmental impact. The goal of Newsweek's Green Rankings is to add to and push for this type of accountability."

A leader in sustainability, KONE is focused on providing safe, environmentally efficient and responsible high-performance people flow solutions. Sustainable thinking is deeply rooted in the way KONE works. The maintenance and modernization services KONE provides are aimed at helping customers achieve their eco-efficient goals in every phase of the building's life cycle.

In addition to supporting green transformation in products and services, KONE also pays attention to the way the services are produced and delivered to ensure that they create as little environmental impact as possible. To this end, KONE has succeeded in decreasing the carbon footprint of its operations relative to net sales by 3.5% compared to 2012.

"We are tremendously proud to have received this acknowledgement from Newsweek as a recognition of our consistent and continuous efforts to deliver eco-efficient services, products and operations globally," says Hanna Uusitalo, Environmental Director at KONE.

A full description of the methodology for the 2014 Newsweek Green Rankings can be found online at http://www.newsweek.com/2014-newsweek-green-rankings-243744