The 10 U.S. companies providing the greatest benefits to humanity

Corporations that do right by the shareholders are often rewarded with increasing sales revenue and stock prices, driving their market capitalizations higher. But shouldn’t corporations that also do right by humanity get some credit as well?

That’s the idea by the “Humankind 100,” an annual ranking of U.S. companies based on the benefit they produce for society. Humankind Investments, a quantitatively driven asset manager specializing in socially responsible investments, creates the rankings based on a methodology that analyzes each company’s positive and negative contributions to society to estimate a single dollar figure representing a company’s true social and economic value to humanity.

“We launched the Humankind 100 three years ago to help people understand the companies best supporting their quality of life and to encourage companies to continue striving for progress,” said James Katz, founder and CEO of Humankind Investments, in a press release announcing the 2024 results.

Katz said Humankind’s ranking rewards companies that sustain human well-being and significantly improve our daily lives. Industries that perform well include health care, food, water and technology.

Topping the list this year is Alphabet’s Google GOOG , which Humankind said generates substantial value through its free online services like email, maps and internet search. The positive value of creating free digital tools for consumers outweighs the negative impact of factors like data harvesting in Humankind’s analysis.

Here’s a look at the Top 10 for 2024:

“Since day one, our mission has been to invest in what we believe is best for humanity and inspire others to do the same,” Katz said. “By publishing these rankings each year we’re optimistic that we can motivate companies to make progress on their own human impact.”

The ranking methodology is based on a quantitative analysis that calculates the comprehensive economic value of a company based not only upon its financial performance metrics but also on the costs and benefits to society from conducting its business. The calculation also attempts to take into account the Humankind Value of the company’s critical supply chain partners.

The components of the calculation include:

• Investor value, which is the estimated value to investors on the basis of multi-year profitability
• Consumer value, which is the estimated value to customers based on the offering of a product or service;
• Employee value, which is the estimated value to employees based on their salaries, bonuses and benefit
• Societal value, which is the estimated unaccounted costs and benefits to society from the operation of the company’s business.

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