TIME and Statista have released their annual "World's Best Companies 2026" ranking, a comprehensive analysis identifying top-performing companies globally.
The study evaluates businesses across three primary dimensions: Employee Satisfaction, Revenue Growth, and Sustainability Transparency (ESG). These elements are combined to create a final scoring model.
Employee Satisfaction was assessed through survey data collected from over 200,000 employees worldwide. The evaluation considered direct recommendations from verified employees alongside indirect assessments from industry peers.
Revenue Growth was determined using Statista's revenue database, which tracks company growth over the last three years. To qualify for this aspect of the evaluation, companies needed to have generated at least $100 million in revenue in either 2024 or 2025, depending on the most recent data available during the research phase. Furthermore, companies had to demonstrate positive revenue growth throughout the three-year period, with both relative and absolute growth figures taken into account.
The Sustainability Transparency dimension involved an evaluation of ESG data. This was based on standardized Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from Statista's ESG Database and additional targeted data research. Environmental metrics included 2024 carbon emissions intensity and reduction rates compared to 2022, as well as scores from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The social aspects examined the percentage of women on boards of directors and the presence of a human rights policy. Governance was evaluated by whether a company published a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines and maintained a compliance or anti-corruption guideline.
Data from these three dimensions was consolidated and weighted within a scoring model. Each dimension contributed equally to the final ranking score, with a maximum possible score of 100 points. The top 1,000 companies with the highest scores were recognized as the World's Best Companies of 2026.