New York, USA - SustainableBusiness.com has announced its 2007 Sustainable Business 20: The World’s Top Sustainable Stocks. The “SB20” list, now in its sixth year, is comprised of the 20 most innovative companies, large and small, that are having an important impact on creating an environmentally sustainable society.

The list is presented in the Progressive Investor newsletter, published by SustainableBusiness.com, which tracks sustainable stocks. The goal of the list is to showcase publicly trade companies that have made substantial progress in greening internal operations or growing a business based on an important green technology over the past year.

The list was drawn from a ‘preliminary universe’ of 50 global companies with strong “green” initiatives and solid financials, identified by KLD Research & Analytics, a provider of environmental, social and governance research and indexes.

The final selection was made by a panel of six leading green investment analysts, representing KLD, Cleantech Indices, Winslow Green Growth Fund, McVeigh Capital Management, Oeko Invest Publishing, and Triodos Bank.

The list of 20 companies is divided into clean technology sectors:

Energy Efficiency

This year, energy efficiency took center stage. Termed by SustainableBusiness.com the “less sexy sister of renewable energy”, efficiency offers some inexpensive economic returns and greenhouse emissions reductions.

• Comverge, which sells energy-management technologies that automatically turn power on and off when demand exceeds supply on the grid;

  
  

• Philips, a lighting industry leader that has been gaining market share in LED lighting while advocating for and preparing to stop producing inefficient incandescents;

  
  

• Fuel Tech, which supplies technology to improve efficiency of fossil fuel plants; and

  
  

• Novozymes, which replaces synthetic ingredients in a host of industries with biological enzymes, improving industrial efficiency and enabling use of cellulosic biofuels.

Renewable Energy

• REC, “the most vertically integrated solar company in the world”;

  
  

• First Solar, the first public company to integrate thin film technology into high volume, low cost production;

  
  

• Vestas, a leading wind energy company;

  
  

• Ormat, a leader in geothermal energy; and

  
  

• Schmack Biogas, a leading biogas plant manufacturer.

Natural Resources: Water, Forests

• BWT Water Technology, for its use of “only environmentally responsible technologies; and

  
  

• Precious Woods, the world’s only publicly traded sustainable forestry company, operating in the Brazilian and Congo rainforests.

Green Building

• Land Securities, the UK’s largest property developer and owner that is constructing all new buildings to meet green building standards;

  
  

• Interface, which is continuing its climb up “Mount Sustainability,” innovating in the materials and processes used to make carpet tiles; and

  
  

• Herman Miller, which is 63% on its way to achieving its goal of Zero Ecological Footprint by 2020.

Consumer Products

• Canon, which has set a target to cut C02 emissions by 50% per unit of sales by 2010, from a 2000 benchmark; and

  
  

• Nike, which is noted for its excellent sustainability report, transforming its products by using green design principles, rooting out waste and toxics, and planning for carbon neutrality by 2015.

Natural Foods/ Natural Products

• Groupe Danone, the world’s largest dairy company which is converting more to organic dairy and sustainable agriculture and partnering with the Grameen Bank to provide basic foods, along with solar energy and biogas to low income, nutritionally deprived populations in Bangladesh;

  
  

• Whole Foods, world’s largest retailer of organic/ natural products; and

  
  

• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a leader in Fair Trade/ Organic coffee.

  
  

• Chipotle Mexican Grill, which is influencing the fast food industry by serving free range meats and integrating organic ingredients into its menus.

Honourable Mention

• Google is selected for an honourable mention for announcing its goal to become climate neutral by 2008, co-founding the Climate Savers Computing Initiative to ramp up energy-efficient personal computers and server systems to 90% efficiency by 2010, and installing a 1.6 megawatt solar array at its headquarters.