change the world

Nike, Cisco, MasterCard, SABMiller, Vodafone, Google—and 45 other companies that are doing well by doing good.

U.K.-based Vodafone and Kenyan telecom Safaricom had modest expectations for the mobile-money platform they created in 2007. Many thought M-Pesa—which lets people who lack bank accounts use their smartphones to save and transfer money, receive pensions, and pay bills—was a worthwhile idea but didn’t imagine it would transform the regional economy. Within months, though, membership rocketed. Today 17 million people in East Africa, India, Romania, and Albania—many of whom are on the financial grid for the first time—use M-Pesa. “It has been revolutionary,” says World Bank economist Wolfgang ­Fengler. “It has changed lives, businesses, and the perception of Africa, and brought substantial flows into the financial system that would have otherwise been lying literally under mattresses.” A staggering 42% of Kenya’s GDP is transacted through M-Pesa. And for Vodafone, brand loyalty has followed. Fewer than 0.1% of its customers in Kenya have dropped the company since 2010, says Vodafone’s Michael Joseph, a former Safaricom CEO who oversees M-Pesa.
All company information and rankings are for Vodafone.

Vodafone and Safaricom

Is there a greater force against ignorance than Google? The search giant’s knowledge-bearing tentacles extend to every cranny of the globe, empowering its billion-plus users with information of all varieties—and in 159 languages. Processing over 100 billion queries a month, Google has so profoundly changed our world that it’s hard to remember life before it. But Google is not just a tool for curious minds; it’s a springboard for academic collaboration: Google Scholar has leveled ivory towers and become a spiritual guide for open science. Catriona MacCallum, senior advocacy manager at open-access pioneer PLOS, says the “discoverability” it provides researchers is invaluable. Then there’s Google Translate, decoding 1 billion linguistic mysteries per day, which is closing cultural gaps in communication in stunning real time. With 25 million books scanned already, Google Books is fast becoming our most comprehensive archive of the written word. Meanwhile, Google Earth, a satellite-based mapping tool, is helping scientists track climate change as never before. “It makes it very simple to get our data out there,” says Jane Beitler of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which posts time-lapse images of declining sea ice. “Whether you’re a scientist who wants to know how this affects polar bears or a citizen who wants the straight-up information on climate change, Google Earth provides that. A picture, after all, is worth a thousand words.”

Google (Alphabet)

It had little trunk space and looked like a Corolla with chubbier cheeks. But in 1997, with plenty of head-scratching from the media and experts, the Prius became the first large-scale stab at solving the auto industry’s massive emissions problem. The world’s inaugural mass-market hybrid, the Toyota arrived as a half-gas, half-battery-powered carriage that could reach a startling 40 miles per gallon, and promptly made everyone believe. Hybrids now account for about 3% of new car sales in the U.S.; in Japan that number is around 30%, with Toyota accounting for 40% of the world’s hybrid market. And in September, Toyota speeds into the unknown once again as it launches the Toyota Mirai, the world’s first mass-produced fuel-cell vehicle. Powered by hydrogen and emitting nothing but drops of water, it could be even more eco-friendly than its electric-vehicle peers. Those who have tested the technology vouch for its potential; less obvious is whether Toyota can build the infrastructure required to support the Mirai. But if fortune favors the brave, Toyota is set to profit from where no vehicle has gone before.

Toyota

Earlier this year, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon kicked off his company’s biannual sustainability milestone meeting by showing off a new, improved bottle of detergent: the Purex PowerShot. Developed by Walmart with the manufacturer, Henkel, the product uses less water and is 30% more efficient and 50% more effective than the old version, but costs the same, McMillon said. Partnering to create a better product is a process Walmart can replicate “hundreds of thousands of times over again,” he said. Indeed, the world’s largest retailer does sustainability on a massive scale. It has been 10 years since former CEO Lee Scott kicked off a new era of corporate responsibility at Walmart by establishing three goals: to be 100% supplied by renewable energy, to eliminate waste from its massive system, and to create a more sustainable supply chain. Walmart today gets 26% of its electricity from renewable sources and operates with 9% less energy intensity than in 2010. Nearly 1,300 of its suppliers now use its Sustainability Index—and by the end of 2015 the company will have eliminated 20 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions from its supply chain. The company estimates its suppliers will increase the recycled content in their packaging by 1 billion pounds by 2020. Walmart set another example in 2015 when it raised the minimum wage for all workers, spurring rivals like Target and TJX to boost pay as well.

Walmart

We expect revolutions to be led by tiny upstarts, not established giants. But Enel, Italy’s $101 billion-in-revenues utility—No. 69 on the Global 500—is charging the barricades when it comes to clean power. Last year it generated 38% of its total output from renewable sources, including wind, solar, and geothermal energy. CEO Francesco Starace says that figure will be 48% in four years, and he has committed to making Enel—whose fastest-growing subsidiary is Green Power, which had $3.9 billion in revenues last year—carbon-neutral by 2050.

Enel

When Mosquirix, a vaccine developed over three decades by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), was approved by the European Medicines Agency in July, it was a big deal. The first vaccine of its kind, it is a long-awaited weapon in the war against malaria, which strikes 200 million people a year and kills 600,000—the majority children. Mosquirix, which in clinical trials reduced malaria cases by 40% in children, is no magic bullet, but it represents significant progress against a disease that has gotten scant attention from drugmakers. It’s priced 5% above the cost of manufacture, and the profit will be reinvested in tropical disease R&amp;D. But the greater business and scientific potential comes from the insights GSK collected in the effort, which are now being applied to other projects, including a shingles vaccine. “The proof of concept has been made: It works,” says Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group. “The next stage will be to, in time, improve it and apply the technology to other complex diseases.” Potential agents, he says, could target hepatitis C and HIV.

Jain has built its business by improving the livelihoods of 5 million small farmers in India. Based in the country’s western Maharashtra state, Jain began selling micro-irrigation systems in 1986, when it recognized that the technology, commonly used in industrial agriculture, could be adapted for local growers, whose tiny landholdings were traditionally watered by rain or blunt flooding techniques. As Jain’s “More crop per drop” slogan promised, yields increased dramatically—50% to 300%, depending on the plant—as did farmers’ incomes. And Jain continues to boost both in other ways as well: It has introduced more-viable crop varieties and trained farmers on more productive growing techniques, such as high-density planting for mangoes. The company also branched into solar water pumps (electricity is often scarce on the farm), financing, and food processing—for the likes of Coca-Cola and Unilever—so that there is a ready market for these farmers’ wares. The company, the world’s second-largest seller of drip-irrigation systems, now does business in 116 countries.

Jain Irrigation Systems

It will come as no surprise that the political and economic challenges in the Palestinian territories make it tough for the local economy to grow. Enter Cisco, which has pioneered an outsourcing collaboration between its Israel office and Palestinians with tech skills. The effort, now followed by companies like Microsoft and Google, has helped the area’s IT outsourcing sector grow 64% from 2010 to 2014. (Such tech work currently accounts for about 10% of the West Bank’s GDP.) Cisco, which provides much of the networking infrastructure in the Middle East, has also staked $15 million in local incubators and youth-training programs. Its West Bank investment is a mere glimpse into the broad reach of Cisco’s Networking Academy program, which has trained 5.5 million students around the world since 1997—nearly all in places that didn’t have endemic high-tech sectors. The ROI for Cisco? A broader, cheaper pool of technical workers—and a foothold in dozens of new markets.

Cisco Systems

In 2006, Novartis set out on an ambitious plan to bring dozens of essential medicines—basic remedies to fight diarrhea, parasites, nutritional deficiencies, and respiratory ailments—to rural India. From a philanthropic standpoint, the goal was laudable, but Novartis wanted it to be sustainable: It had to stand on its own as a business. The challenge? Health education was low, doctors were scarce, and distribution channels were non­existent. Novartis brought in physicians—who have treated nearly a million patients since 2010—and raised awareness of the critical need for hygiene in preventing infection. Just 31 months after the launch of Arogya Parivar (“healthy family” in Hindi), the venture broke even. It’s now being rolled out in Kenya, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Novartis

Business gurus talk rhapsodically about the power of connectivity; social philosophers extol the value of community. Facebook brought these things together in the geologic blink of an eye. With 1.5 billion active monthly users, the social network has morphed from mere friend finder to global front porch, ­preserving cultural ties lost in the modern diaspora and facilitating communion around the globe. Though such fellowship can ever-so-rarely lead to an unsavory end (like ISIS recruitment), Facebook has mostly served the good. Witness the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge—in which untold millions on the network helped raise $115 million for the ALS Association.

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