Change the World

Fortune’s Change the World list honors companies that use the creative tools of capitalism—including the profit motive—to address society’s unmet needs. The 2021 list, our seventh, is also the second compiled in the shadow of COVID-19, which has exposed how sorely our society has neglected some of those needs. Many of this year’s honorees are battling to reverse that neglect, investing in the long-term health of their businesses by supporting those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder—whether by bolstering pay and benefits for frontline workers (see No. 3); serving small farmers (No. 36); or most urgent of all, distributing COVID vaccines in low- and middle-income nations (No. 1). As always, our partner in selecting the honorees is Shared Value Initiative, a consultancy that helps companies apply business skills to social problems.

METHODOLOGY

The Top Ten

The Vaccine Makers

Prev. #1

Pharmaceuticals

In the ceaseless tide of worry over the pandemic, it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come. It is nothing short of remarkable how quickly the pharmaceutical industry developed not one but several COVID-19 vaccines. Not even a year after the first regulatory approvals, well over 30% of the global populace has been fully vaccinated—a historic and humbling achievement. Still, the vaccine rollout has been deeply uneven, with poorer countries left lagging far behind richer counterparts that bought up most of the supply. Scientists and ethicists agree that the disparity is bad for humanity. Not only do inadequately vaccinated populations suffer more harm, they also risk becoming breeding grounds for fast-moving variants of the virus that might evolve to be vaccine-resistant. The Delta variant—and the intense economic uncertainty surrounding it—has provided an unwelcome glimpse of that future. That’s the thinking behind our No. 1 entry for this year’s Change the World list. While last year’s list honored the pharma industry’s unprecedented collaboration on beating the virus, this year Fortune is highlighting companies that are racing to expand access to vaccines, especially in the Global South. For more, read "COVID-19 vaccine makers fight the pandemic fight, worldwide."

Envision Group

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Energy

As China aims for net-zero emissions by 2060, Envision is playing a key role. It was the world’s fourth-largest supplier of wind turbines in 2020. It also provides energy management services to more than 360 customers, including tech giants Microsoft, Accenture, and Amazon Web Services. In December, Envision joined other energy producers in an R&D initiative to push the cost of producing “green” hydrogen—hydrogen fuel made using renewable energy—to below $2 per kilogram, the point at which the clean-burning fuel can become a viable fossil-fuel alternative. Envision estimates it can get there in three years.

Costco Wholesale

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General Merchandisers

In the war for retail talent during the pandemic, Costco Wholesale put its money where its mouth is. Already a leader in incentives like paid sick days, Costco in February raised the internal minimum wage for its 200,000-plus–person workforce to $16, keeping the pressure on competitors to pay their own workers more. Not long afterward, Amazon and Walmart each gave raises to hundreds of thousands of their workers. Costco’s reward for its efforts: double-digit percentage increases in sales—long after pandemic panic-buying eased—and customers as loyal as ever.

Banco Santander

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Commercial Banks

Santander Brasil, a company of Santander Group, is green energy’s financial engine in the world’s sixth-largest nation by population. It has been involved in about $11 billion worth of green-power deals since 2012, having financed or structured roughly a third of Brazil’s wind-power projects. Santander has also made its solar-panel lending more generous, with longer payment terms and up to 100% financing, to foster more users. Santander Group, led by Executive Chairman Ana Botin, is a world leader in renewable energy project finance. For more information, watch this Fortune video.

Viatris

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Pharmaceuticals

Viatris, the global drug maker that resulted from the recent merger of Mylan and Pfizer’s Upjohn unit, has transformed the treatment of HIV around world in the past five years. Working through public-private partnerships with organizations like Unitaid, the WHO-affiliated global health agency, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the company introduced the first low-cost antiretroviral with dolutegravir, the recommended first-line treatment for HIV, expanding that drug’s access to the 35 million people living with the virus in low- and middle-income countries. Priced at just $75 per year, the product was game-changing, says Unitaid’s Robert Matiru, who notes that the same is true of the version—strawberry-flavored tablets that dissolve in liquid—that Viatris recently launched for children (adult drugs are not formulated for young patients, and their bitter taste makes them hard for kids to take). The children’s version also lowers the cost of treatment by 75%, to $120 per year. Moreover, Matiru marvels at the “record-pace” speed and professionalism with which Viatris, now the world’s largest provider of antiretrovirals, has developed these low-cost, state-of-the-art medicines for populations who previously had no way to get them.

Mercedes-Benz Group

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Motor Vehicles & Parts

The world’s low-carbon future depends, to an extraordinary degree, on cobalt. The heat-resistant metal has a melting point of 1,493˚ C, making it an ideal material to ensure lithium-ion batteries—the kind found in electric vehicles—don’t catch fire when we power them on. Sixty percent of the world’s refined cobalt comes from the copper-and-cobalt belt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And therein lies an ethical dilemma for EV automakers. For the past decade, mining in the DRC has been synonymous with human rights abuses, and particularly with child labor: A staggering number of children toil in the region’s open-pit mines. One company stepping up to change that is Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler. As the German auto giant ramps up its EV ambitions, it has also set out to map all the places on the planet—from mines to smelters—that handle cobalt for its batteries. It has sent teams of assessors to one-third of the locations, aiming to certify that each supplier meets its strict standards—including no kids in the mines and no contaminants spewed into the environment. For more, read "Daimler tackles the dirty secret behind clean cars."

PayPal Holdings

-4 spotsPrev. #3

Financial Data Services

Since George Floyd’s murder, PayPal has deployed $510 million toward closing the racial wealth gap, mostly by making deposits in Black- and Latinx-owned financial institutions and backing early-stage VC funds led by Black and Latinx managers. The goal is giving communities of color more capital to support entrepreneurship, which creates wealth—for the entrepreneurs and their backers alike.

KCB Group

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Commercial Banks

KCB is East Africa’s second-biggest homegrown bank, with more than 22 million customers across countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi. Job No. 1 is helping those customers rebound from the pandemic: The bank has restructured more than $1 billion in loans to accommodate COVID-distressed borrowers. KCB also funds vocational scholarships for up to 10,000 youths a year.

Bank of America

+6 spotsPrev. #15

Commercial Banks

Even as the U.S. minimum wage languishes at $7.25 per hour, Bank of America is raising the bar: In 2020 it upped its minimum hourly wage to $20; in October 2021, it raised it to $21. The bank has promised to hike the minimum to $25 an hour by 2025. BofA has also spent $425 million on pandemic-era caregiving reimbursements for employees. The return on these investments: lower turnover, as more staffers see BofA as an “employer of choice.”

Renew Energy Global (ReNew Pvt. Ltd.)

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Energy

As India's largest renewable-energy firm, ReNew has the daunting task of building an alternative to fossil fuels in the nation that is the world’s third-largest oil importer and one of its fastest-growing energy consumers. ReNew provides solar and wind power in nine Indian states, reaching around 400,000 people, but it’s poised for greater growth thanks to recent fundraising. ReNew has brought in $1.4 billion through multiple tranches of “green” bonds since October 2020, and in August it raised more than $1 billion on the Nasdaq via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).