Change the World

Most business “best of” lists, including ours, focus on financial superlatives—the biggest and most profitable corporations, the fastest-growing companies, the top-performing stocks. But financial gain isn’t the only purpose of a business. The Fortune Change the World list is rooted in the belief that companies can mobilize the creative tools of capitalism to help solve social problems—using the profit motive to achieve goals that are just as important as turning a profit, and sometimes more so. The 2023 list, our ninth, showcases 59 companies selected by our reporters and editors from a short list of nearly 250. We’re publishing it after a summer of record heat and terrifying wildfires from Maui to Macedonia; in part for that reason, we’ve put the quest to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in the spotlight. That’s reflected in our No. 1 selection—four companies that are speeding up the EV revolution in the U.S.—but also by businesses that are teaming up to build energy-efficient “smart homes” and offering ingenious ways to keep food, plastic, and clothing out of landfills. Other businesses, meanwhile, are tackling public-health challenges and finding ways to grapple with the world’s refugee crises. And some of the world’s biggest companies, including Walmart, the world’s largest by revenue (No. 3), are pouring resources into educating and upskilling people in their workforces and their wider communities—and perhaps training the next generation of problem-solving business leaders.

METHODOLOGY

The Top Ten

The American Electrifiers

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Motor Vehicles and parts

ChargePoint, General Motors, SK On Co., Tesla The United States is a nation of drivers. Americans own more cars and trucks per capita than citizens of any other major nation—some 275 million in all, according to the U.S. Census. And those cars and trucks account for 23.5% of the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions, a higher share than in most other countries. So as the climate crisis grows more urgent, converting more of that massive fleet from internal combustion to electricity is one of the world’s most important net-zero missions. Things are trending in the right direction: EVs accounted for a record 7.2% of U.S. auto sales in the second quarter of 2023. That share would undeniably be lower if it weren’t for Tesla, the first company to persuade Americans that fully electric cars could be both attractive and practical; there are some 1.3 million Teslas on the road in the States today. (For more on the environmental legacy of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, see the story from the October/November issue of Fortune.) Still, even after recent price reductions, most Teslas cost more than the average car. The next phase of bringing EVs to the U.S. masses may belong to General Motors. Under CEO Mary Barra, GM has committed to selling only EVs by 2035—a bigger commitment than any other full-line automaker. By the end of this year, the Detroit giant will have nine electric models available (Tesla currently sells four). GM’s lineup will include a pickup and two family-size SUVs—the categories U.S. consumers gravitate to most—along with two models, the Equinox and the Bolt, priced in the $30,000 range. The key to that breadth is GM’s Ultium platform, which enables the company to use the same battery and powertrain architecture across multiple EV models: “It lowers our costs and makes it easier for us to scale,” explains Kristen Siemen, GM’s chief sustainability officer. The path to an all-electric fleet won’t be smooth. In late September, GM, Ford, and Stellantis were locked in a labor dispute with the United Auto Workers in which EVs were a major sticking point—EVs have fewer parts, and thus require fewer workers to assemble. But if GM can simultaneously broaden access to electric cars and provide its workforce with good-paying jobs building them, it will have pulled off a social-impact coup. Range anxiety, or the fear of not having access to a charger when you need one, has been a major obstacle to EV adoption. No company has done more to quell that anxiety than ChargePoint, whose charging network now includes more than 240,000 vehicle locations; its app steers EV drivers to the power points nearest them. The company has also teamed up with GM, Tesla, and a host of other car manufacturers to join the North American Charging Standard (NACS), which aims to develop a single standard EV connector across the U.S. and Canada. Another source of anxiety is the EV-battery supply chain—not least because China has long dominated that industry. South Korea’s SK On has helped jump-start battery manufacturing in the U.S. The company has opened a factory in Georgia; in joint ventures with Ford and Hyundai, it has another four under construction in that state, Kentucky, and Tennessee. By 2025, those facilities collectively will be producing batteries for about 1.5 million EVs a year—more vital pieces in the remaking of Auto Nation. —Matt Heimer

MercadoLibre

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Internet Services and Retailing

One-third of Latin American adults don’t have access to a bank account, the World Bank says. Mercado Libre, the Uruguay-based e-commerce and financial services company, offers access to payments, loans, investing, and other financial tools for this population. Its payment platform provides access to 45 million people across 18 countries, regardless of their personal financial situation, lifting the curtain for some who had previously been “unbanked.” Company data shows 45% of users—many of them small-business owners—received their first credit card or loan through Mercado Libre. “We want to create tools so that whoever wants to be an entrepreneur has a level playing field with big companies,” strategy SVP Andre Chaves tells Fortune. By democratizing access to financial services, the company argues, it’s stimulating local economies and allowing individuals greater control of their money. And it is growing rapidly while doing so: In three years, its revenue has nearly tripled to $10.5 billion, while its headcount more than tripled, to 50,000.

Walmart

Prev. #3

General Merchandise

The big-box retailer is one of the world’s biggest employers; in the U.S. alone, the company has about 1.6 million “associates.” Walmart’s Live Better U aims to put more of its hourly-wage workers on a ladder to higher salaries—by paying 100% of their costs for tuition and books in furthering their education. Since 2018, about 120,000 Walmart employees have enrolled in LBU, earning more than 19,000 diplomas, degrees, and professional certifications, including almost 3,000 bachelor’s degrees. Collectively, they’ve saved nearly $500 million in tuition. The program boosts Walmart’s odds of retaining rising talent: The company says about 75% of its U.S. salaried management started their careers in hourly positions. Walmart has also begun expanding certification and training programs for skilled trades like commercial truck driver, electrician, and optician—training that can lead to six-figure-salary jobs within Walmart even without a college degree.

Johnson Controls International

+11 spotsPrev. #15

Industrial Machinery

The construction and operation of the planet’s buildings account for up to 40% of annual global CO2 emissions—and much of that is related to the energy it takes to heat and cool them. Johnson Controls is innovating with a technology to curb this problem: the heat pump. Heat pumps can typically heat or cool a building using only about one-third as much energy as conventional systems. The company’s pumps are making a difference across the globe: For example, it has provided ground-source heat pumps at the enormous Beijing Municipal Center in China, resulting in an annual reduction of natural gas consumption by up to 12 million cubic meters. In Germany, through the implementation of an effective heat pump system, the company is helping to decarbonize the city of Hamburg’s heating network, which will reduce annual CO2 emissions by about 66,000 tons. Johnson Controls’ recent acquisition of Hybrid Energy AS should help further bolster its heat pump portfolio.

Battelle

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Diversified Outsourcing Services

PFAs are used in many consumer and industrial products, like nonstick cookware and water-repellent clothing. Their incredibly strong chemical makeups mean they break down very slowly over time and are difficult to remove from the environment, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.” And PFAs have been linked to negative health effects, including increased risk of some cancers and reduced immune strength—leading growing numbers of public health officials to view them as a fast-growing threat. Applied-sciences nonprofit Battelle has developed a method to eliminate PFAs from water. Its PFAS Annihilator removes and destroys PFAs without creating harmful by-products, by using intense pressure and heat. The Annihilator is primarily used to remove PFAs from wastewater, landfill “leachates”—water that percolates through landfill and back out into the surrounding environment—and firefighting foams. And its applications to treat other contamination scenarios, like soil, are being explored. One facility in Michigan is already Battelle’s solution to process and destroy PFAs in roughly 100,000 gallons of raw landfill leachate a day.

Organon

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Pharmaceuticals

Everyone benefits when women control their own bodies. Access to contraception helps lower maternal mortality rates, increases women’s wages and education levels, and broadly benefits society and business at large—especially in the post-Roe era, amid ever-mounting restrictions on women’s ability to access reproductive health care. And in a world where half of all pregnancies are still unplanned, there’s plenty of demand for more affordable, accessible, and innovative birth control. But despite this universal need, for-profit companies have largely abandoned women’s health in general and contraception in particular. The few exceptions have fought for years to overcome dismissive investors, demanding regulators, and a complicated U.S. system of health insurance reimbursement that makes it nearly impossible to turn a profit on new kinds of birth control. Given all of these obstacles, it’s all the more impressive that two companies—Ireland’s Perrigo and America’s Organon—this year have taken significant steps to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies. In the U.S., women will soon be able to buy a birth control pill over the counter for the first time ever, after decades of work by doctors and reproductive-health advocates. In 2014 a company now owned by Perrigo started working to seek U.S. regulatory approval to sell its Opill without a prescription. In July, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved Perrigo’s application, in a decision one advocate called “a transformation in access to contraceptive care.” Meanwhile, Organon in March pledged $30 million as part of a multiyear initiative to reduce unintended pregnancies and increase access to contraception globally. The women’s health company, which spun out from Merck in 2020, is funneling the money into grants to nonprofits working with lower-income women in several countries. Organon is also working with nonprofits to distribute its contraceptive implants in low-income countries. It claims that its work had helped prevent 57 million unintended pregnancies through the end of 2022.

Wasoko

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Food Services

Wasoko has become one of the fastest-growing companies in Africa by making it convenient for mom-and-pop stores to order essential goods at any time via SMS or its mobile app for free same-day delivery to their stores. It has facilitated 5 million orders to sellers of goods like rice, sugar, and soap to maintain their stock and provide essential products to local communities in such countries as Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s a huge difference maker in rural areas where supply chains are shaky and big chain retailers are rarely found. Wasoko’s platform has also disbursed $43 million in financing to retailers for projects designed to help them grow their revenue. The company raised $125 million in a financing round last year that valued it at $625 million.

WeRide

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Motor Vehicles and parts

Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death globally, and autonomous driving technologies could pave the way to safer roads. WeRide operates driverless cars in China, Singapore, and the UAE. Recently valued at $5.1 billion, the company aims to reduce traffic accidents by eliminating factors like driver fatigue and drunk driving. Three years into its robo-taxi operations, WeRide says it has recorded no “proactive” accidents—that is, none caused by its cars. It also serves underrepresented consumers in new ways. “We want to empower the vulnerable communities, including the elderly and the disabled, by offering a means to get to their destinations independently,” CEO Tony Han wrote to Fortune. WeRide’s entire fleet of 600 vehicles, from taxis to buses, is electric—helping to curb the effects of carbon emissions. WeRide has also played a role in urban sanitation efforts in China: Its driverless street sweepers run every day in Guangzhou, a city of 14 million people.

Gilead Sciences

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Pharmaceuticals

Although the southern United States represent only 33% of the U.S. population, they account for 51% of new HIV diagnoses and 47% of HIV-related deaths in the country. Gilead, which makes a variety of HIV drugs, has launched the Compass Initiative to tackle the factors fueling that disparity. In partnership with more than 390 community organizations across 16 states, Compass’s events and training programs focus on topics including stigma reduction and trauma-informed medical care, with the aim of helping those community groups do more to help combat the spread of HIV. To date, Compass has provided 300,000 people with services, trained 26,000 individuals in leadership development, and provided more than $106 million in grant funding to support outreach to those impacted by HIV.

Abbott Laboratories

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Medical Products and Equipment

Student debt is a massive burden in the U.S. There are more than 43 million borrowers carrying a combined $1.8 trillion in obligations. Debtors often have to choose between paying off their student loans or saving for retirement. That’s why Abbott developed Freedom 2 Save. F2S is a benefit program in which enrolled employees who put 2% of their pay toward their student loans get a corporate match of 5% into their 401(k)s—keeping them from having to sacrifice their future to pay off their past. The health care company’s innovative offering required special permission from the IRS before it could launch in 2018. To date, Abbott has contributed more than $5.5 million to over 2,500 of its employees, including $1.7 million in 2022 alone. Beginning in 2024, all U.S. employers will be able to offer a similar benefit through a provision of the SECURE 2.0 Act—inspired by Abbott’s offering—which will enable employers to match employees’ student loan payments with 401(k) contributions.