The World's Most Impactful Companies of 2026

Nieminen says that Upright’s model has also been able to spotlight industries that may not rank high on ESG lists or get a lot of publicity, like water and sewage system management and infrastructure. “At the end of the day, their way of using resources, making sure that sanitation works in big cities, it's really hard even to imagine societies without them,” she says. These include Veolia (no. 17), one of the world's largest water services companies filtering PFAS—“forever chemicals”—from drinking water; Sabesp (no. 11), the largest sanitation company in Brazil; Metawater (no. 19), which supplies pumps, filtration systems, and control equipment to water treatment facilities; and Advanced Drainage Systems (no. 30), which makes the pipes, chambers, and tanks used to collect, store, and drain rainwater and wastewater underground. 

The 172-year-old Veolia, beyond filtering PFAS, has a broader business across water treatment, sanitation, desalination, and pollution management as well as energy. The unifying theme across their different business segments is that they try to extract value from waste. “We are the leader of everything which has to do with the circular economy,” says CEO Estelle Brachlianoff. “With Veolia, there is nothing wasted. Turning waste into a resource, that’s the motto for us.”