Listed facilities management (FM) companies are doing more to be sustainable than their private rivals, suggests the second annual Sustainable FM Index.

This year researchers at Acclaro Advisory looked at 27 firms working in the UK including MITIE, CBRE, Skanska and Johnson Controls.

They were marked on criteria such as how committed company boards are to sustainability and what sort of budget is put towards it; strategies for tackling energy, water and waste use; health and safety audits and how to get the supply chain involved in sustainability.

The report found the biggest gap was in social sustainability measures, where listed companies scored over 50% higher than private.

Simon Reed, ‎Lead Energy Sustainability Manager at Cofely FM picked up the award for Sustainable FM firm yesterday. Image: ELN

The gap narrowed to 25% for environmental sustainability which was the strongest area for private companies and the weakest for listed.

Cofely FM was named as the overall winner at the launch of the 2014 Index last night in London.

Accepting the award Simon Reed of Cofely FM said there had been “quite an upheaval in our efforts to improve” over the last year.

The five other top performers were – in no particular order – its recently bought sister firm Cofely UK, Bilfinger Europa Services, Carillion, Mitie and Vinci Facilities.

• FM, listed companies, Sustainability, UK