Rio Tinto and Google are two notable absences from a list of the world’s 100 most sustainable companies.

The 2010 list, which is compiled by media firm Corporate Knights, is topped by General Electric – but issues relating to Google’s Chinese operations saw the US giant excluded from the list.

“To be considered sustainable, companies must squeeze four times more wealth out of every resource they use,” said Corporate Knight editor-in-chief, Toby Heaps. “Google was shut out of the top 100 because of privacy concerns and issues related to its China operations.”

Companies are ranked according to a number of different criteria, including environmental, social and governance performance metrics.

European companies featured heavily in the 2010 list, with Nokia, Siemens AG, Vodafone, Unilever, Smith Group, Geberit, H&M Hennes & Mauritiz and TntNy all earning a place in the top ten.

The UK has 21 companies in the list, placing them ahead of the US, which has 12, and Australia and Canada, which have nine each.