TWO companies with links to south Cumbria have been recognised in a new list of the 200 of the best –performing green companies in the wold.

Siemens and DONG Energy both feature in the first Clean200 list.

This has been started by Californian non-profit organisation As You Sow and Canadian magazine Corporate Knights. It is based on listed companies' clean energy revenues as rated by Bloomberg.

To qualify, organisations have to have a market capitalisation of more than $1bn and make earn more than 10 per cent of their revenues from renewable energy.

Siemens, which has a factory in Ulverston, was ranked second on the list of 200 while DONG, which is behind the Walney Wind Farm project, came in at 11th.

The top spot was taken by Japanese giant Toyota. Other household names to feature included Philips Lighting, Samsung and Tesla.

Toby Heaps, the chief executive of Corporate Knights, said: "The Clean200 nearly tripled the performance of its fossil fuel reserve-heavy counterpart over the past 10 years, showing that clean energy companies are providing concrete and measurable rewards to investors."

“What’s more, the outstanding performance of this list shows that the notion that investors must sacrifice returns when investing in clean energy is outdated," he added.

"Many clean-energy investments are profitable now, and we anticipate that over the long-term their appeal will only go up as technologies improve and more investors move away from underperforming fossil fuel companies.”