Mnakh for Studies & Research today announced the results of the Mnakh Sustainability Index 2025, published for the third consecutive year, rating the sustainability performance of companies listed on Boursa Kuwait. Three companies earned a rating of AA (Advanced Sustainability): Zain Group, Kuwait Finance House and the National Bank of Kuwait. Six companies earned a rating of A (Established Sustainability): Boubyan Bank, Warba Bank, Burgan Bank, Ooredoo Kuwait, Mabanee and Boursa Kuwait.
The number of rated companies in the Mnakh Sustainability Index rose 65% in 2025 compared with 2024, with the index now comprising 43 companies listed on Boursa Kuwait — 38 on the Premier Market and five on the Main Market.
The 2025 results show full compliance with the Capital Markets Authority requirement obliging Premier Market companies to publish sustainability reports: every one of them issued a 2025 report. This represents a substantial shift within a single year. In 2024, when disclosure was not yet mandatory, only twenty-one of the Premier Market companies covered by the index published a sustainability report — roughly half. In 2025, with the requirement in force, the figure rose to all thirty-eight.
The regulatory framework
Compliance with the requirement confirms the effectiveness of the regulatory framework in embedding sustainability disclosure. Extending the scope of the requirement to Main Market companies would likewise embed sustainability practices across a wider segment of the listed market. The effect of mandatory disclosure is not confined to publishing data: it obliges a company to build what it discloses — governance committees and board-level oversight, ethics and compliance policies, community investment and human capital programmes, and a system for measuring environmental impact. In that sense, the requirement is a gateway to practice, not merely to reporting.
Four of the nine companies at the advanced ratings lead their Boursa Kuwait sector outright: Zain Group in telecommunications, Kuwait Finance House in banking, Mabanee in real estate, and Boursa Kuwait in financial services.
The results indicate that sustainability disclosure is no longer in itself what distinguishes the leading companies: all nine publish annual sustainability reports aligned to recognised international frameworks and disclose their emissions. Mnakh noted that what now separates them is the reliability of the data disclosed — specifically, targets tied to measurable baselines, emissions data under independent external assurance, and sustainability oversight resting on board-level committees.
For the rest of the companies, the results confirm that the period ahead is no longer about demonstrating that disclosure exists, but about entrenching its reliability: placing emissions data under independent external assurance, tying environmental targets to measurable baselines, and vesting sustainability oversight in board-level committees. It is in these areas specifically that the widest scope for progress lies for listed companies in the 2026 edition.
Banking and telecommunications
Advanced ratings are concentrated in banking and telecommunications: the banking sector accounts for five of the nine companies and telecommunications contributes two. This reflects a deeper adoption of sustainability principles in both sectors — and their translation into actual practice — alongside closer regulatory oversight and greater maturity in disclosure. Several sectors covered by the index produced no company at an advanced rating. Mnakh pointed to a pattern running across most companies in the index: the environmental pillar is the weakest of the three for 27 of the 43 rated companies — meaning Kuwait's listed companies have made progress in governing sustainability and in accounting for their social impact, while measuring environmental impact remains the standout challenge ahead.
Advanced Sustainability
A rating of AA means a company performs at an advanced level across all three pillars — environment, society and governance — and what it commits to is matched by what it can evidence: targets with baselines, data under independent external assurance, and oversight at board level, with only minor areas for refinement that do not compromise the integrity of the framework.
The three companies — Zain Group, Kuwait Finance House and the National Bank of Kuwait — reached this tier by different routes: environmental measurement, depth of social and governance structure, and sustainable finance. What they share is that what they commit to is matched by documented evidence.
Zain Group: highest-rated in the index
Zain Group leads the entire index, on the strength of the most complete climate management programme among the rated companies. According to the company's sustainability report, Zain holds net-zero targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), discloses a documented reduction in its emissions, and places its Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions under reasonable assurance — the higher of the two assurance levels — by Ernst & Young (Al Aiban, Al Osaimi & Partners), who additionally provide limited assurance over the remaining disclosures in the report. It reports against GRI, SASB and TCFD together, and recorded no corruption cases, no discrimination incidents and no confirmed data breaches during the year. Zain is the strongest performer in the index on both the environmental and the social pillar.
Kuwait Finance House: highest-rated bank
Where Zain's rating rests on environmental measurement, Kuwait Finance House builds its own on the depth of its institutional structure in the social field and in governance. According to the bank's sustainability report, it delivered more than 200 initiatives during the year under its Corporate Shared Value programme, structured across five strategic pillars. Its most significant community commitments include a KD 18 million pledge to the cardiac disease and research centre at Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital, and more than KD 20 million allocated to a debt settlement fund for defaulting individuals, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice. On governance, the bank incurred no fines, penalties or settlements in relation to corruption, while its investment in sustainability and green sukuk reached KD 376 million (USD 1.221 billion), up 30.66% year on year. KFH's governance disclosure is the strongest of any company rated this year, across all sectors — which places it at the top of the banking sector.
National Bank of Kuwait: sustainable finance
The National Bank of Kuwait completes the advanced tier from the angle of sustainable finance. Its sustainable assets reached USD 6.11 billion, up 23% year on year, against a target of USD 10 billion by 2030. The bank operates under a Sustainable Financing Framework aligned to ICMA standards and verified by a second-party opinion from S&P Global. It reduced its operational emissions by 37.35% against its 2021 baseline, exceeding its 2025 interim target of 25%. Its tenth annual sustainability report carries dual limited assurance: verification of its GHG inventory by Ampere, and limited assurance over the presentation of information in the report by FBRH Consultants — reflecting an unbroken decade of disclosure.
Established Sustainability
A rating of A means a company has a functioning sustainability system in place: established programmes, credible governance, and regular annual disclosure aligned to international frameworks. What separates it from the tier above is not the absence of practice but its incompleteness or lack of verification — one of the three pillars still trails the others, some data is not yet under independent external assurance, or targets are not tied to measurable baselines. Six companies sit at this tier, three of them banks, reflecting the sector's density at the top of the index.
Boubyan Bank
Boubyan Bank earned its A rating on the consistency of its disclosure, having published a sixth consecutive sustainability report covering Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and selected Scope 3 categories. The bank applies climate scenario analysis within its ICAAP framework, using RCP 2.6 and SSP 1-2.6 pathways through semi-annual stress tests covering physical and transition risks. It has adopted a sustainable finance framework under which counterparties are assigned sustainability scores updated quarterly and factored into financing decisions. Under GRI 405-2 it disclosed a 1:1 ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men at the Bank across every employee category. The report states explicitly that its sustainability data has not been externally assured — the clearest opportunity for improvement.
Warba Bank
Warba Bank's rating rests on sustainable finance instruments, following its issue of Kuwait's first Sustainable Sukuk at USD 500 million, under which financed amounts reached USD 452.6 million. Its Sustainable Finance Framework carries a second-party opinion from Sustainable Fitch affirming alignment with ICMA principles, and the allocation of those amounts is subject to limited assurance by KPMG confirming alignment with the framework — while the sustainability report itself is not externally assured. Governance is its strongest pillar: no sustainability-related fines were recorded in Kuwait during the year. The bank is also notable for financial inclusion, through its SiDi account — Kuwait's first digital financing product for domestic workers — and zero-profit education financing.
Burgan Bank
Burgan Bank completes the banking presence in this tier through the integration of climate into credit risk management. It has embedded climate scenario analysis into its ICAAP and enterprise stress testing framework since 2022, drawing on the Bank of England's 2021 Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES) and NGFS scenarios, with these assessments applied across the whole of the existing portfolio and reported semi-annually to the Central Bank of Kuwait. Sustainability risk assessment has been embedded in corporate credit evaluation for exposures above KD 10 million, covering approximately 69% of its corporate portfolio by value, and it supported sustainability-related projects worth KD 23.5 million. The bank recorded no corruption cases during the year, its entire workforce formally certified compliance with its ethics and anti-corruption policy.
Ooredoo Kuwait
Outside banking, Ooredoo Kuwait is the second telecommunications company to reach the advanced ratings, confirming that disclosure maturity in the sector is not confined to a single company. It widened the boundary of its emissions measurement to span all five of its operating companies — Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia, Palestine and the Maldives — disclosing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and, for the first time, bringing its website emissions into Scope 3, a scope the report acknowledges is not yet comprehensively measured across the value chain. The company is committed to Ooredoo Group's five-year targets for 2025–2029, including a 10% improvement in energy efficiency measured in kWh per GB, and recorded measurable gains in network efficiency. It ties executive performance indicators to sustainability objectives, and all five operating companies underwent IFRS S1 and S2 training and capacity-building during the year in preparation for reporting under those standards.
Mabanee: RealEstate sector leader
Mabanee stands alone at the top of the real estate sector as the only company in it to reach an A rating — in a sector where disclosure quality varies more widely than in any other in the index. Its rating rests on its first comprehensive portfolio-wide emissions inventory, covering all six assets across Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and capturing Scopes 1 and 2 alongside material Scope 3 categories, with 2025 established as the base year against which 2030 carbon-intensity targets will be set. The company exceeded its energy reduction target, achieving a 10% cut against a 3% goal; LEED-certified and pre-certified projects reached 40.55% of the portfolio by area; and it signed Kuwait's first green financing agreement, a KD 25 million facility with the National Bank of Kuwait for the souk project in Sabah Al-Ahmad City. Its ninth sustainability report carries independent limited assurance over a defined set of GRI disclosures, which does not extend to its Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions data.
Boursa Kuwait: financial services sector leader
Boursa Kuwait leads the financial services sector among its listed peers, recording no corruption cases, no discrimination incidents and no workplace injuries during 2025. It operates a COSO-based sustainability risk management framework, reported periodically to the Board Risk Committee. Its fifth annual sustainability report is prepared in line with the GRI Standards, the SASB standards for the Security and Commodity Exchanges sector and the UN SDGs, incorporating elements of ISSB requirements under a phased approach to adopting these standards, and applying a double materiality assessment — measuring both how sustainability issues affect the company's business and how its own activities affect the environment and society. Boursa Kuwait also publishes the ESG Reporting Guide used by listed companies, and issued an updated edition this year — aligned with the Capital Markets Authority requirement obliging Premier Market companies to report, and incorporating the ISSB standards (IFRS S1 and S2) alongside expanded guidance on Scope 3 emissions and double materiality.
Industrials: the widest gap in the 2025 results
The results of the rated companies in the industrials sector represent the widest gap in the 2025 index. The sector comprises seven rated companies, none of which reached either advanced tier, making it the largest sector in the index without a single company at an advanced rating. Its environmental pillar is also the weakest of its three — which carries particular significance in a sector where environmental impact is material by the nature of the activity itself, from energy and water consumption to direct emissions and industrial waste management.
Mnakh noted that the gap in the industrials sector relates to measurement and disclosure before it relates to operational performance: most of its companies lack a full scoped emissions inventory, environmental targets tied to baselines, and independent external assurance of the data disclosed. Mnakh observed that these elements are practically available to industrial companies, and that adopting them could produce a tangible shift in the sector's ratings within a single year — as demonstrated by companies in other sectors that moved from partial disclosure to a full inventory within one assessment cycle.
Mnakh considers that progress by the industrials sector in this area extends beyond ratings: the sector is one of the principal contributors to the national economy, and the development of its environmental practices is directly linked to Kuwait's climate objectives and the targets of the New Kuwait 2035 vision.
An updated assessment methodology
The 2025 results are based on Mnakh's updated methodology (version 2.1), under which each company is assessed and its performance measured against a fixed framework of fourteen ESG subcategories spanning the environmental, social and governance pillars, on the basis of its public disclosure alone. The scores for these subcategories are consolidated into three pillar scores, then combined using weightings that vary by sector. The methodology is aligned with the GRI, SASB, TCFD and MSCI frameworks, the UN SDGs and the Boursa Kuwait ESG Reporting Guide. As the methodology has been updated for the current edition, the 2025 ratings and results are not directly comparable with prior years.
ABOUT THE MNAKH SUSTAINABILITY INDEX
The Mnakh Sustainability Index rates companies listed on Boursa Kuwait across the environmental, social, and governance pillars, on a scale running from AAA to CCC. Each company is assessed against a fixed 14-point rubric aligned with GRI, SASB, TCFD and the UN SDGs, with pillar weightings calibrated to each sector and every score independently validated; ratings are based solely on public disclosure. Mnakh for Studies & Research is an independent sustainability ratings provider based in Kuwait — a signatory to the ICMA Code of Conduct for ESG Ratings and Data Products Providers, a GRI Community member, and a PRI signatory.
