For the first time, Fortune's "Change the World" list is ranking companies not by the dollars they make, but the good they are doing.

Two Chinese companies - Alibaba and BYD have been listed on the ranking which recognizes 51 companies that have made a major impact on global social or environmental problems as part of their strategy.

This is the first list of its kind in which companies are recognized – and competitively ranked – on business innovations that positively impact pressing social and environmental issues.

As the list shows, U.K. based Vodafone and Kenyan telecom Safaricom tied for first place on the ranking. According to Fortune, the two had modest expectations for M-Pesa, the mobile-money platform they created in 2007.

Many thought M-Pesa has changed lives, businesses, and the perception of Africa, and brought substantial flows into the financial system that would have otherwise been lying literally under mattresses. In fact, a staggering 42 percent of Kenya’s GDP is transacted through M-Pesa.

(File photo)

Chinese online shop platform Alibaba is on the thirteenth of the ranking, and Chinese automaker BYD is on the fifteenth.

In the view of the Fortune, the marketplaces are a boon, especially for China’s rural sellers, of which more than 2 million are active. They include farmers selling fresh produce on Taobao and small manufacturers offering trinkets. Alibaba has brought tens of millions of poor people online - and into a thriving economy.

BYD's electronic bus served as unviersity shuttle bus in the U.S. (Photo/byd.com)

Chinese automaker BYD is tackling that problem with its battery-powered bus, which can go a full day without charging - a first. And it costs less to maintain over a lifetime than diesel equivalents, which is a good way to cut down emission from cars and improve air quality.

BYD expects to sell 6,000 of the models in China this year, and is expanding in the U.S. with a new California factory.