Global 100: The Most Sustainable Corporations in the World
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 01.30.06
The 2006 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations list has just been released at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. This is the second annual rankings, compiled by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors (we've mentioned them before) and Corporate Knights. Among the 100 are companies with historically less-than-perfect, but vastly improved sustainable track records like BP, Coca Cola and Nike, as well as companies like Toyota who have recently made a big splash in corporate social responsibility. The purpose of the Global 100 is to showcase that not all corporations are the same; to reinforce, raise awareness, and highlight the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world; the global firms most open to being part of the solution, layed out on one clear page. The Global 100 companies are therefore sustainable in the sense that they have displayed a better ability than most of their industry peers to identify and effectively manage material environmental, social and governance factors impacting the up (opportunity) and down (risk) sides of their business.
The Innovest methodology compares companies to their sector peers on a best-in-class basis, rather than appraise them on absolute performance. For the Global 100, Innovest selected 100 leaders from the MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) World Index that demonstrate exceptional capacity to address their sector-specific environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities. Innovest does not believe that it is particularly insightful, or even methodologically possible, to give companies absolute ratings, as different industries face vastly different sets of social and environmental dynamics.
We're glad to see these awards; even if to simply reinforce that no one is perfect and that there are a few companies (these 100 represent about the top five per cent in each of the industry groups making up the MSCI World Index) that have set the bar higher than their peers and will (we hope) continue to do good things to make the world a better place. It sure would be nice if some (or one) of these mega-companies could be perfectly pollution-free, carbon-neutral, and followed fair-labor and fair-trade business practices, and perhaps that day is coming. The fact is that they aren't perfect, and that corporations have a tremendous influence on the way the world works on both a day-to-day and long-term level. As such, we'll take these rankings with a grain of salt, applaud those who, on the basis of these rankings, deserve recognition, and hope to get more bees with honey next year. ::Global 100 via ::Two Steps Forward
Nike? NIKE!?!? How does Nike make this list?
Forgive my surprise, perhaps they are doing quite well on the sustainability front, but how are they doing on the labour/working conditions front?
====**Author's comments below**====
David, I'd encourage you to review both the methodology and the FAQ's for the report. They address how the companies are selected, and who to contact if you have concerns about the selections they have made. Let me also remind you that sustainability equally weighs social and environmental interests, which absolutely includes labor practices and working conditions. I don't know specific details off the top of my head, but, as posted below, I know that Nike has been working hard to improve its labor practices after the sweatshop stories in the '90's.
--CD
Apparently Nike made a pretty big effort to clean up its act after the big scandals, but I haven't kept track of them in a while so I don't know what their practices are these days.
In my opinion the list is a load of rubbish. Nike is bad enough, but also BAA, Coca Cola and British Airways plus many more. How can an airline such as British Airways possibly be seen as sustainable with the obscene amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere?
It's bad enough that this blog seems to have decended into just spruiking products, but now they are falling victim to greenwash.
You don't need to be a dreadlocked hippy protester to know that someone who releases their list at the WEF and has an ayn rand "atlas shrugged" style image on their website isn't a friend of green.
Why do the companies have to be so huge? Why can't they be owner-operator companies making solar panels and not megacorps. This list is as worthless as saying "we are going to pick the greenest 250 of the fortune 500", you are maybe going to get one or two good ones who take it seriously, and the rest will be there by virtue of being the only ones eligible.
You can't call any car company still producing petrol cars as their mainstay "green" in any way, shape or form. I just saw an advert for a petrol-hogging Toyota "action utility vehicle" on TV. Same goes for Volvo. And as someone mentioned, putting an airline in there is a joke.
And I don't see vodafone with a plan making sure the old mobiles are disposed of carefully - same with all the electronics companies on that list.
You can cry "oh won't people *please* think of the methodology?" but look at it, the methodoloy makes it so exclusive that it's like saying "which of the prison guards beats me the least?". Congratulations vicious thug #4 you are "The most peaceful and friendly guard of 2006!!!"
I have to say, I partially agree with whataload - but I temper that with the thought that, at Davos, surrounded by all the wealth and power of the First World, YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE PEOPLE.
http://www.newdream.org/consumer/shop.html
Check out the "responsible shopper" to update your knowledge on various companies' practices, Nike included. The list the bad things first and then the good things, so before you totally write a business off, scroll to the bottom. In Nike's case you may see why they made the list...
However, I agree that all Corporations need to DO MORE to promote sustainablity and socially responsible practices.
"You don't need to be a dreadlocked hippy protester to know that someone who releases their list at the WEF and has an ayn rand "atlas shrugged" style image on their website isn't a friend of green."
this is a strange statement to me
Ayn Rand has another book called Fountainhead. Having read the book, (not sure you have) . One of the themes of The Fountainhead is how to get an efficient well designed (ie SUSTAINABLE) appartment building built, despite interference from beaurocrats. The notion applies quite well to todays problems...how to get the world more sustainable despite the silliness of the clowns in charge.
The story of Atlas Shrugged revolved around a fuelless power generation method which would have solved the worlds energy problems easily. But would have been abused by the clowns in charge. Remind you of anything?
Ayn Rand and the Objectivist movement isn't anti sustainable or anti environment; but rather pro reason and pro human. The apparant conflict is because the Green movement is overrepresented with anti-reason and anti-human clowns. (or at least perceived as such)
Go see the movie The Fountainhead if you think the book is too wordy, I do. (it's got Gary Cooper!) Atlas Shrugged certainly is.
Is the glass half full or half empty? Is this a good start or a load of crap? When Nike, GE, Coca-Cola, et al make the list of 100 most sustainable corporations I have to wonder, are there not more than 100 corporations in the world? I'm generally a glass is half full guy but this list offers nothing more to me than the cumilitive results of effective PR.
Whataload -- you've definitely got some valid points, but you seem to forget that Treehugger is a blog that reports on what's going on in the sustainable-living world. They didn't make this list. They're not promoting it, or "falling victim to greenwash." I think CD tries to make a point of that in the last paragraph. I wouldn't be nearly as interested in a sustainable-news source that only presented me with the absolute perfect -- there'd be nothing to read.
I'm certainly not going to be promoting or patronizing some of these companies anytime soon, but it's lists like these that inform the general, non-greenie public and create a market -- the only thing some of these companies respond to -- for sustainable practices. It's admittedly far from perfect, but it's a start. You can't ignore these companies, and if the environmental world only offers them sticks for not acheiving perfection, and never any carrots, what incentive do they have to improve?
Is this BP with the "vastly improved sustainable track record" the same one that the Bush Administration appears to be about to file civil and criminal suits against (for incidents at its Texas refinery)?
http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2006/01/us-prepares-civil-and-criminal-suits.html
I think Jocelyn makes a good point. Don't shoot the messenger.
i'm mixed on this one... the kid in me wants to be angry like whataload, the pragmatist wants to be like proggrrrl, i wanna be young again like mgr (j/k) but all i can think about is Bill Shireman's group, the future 500 and how many of the Co's mentioned here are also active in the F500 (which originally got me as riled up as whataload, but hey, the baby is taking steps now...clap hands for th ebaby!), and especially when you look at how people say we change values, it's not by rejecting an existing values but by bringing in new ones that can accept, better and then supersede the original one. Any faster approach leads to backlash.
...and weren't we just talking about how (Kraft Food Organic etc) there is no Us and Them but how we are all in this together? I mean, them hippy dreadlocks have to accept that even the evil-est company (one not on the list, say like Lee Raymonds cesspool exxon) is just an outer manifestation of some emotional baggage inside us that is keeping us from evolving, right? or am i off on the deep end here? That's what people llike osho say, so while we don't have to patronize the companies, there's no point in quixotic attacks the windmills....
ok one last thing.... British Airways. yes they do pollute the skies and i wish like damn that we already were using cryogenic hydrogen planes already, but that being said, they are looking at ways to be more efficient.
Here's one little thing they did, they got a software called NightWatchman by 1E and what this does is allows the admin & IT to power up and shut down every computer in the company. Instead of leaving all the computers on all night and weekend just for teh IT dept to have access, what the NightWatchman does is allows them to turn the computers on only when needed for systems upgrades. This saves (in a place that uses coal) 1/2 Ton of CO2 per PC a year (and a nic $350 a desktop- which adds up when you have thousands of workstations, so yeah there's a reward, but still many airlines wont even do that!)