AMSTERDAM, United States — A survey released by Dutch internet consultancy Jungle Rating finds that corporate websites are the number-one way stakeholders of all stripes access a company's sustainability communications, and that of all the top European companies on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, German chemical company BASF has done the best job of presenting its message on its website, BASF.com.

BASF, with a score of 67 percent, is closely followed by BHP Billiton at 65 percent and a three-way tie among Centrica, Novo Nordisk and BP, all with 64 percent scores.

The rankings evaluate the extent of sustainability information presented on the corporate sites, as well as the quality, variety and accessibility of that information.

BASF's top score is a result regularly updating its news and case studies, offering GRI-based performance data, and user-friendly presentations like videos, Flash animations, downloadable and interactive graphs.

The survey evaluated 53 companies on the DJSI STOXX index and ranked those companies based on how well their sustainability websites fulfilled 12 research criteria: Accessibility, interactivity, multimedia, personalization, company profiles, sustainability reporting, topical information, historic information, strategy and policy, and the social, environmental economic dimensions of those sites.

In an interview with Tanja Castor, the person in charge of BASF's sustainability website, she said the company aims to present its sustainability information to stakeholders across the board, starting with their own employees, but also including their customers, investors, CSR analysts and rating agencies.

"Sustainability is one of the four worldwide strategic guidelines at BASF, so it is extremely important for us to communicate about it," Castor told the report's authors. "At BASF we want to be transparent about our sustainability targets. This is why we have a special section in our sustainability section, providing an overview of all our key performance targets and our strategic approach."

Jungle Rating's full report about the study, which in addition to the rankings offers the authors' predictions for trends and examples of best practices on online sustainability communications, is available from JungleRating.nl.