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The annual update of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI), the oldest benchmarks for sustainable investment, has been completed. As has been the case for the 11 years of the indexes' existence, SAM Indexes was responsible for both corporate sustainability assessment and index composition.
According to a press materials, "The annual review of the DJSI family is based on a thorough analysis of corporate economic, environmental and social performance, assessing issues such as corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and labor practices."
The components of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) include the top 10 percent of the largest companies in the Dow Jones Global Indexes. This year, DJSI World includes 318 components. Forty-eight companies have been added, and 46 were deleted.
The largest companies added, as determined by market capitalization, were Standard Chartered, Morgan Stanley, and ArcelorMittal. The largest companies deleted were Toyota, Royal Dutch Shell and UniCredit. Toyota, of course, has received considerable media attention this year because of multiple product quality defects in its automobiles, while Shell -- currently listed as the world's second-largest corporation in Fortune Magazine's Global 500 -- is responsible, along with ExxonMobil, for much of the estimated 546 million barrels of oil that have spilled in the Niger Delta over the last 50 years.
The question of why companies with such poor environmental records would be included in a sustainability index in the first place was highlighted earlier this year, when BP was removed from the DJSI World following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Index rules allow for elimination of companies from the DJSI following extraordinary events.
In addition to Morgan Stanley, eight other U.S.-based companies were added to the DJSI World this year. Companies added to the Index were Alcoa, Campbell Soup, Duke Energy, Heinz, Halliburton, Hormel Foods, McGraw-Hill, and Owens Corning.
The five U.S.-based companies removed from the Index were El Paso Corp., Genzyme, ITT, Kimberly-Clark, and Plum Creek Timber Co.
This article originally appeared at SocialFunds.com and is reprinted with permission.
A little surprising to see
A little surprising to see Halliburton amongst the new entries into the DJSI World. Given that BP was correctly removed from the same index due to the Gulf disaster, Halliburton should be considered under the same scrutiny for their part in causing the accident.
The DOW and SAM Indexes need to put their methodology under review.
Mr. Kropp, to suggest that
Mr. Kropp, to suggest that Shell " . . .is responsible, along with ExxonMobil, for much of the estimated 546 million barrels of oil that have spilled in the Niger Delta over the last 50 years" is very much akin to saying "the U.S. is responsible for the 9/11/2001 terrorist hijacking of the planes that hit the twin towers and the pentagon."
The spills in the Niger river delta are caused by terrorist organizations who bomb transportation lines, damage exploration and production assets in the area, cut into operating pipelines to steal crude and otherwise act with complete impunity toward national laws and international regulations.
Not that this argument has
Not that this argument has anything really to do with the basis of the article itself, but I must take offense at your determination that the spills were caused by "terrorist organizations." Unless by "terrorist" you mean "disenfranchised indigenous people who have seen their homes, livelihoods, and health stripped away by foreign interlopers who are in cahoots with their own government." I don't know what personal experience you might have with the Niger Delta but my son was held under false arrest for a week (detained by the corrupt JTF, a supposed government security force but actually the hired guns of the oil industry) while legally there with an American film crew who have been documenting the activities in the Delta. He saw first-hand what the American's gluttonous, relentless addiction to oil has done to the people, the animals, the land and the water of the Delta. He saw first-hand who "the terrorists" were: mostly young, COLLEGE-EDUCATED sons of suffering mothers who are tired of living through the destruction of their homeland and have found no other recourse (because their government is as corrupt as the international corporations they allowed in to rape and pillage their country) but to resort to "terrorist" tactics in an effort to at least draw international attention to their plight. And we see where that has gotten them. It is so easy for us smug, selfish Americans to condemn a people whose way of life we have been a party to destroying. Why? Because we deserve OUR oil. We NEED it. No matter what it takes...or who stands in the way.
I have a box frame filled with seashells. They are seashells that my son brought home to me from his trip to Nigeria. They are pock-marked by acid rain from the effects of oil extraction. They were found on dry land, miles from any beach because the wetlands/beaches they once occupied no longer exist as a result of oil exploration, extraction, etc. They are a constant reminder to me of my role in this travesty.
Perhaps, after all, you are right about Mr. Kropp blaming Exxon and Shell. They are not "responsible." We are.