Consumer-facing companies and sectors with a history of environmental challenges often excel at communicating their corporate social responsibility efforts, according to the latest findings from a California-based research institute.
Coca-Cola, Toyota, France Telecom, ABB and Stora Enso are among the highest ranked companies for sustainability reporting based on a series of analyses from Claremont-based Roberts Environmental Center.
The center at Claremont McKenna College announced on Tuesday the release of five reports detailing the sustainability reporting efforts of five sectors: consumer food, food production and beverages; forest and paper products; industrial and farm equipment; motor vehicles and parts; and telecommunications. The center also issued two reports on the energy and utility sectors.
It’s a wealth of information, drawn from the amount of corporate social responsibility details the nearly 170 large and multinational companies disclosed on their websites. Several broad themes emerged, J. Emil Morhardt, the Roberts Environmental Center’s director, told GreenBiz.com Tuesday.
The highest-scoring companies based on the center's Pacific Sustainability Index often hailed from the aerospace, utilities, motor vehicles and petroleum refining industries. Lower-scoring companies tended to be smaller in size, such as wholesalers, homebuilders and railroads.
“Companies that are in sectors that don’t deal with the public much don’t see that much of a public pressure to report,” Morhardt said. “The ones that did well tend to be in the public eye, or with a history of environmental issues."
The companies were assigned letter grades and given the opportunity to review the findings and add material to their websites to improve their scores. “In some sectors, as many as half get back to us,” Morhardt said.
The center began producing their sector analyses in 2004, but began assigning letter grades and gave companies the chance to better their scores with supplemental web materials about a year later, Morhardt said.
“The two things combined had a huge impact on the amount of engagement with companies,” he said.
The companies with the highest overall scores include:
• Consumer food and beverages: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and InBev
• Forest and paper products: Stora Enso, International Paper and Weyerhauser
• Industrial and farm equipment: ABB, Cumming, Black and Decker
• Motor vehicles and parts: Toyota, Johnson Controls, General Motors and Daimler AG
• Telecommunications: France Telecom, Vodafone and Telecom Italia
• Energy: Mirant, Constellation Energy and American Electric Power
• Utilities: Pinnacle West Capital, Wisconsin Energy and Duke Energy