A pair of pharmaceutical companies, a clothing corporation, leading tech firm and a toy maker round out the top five of this year’s Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s (CR) list of 100 best corporate citizens.
For 15 years, the magazine has rated corporations listed on the Russell 1000 Index based on their policies, performance and disclosures about the environment, governance, human rights, philanthropy, climate change, finances and employee relations.
CR uses a list of 298 questions in the seven categories with answers given points and a weighting. IW Financial of Portland, Maine, sifts through public records and documents and tallies the numbers. Questions about employee relations and the environment make up 39% of the weighted score and climate change is worth another 16.5%, the magazine’s website said. The human rights category is worth 16%.
The top five in the list were:
- Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
- Johnson & Johnson
- Gap, Inc.
- Microsoft Corporation
- Mattel, Inc.
This is the fourth consecutive year Bristol-Myers was among the top five corporations. It ranked No. 3 in 2013, No. 1 in 2012 and No. 4 in 2011. Bristol-Myers was also No. 1 in 2009 and No. 7 in 2010.
Mattel also was among the top five in 2013 at No. 2.
This year, however, the magazine issued a “yellow card” or caution to Bristol-Myers. CR uses red and yellow cards (terms drawn from soccer) to warn companies that may have a caveat to their corporate citizenship. Players given a red card are ejected for an infraction while yellow cards are given as warnings with two resulting in ejection.
The yellow card, or caution, for Bristol-Myers was based on massive litigation going on since 2008 over allegations toxic chemicals contaminated a 90-acre site in New Jersey. The company is working with state environmental officials to clean the site that was in use for 100 years, CR said.
Also making the list on the bottom 5% of the top 100 were:
- Wells Fargo & Co. (which ranked less than .75 points behind Prudential Financial, Inc.)
- Marathon Oil Corporation
- Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
- Exxon Mobil Corp.
- Wisconsin Energy Corp.
The Wisconsin gas and electric utility might not have made the list if another utility, Pacific Gas & Electric had not been removed because of legal issues over a 2010 gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in San Bruno, California. It would have ranked No. 75, CR said.
