ESG News Review 12 — 18 October 2013

Dell Inc. was among the most praised companies last week for joining forces with Members of Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and WEConnect to support women entrepreneurs. Dell Inc. also launched 2020 Legacy of Good Plan initiative for sustainable community development with an environmental focus. McKesson Corporation was praised for its annual Community Day where its employees made care packages for cancer victims. The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation received rave reviews for launching a global initiative to raise awareness of issues related to food security and waste around the world. GDF Suez made a commitment to create 8,000 jobs in South Africa ensuring that 69% of the parts used are “Made in South Africa” in the second year and 99% in the tenth. Roche made a commitment to create 500 new jobs with the new infrastructure that increases its production capacity of biological agents in the next five years.

Among the most criticized companies was Chevron which faced anti-fracking protests in northeast Romania, and had a fourth employee arrested in Indonesia for corruption. Danone continues to face negative press as 13 doctors and nurses admitted to accepting bribes from Danone last Monday. Mattel faced 18 categories of violations of labor rights and ethics by the China Labor Force (CLF) in its Chinese factory. Gazprom was criticized by Greenpeace over poor environmental and safety performance and the arrest of activists in Russia. Lastly, in the U.S. Daimler faces accusations of complicity of human rights violations under the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s.

The most praised companies last week were: Dell Inc., McKesson Corporation, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, GDF Suez, and Roche Holding AG.

And the most criticized were: Chevron Corp., Danone, Mattel Inc., Gazprom, and Daimler AG.

The tag cloud below shows words found in news about these companies.

Words found in news about most praised and most criticized companies last week

This weekly review has been produced using the EthicalQuote reputation index run by Covalence, which tracks 2800 companies worldwide. It gives a summary of positive and negative news published last week about Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), ethics and sustainability.

The EthicalQuote reputation index integrates thousands of news pieces gathered online and classified according to 50 ESG criteria inspired by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and to their positive or negative sentiment.

The next heatmap represents the sentiment calculated for each of the 50 criteria last week. The 50 criteria are embedded into 7 dimensions, following the structure of the GRI. The color indicates the ratio of positive news / total news.

Ratio of positive news / total news for 50 criteria last week 0 % 100 %

The map below represents countries where action described in the news takes place, the color reflecting the ratio of positive news / total news for each active country using last week’s data.

Ratio of positive news / total news 0 % 100 %

In terms of volume of information USA, Germany, China, France, UK, Japan, Canada, and India.

Last week statistics

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 12 – 18 October 2013.

Historical statistics

Positives	344129
Negatives	198880
Total	543009
Sources	35903
Start	01.01.2002
End	18.10.2013

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