From Open Sustainability
Achieving 'sustainable' status for an organization is a complex and sometimes a controversial task. The purist definition of sustainability is a product or service that does not deplete natural resources, thus uses only renewable resources. This is obviously a very difficult task to achieve as nearly all organizations are reliant in some way on fossil fuels for energy, metals and minerals. A more pragmatic viewpoint has been taken on deeming a company sustainable, it is based on an organizations commitment to continuously do the best they can - using less resources, becoming more efficient, reducing waste and acting responsibly towards customers, suppliers, employees and the general public.
Sustainability Rating Agencies
Stakeholders are very interested in seeing how an organization is really doing in regards to their sustainability performance. Criteria have been set by various bodies to attempt to measure sustainability performance of an organization. There are a number of rating agencies that conduct analysis of companies practices using a standard set of questions such as IW Financial, Innovest, Trucost and Vigeo. This enables companies to be ranked and benchmarked against each other.
The most sustainable North American companies
Using four of the key Sustainability indices’ open-sustainability (o-s) compared companies in the Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) 100 Best Companies list,Global 100 Most Sustainable, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index DJSI,and the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) report list. The best companies across these areas are listed below. To narrow down the combined list of around 200 companies (See full list) we first removed the ones that were not in the DJSI, this was not that many, and the ones that did not make it into the top 100 most responsible companies. We then evaluated the companies that did not produce a GRI Sustainability or Corporate Responsibility Report against ones that made it into the Global 100. A short review of all the companies reports were conducted to further determine the top 10. Some potential issues could be due to the 'self-declaration' of around half of the GRI level reports. These have not been verified to see if they are actually in compliance with that level. The 'type' of report, linked to to the website, is also shown for the top companies.
The most sustainable UK companies
Using five Sustainability related indices’ open-sustainability (o-s) compared the UK companies in the Global 100 Most Sustainable, Business in the Community's CR Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index DJSI, FTSE4Good Index, and the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) report list. To narrow down the combined list (See full list) of around 150 reports we first removed the ones that were not in the DJSI. We then kept only the companies that received a Platinum or higher rank in the BITC. Companies that were in the FTSE4Good were put on the list. Then the remaining companies reports were looked at to determine the top 10 companies. An interesting point to note is the lack of GRI level and verified reports compared to North America. The perception is usually that the UK and Europe are generally leading on CSR Reporting. Additionally the 'type' of report, linked to the website, is also shown for the top companies.
