Ethisphere Announces 124 Companies to Make the 2017 World’s Most Ethical Companies List
For the eleventh year, honorees sharpen their focus on long term-ism
as a sustainable business advantage and harness integrity to impact
change.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#ethisphere–The Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the
standards of ethical business practices, today announced 124 companies
spanning five continents, 19 countries and 52 industry sectors as the 2017
World’s Most Ethical Companies® honorees.
Since 2007, Ethisphere has honored those companies who recognize their
role in society to influence and drive positive change in the business
community and societies around the world. These companies also consider
the impact of their actions on their employees, investors, customers and
other key stakeholders and leverage values and a culture of integrity as
the underpinnings to the decisions they make each day.
“Over the last eleven years we have seen an impressive shift in societal
expectations, aggressive emergence of new laws and regulation and
geopolitical swings that can further disrupt the balance. We have also
seen how companies honored as the World’s Most Ethical respond to these
challenges. They invest in their local communities around the world,
embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion and focus on long term-ism
as a sustainable business advantage. In short, these companies are
transformative, not just out of need, but because they recognize that
integrity is the key to their advancement,” explained Ethisphere
CEO, Timothy Erblich. “Congratulations to all of the 2017 honorees.”
Ethisphere’s notion that the financial value and ethics are inexorably
tied together has been explained through an analysis of how the stock
price of publicly-traded 2017 honorees compare to the S&P 500 over the
last two years. The analysis demonstrates a 6.4% premium Ethisphere
refers to as an ‘ethics premium.’
Among the 2017 list of companies are 13 eleven-time honorees and 8
first-time honorees. 2017 also marks the first-time appearance of a
Mexico-based company.
“We are honored to be recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical
Companies for 11 consecutive years,” said Kao Corporation
President and CEO, Michitaka Sawada. “For 130 years, we have upheld the
value of Integrity passed down from Kao’s founder. As a core value, we
positioned integrity as the foundation of the Kao Group Mid-term Plan
2020 (K20), which started from this year. This Integrity continues to be
embraced as K20 guides the group’s daily business activities.”
“We’ve always been committed to demonstrating the highest level of
integrity, ethical business practices and social responsibility in
everything we do,” said Petco CEO, Brad Weston. “It’s an honor to
continue receiving this distinguished recognition and a direct
reflection of our commitment to doing the right thing for people and
pets.”
“Companies are the bricks of modern society. In order to make positive
change happen throughout the world, ethics must be a core of private
enterprise,” said illycaffe S.p.A. Chairman, Andrea Illy. “The
Ethisphere Institute’s work is inspiring and helping companies
prioritize meaningful investments that push them to be the best.”
“Singtel is honoured to again be recognised as a World’s Most Ethical
Company for our longstanding commitment to transparency and the highest
level of corporate governance. I’m especially proud of our more than
25,000 employees who bring our core values to life every day. We believe
our long-term success depends not just on our financial performance, but
how we maintain the highest standards of corporate governance and create
positive change in society,” expressed Singtel Group CEO, Ms.
Chua Sock Koong.
Methodology
The World’s Most Ethical Company assessment is
based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics
Quotient® (EQ) framework which offers a quantitative way
to assess a company’s performance in an objective, consistent and
standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive
sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all
aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and
ethics.
The methodology is weighted into five key categories: ethics and
compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility
(20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership,
innovation and reputation (10%).
Honorees
The full list of the 2017 World’s Most Ethical
Companies can be found at http://worldsmostethicalcompanies.ethisphere.com/honorees/.
Best practices and insights from the 2017 honorees will be released in a
series of infographics and research throughout the year. Download the 2017
executive summary here. Organizations interested in how they compare
to the World’s Most Ethical Companies are invited to participate
in the Ethics Quotient.
About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere®
Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards
of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace
trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring
and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help
companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior
achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition
program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business
Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) and showcases trends and best
practices in ethics with the publication of Ethisphere Magazine.
More information about Ethisphere can be found at: http://ethisphere.com.
Contacts
The Ethisphere Institute
Clea Nabozny, 1-480-397-2658
clea.nabozny@ethisphere.com
