CorporateResponsibility.Net

Companies considering scaling back their sustainability initiatives in response to the economic downturn have today been urged to “think twice” after research released yesterday by consultancy giant AT Kearney showed that those businesses with the most effective green strategies tend to outperform their rivals financially.

The new study, entitled Green Winners: The Performance of Sustainability-focused Companies in the Financial Crisis, looked at 99 companies that feature on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Goldman Sachs SUSTAIN focus list of green companies, and assessed their stock price performance over the six months up to November last year. Read more

Source: Business Green

SAM, the sustainability investment specialist, and Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, have added four additional blue-chip indexes to the family of Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI). The new indexes provide market participants with tools to track sustainability leaders in the U.S., North America and globally.

The methodology for the new indexes applies the same approach as the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability 40 Index and Dow Jones EURO STOXX Sustainability 40 Index. The sustainability scores are derived from a comprehensive annual assessment of general as well as industry-specific criteria covering issues such as corporate governance, risk management, emissions, water and energy consumption, human capital development and stakeholder relations. Read more (pdf) (DJSI)

Source: CSR Europe

An analysis of the social responsibility reporting efforts of California’s largest corporations finds that some, like Chevron, Hewlett-Packard and Walt Disney, publicized their sustainability on their Web sites, while others, like eBay, Google and Apple, rarely mentioned the subject, if at all.

The 132-page report, “Analysis of Sustainability Reporting of Fortune Companies in California” (PDF), produced by the Roberts Environmental Center of Claremont McKenna College, contains a compilation of Pacific Sustainability Index scores evaluating the environmental and social reporting of all California companies on the 2006 Fortune 1000 list. It scores companies based on the reporting, intent and performance of environmental and social sustainability efforts and is the center’s the first geographically based analysis of corporate reporting. Read more

Source: Environmental Leader