4 Ranking Reports Accelerating Social Responsibility

Celebrating success creates success.

In addition to tax incentives, consumer behavior, employee demands, and stakeholder preferences, recognizing top efforts – and bashing pitiful ones – is a giant piece of the puzzle building a more sustainable planet.

The following list of 4 reports that rank corporate social responsibility in a variety of ways are an interesting look into how companies are improving their CSR efforts.

Newsweek Green Rankings

The Newsweek green ranking is tied directly to environmental impact, management, and disclosure.

“To produce the 2011 Green Rankings, Newsweek collaborated with leading environmental research providers, Trucost, and Sustainalytics to assess each company’s environmental footprint, management of that footprint, and transparency.”

As a filter, Newsweek only looks at the biggest 500 companies in the world.Kudos go to Munich Re and IBM for being the world’s greenest big companies.

Beyond Grey Pin Stripes MBA Rankings

Current MBA programs rank their effectiveness on average salary of their graduates. Considering that many MBA programs are also touting social entrepreneurship, there is definitely a misalignment in rewards and desired performance. Beyond Grey Pin Stripes fixes this by analyzing MBA programs on the quality of their social responsibility programs.

“Aspen celebrates coursework, research and activities that prepare MBAs for social, ethical and environmental stewardship. In determining the rankings, Aspen evaluates each school’s course offerings and the research published by its faculty.”

Congrats go to Standford Graduate School of Business for topping out this list.

Corporate Responsibility’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens Report

Corporate Responsibility Magazine publishes an annual list of the Best Corporate Citizens.

“Our overarching mission is accountability. We believe it’s vital for investors, regulators, customers, suppliers, employees, and neighbors to know as much as possible about the companies they invest in, do business with, and work for.”

CR looks at a robust list of variables, including climate change, employee relations, environmental impact, financial performance, human rights, governance, and philanthropy.

In 2012, Hewlett-Packard and Intel topped the list.

Fortune’s Most Admired Companies in Social Responsibility

While not very clear on their ranking methodology – other than gathering public input – Fortune does have a list of most admires, and least admired companies in regards to social responsibility.

Topping out the “Most Admired List” are Statoil, Ferrovial, and Disney.

Meanwhile Kirin, Carlsberg, and Asahi Breweries top out the “Last Admired List” (beer is apparently bad for you, and worse of the environment).

Ultimately, reports like these are highlighting best practices, shaming worst practices, and giving more attention and publicity to companies making the world a better place. Maybe not as fast as we’d like to see, but its a movement in the right direction.

In addition to ranking reports, we also like lists of for-good companies, like 1% For the Planet and B Labs that are contributing to this movement. Subscribe by email to get future summaries of other organizations working to accelerate social responsibility.

Where do you go to see if companies – and their people – are doing good for the world?