ESG News Review 31 August — 6 September 2013

For the third week in a row Tokyo Electric Power Co. was the most criticized company, as a result of recent increases in radiation from the Fukushima plant. Wal-Mart also received  criticism after protesters calling for higher wages were arrested and union organizers allegedly fired. In other news, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, GlaxoSmithKline’s bribery of doctors was coordinated by the company, and not by individual actors.

On the positive side, The Coca-Cola Company was the most praised last week due to the announcement of a partnership with Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) during World Water Week in Stockholm. Additionally, Toyota says its next generation Prius will bring further gains in fuel economy and reduced emissions and Microsoft, along with Google, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government to speak more freely about the data they collect.

The most praised companies last week were: The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota Motor Corp., Microsoft Corporation, LM Ericsson Telephone Co., and Lowe’s Companies Inc.

And the most criticized were: Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Apple Inc.

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 groups, 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, Japan, UK, India, China, South Africa, Australia, and France.

Last week statistics

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 31 August – 6 September 2013.

Historical statistics

Positives	340315
Negatives	195494
Total	535809
Sources	35224
Start	01.01.2002
End	06.09.2013

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