ESG News Review 3 — 9 August 2013

Tokyo Electric Power Co. was the most criticized company last week, after Japan’s Prime Minister called for an “urgent battle to stop radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant leaking into the ocean” (Sky News). JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, along with Glencore Xstrata, also received criticism for alleged antitrust practices pertaining to aluminium supplies and prices.

On the positive side, Ford announced that rice hulls will appear among the sustainable materials used to produce trucks, as well as a new Sustainable Workforce Initiative. Several sources also highlighted jobs created by Volkswagen in the UK and USA.

The most praised companies last week were: Ford Motor Co., Caixa d Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, Vodafone Group plc, Cajamar Caja Rural, Volkswagen AG.

And the most criticized were: Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Sanofi S.A., Danone.

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, China, Japan, UK, Spain, France, Brazil, and Germany were the major countries of action last week.

Last week statistics

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 3 – 9 August 2013.

Historical statistics

Positives	337438
Negatives	190705
Total	528143
Sources	34789
Start	01.01.2002
End	09.08.2013

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