ESG News Review 5 – 11 October 2013

Last week the most criticized company was – again – Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., as six workers were exposed to a leak of highly radioactive water at Fukushima nuclear plant. Leighton Holdings Limited also received criticisms for facing a shareholder class action regarding allegations of corruption in Iraq. BP and the U.S. federal government contested about the size of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill during its second phase of the trial. Alcatel-Lucent’s massive downsizing plan has been criticized by French Prime Minister. Toyota is facing a U.S. trial over claims that it failed to warn the public about defects that caused certain cars to accelerate unintentionally.

Wal-Mart was the most praised company last week, as it highlighted its positive impact on local economies during the APEC CEO Summit in Bali, while other sources mentioned that several Swedish pension funds will divest from Wal-Mart over workers’ rights abuses. LG Electronics received the Marriott International’s 2013 Supplier Sustainability Award. The Verizon Foundation launched the Smart Solutions for Affordable Housing Program. Intel is involved in the Alliance for Affordable Internet, an initiative that provides low-income families with affordable internet, together with other technology giants. MasterCard announced a new partnership with the World Food Program in favor of Syrian refugees.

The most praised companies last week were: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., LG Electronics Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Intel Corporation, and MasterCard Inc.

And the most criticized were: Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., Leighton Holdings Limited, BP plc, Alcatel-Lucent, and Toyota Motor Corp.

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 dimensions, 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, France, Spain, Australia, UK, China, and India.

Last week statistics

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 5 – 11 October 2013.

Historical statistics

Positives	343409
Negatives	198194
Total	541603
Sources	35702
Start	01.01.2002
End	11.10.2013

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