ESG News Review 25 — 31 January 2014
Nissan appeared among the most praised companies last week, and so did FedEx. These two companies announced they would begin testing a 100 percent electric compact cargo vehicle. Costco Wholesale was praised by President Obama for “taking the leadership to pay its workers fair wages”. Nestlé announced it would invest one billion dollars in Mexico, which will enable the creation of 700 direct and 3,500 indirect jobs. Johnson Controls said it will partner with Lawrence Technological University (Michigan, USA) to identify and validate new energy storage technologies “to help automakers meet fuel economy and emissions standards”
Royal Bank of Scotland appeared among the most criticized companies last week, as it announced it has put aside another £3.1bn to settle claims related to mortgage products and interest rate hedging. Deutsche Bank has also been named by several sources in relation to similar matters.  Barclays is expected to cut 400 jobs from its corporate banking division, while Lloyds Banking Group will cut 1,400 jobs in its consumer, risk, operations and corporate banking businesses. Airbus Group also announced a massive downsizing plan in France and Germany.
The most praised companies last week were: Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., FedEx Corporation, Costco Wholesale Corporation, Nestlé S.A., and Johnson Controls Inc.
And the most criticized were: Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Barclays plc, Airbus Group, Deutsche Bank AG, and Lloyds Banking Group plc.
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, UK, Spain, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Japan, China, and Brazil.
Last week statistics
| Positives | 805 | Companies | 300 | Countries | 55 |
| Negatives | 996 | Mostly praised | 148 | Sources | 229 |
| Total | 1801 | Mostly criticized | 145 | ||
| Positives / Total | 45% |
These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 25-31 January 2014.
Historical statistics
 |
||
| Positives | 350824 | |
| Negatives | 208211 | |
| Total | 559035 | |
| Sources | 37276 | |
| Start | 01.01.2002 | |
| End | 31.01.2014 | |
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