ESG News Review 8 — 14 March 2014

Toyota was among the most praised companies last week as it announced a wage increase for its Japan-based workers, responding to calls from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Nestlé published a new report describing its efforts to meet commitments in areas such as nutrition, water, rural development, sustainability and compliance; Nestlé also announced it will implement a new executive remuneration scheme in 2015. Unilever acquired a majority stake in the Qinyuan Group, a leading Chinese water purification business, which will help the company “make safe drinking water available and affordable to people across the world”. Solvay has launched the production of torrefied biomass at an industrial scale in the United States, “creating a new business that aims to provide an innovative and renewable energy solution”. Cisco announced it has received the 2014 Humanitarian Partnership Award from the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Tokyo Electric Power was among the most criticized companies last week, three years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, as some of its workers have protested to request better working conditions and higher wages. General Motors is facing several investigations in the USA regarding late recalls of defective cars. A former Credit Suisse banker pleaded guilty to conspiring to help U.S. customers evade taxes, and said his superiors were aware of his actions, according to documents filed in court. Société Générale, together with Barclays, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia, is being sued by US hedge fund AIS Capital over allegations that the banks manipulated the gold price; Société Générale, as well as BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole, is also being probed by US authorities for violating American sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Herbalife is facing an inquiry by the US Federal Trade Commission regarding its marketing and distribution practices, described by investor William Ackman as a “pyramid scheme”.

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, France, Spain, UK, Japan, Canada, Italy, India, Germany, and Australia were the major countries of action last week.

Last week statistics

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 8-14 March 2014.

Historical statistics

Positives	359008
Negatives	218584
Total	577592
Sources	38024
Start	01.01.2002
End	14.03.2014

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