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ESG News Review 5 – 11 April 2014

Baxter International appeared among the most praised companies last week, as it was recognized for safety performance in China when it received the Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development District’s (GETDD) 2013 Excellent Safety Culture Company Award for dedication to creating a safe manufacturing environment and culture. Xylem gained the 2014 Corporate Excellence Award from Charities@Work, an alliance of four nonprofit federations, in recognition of its employee engagement activities. Eastman Chemical Company has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a 2014 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award for continued leadership in superior energy management. Rio Tinto announced that it is divesting from the giant Pebble Mine proposed for the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, a project that had generated opposition due to environmental and social risks; Rio Tinto will give the shares it owns in Northern Dynasty Minerals, owner of the Pebble Project, to two local Alaskan charitable foundations. CA Technologies announced its annual Green Week of worldwide employee volunteer activities in celebration of Earth Day.

Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eli Lilly were among the most criticized companies last week, as they have been ordered to pay a combined $9 billion after a U.S. federal court jury found they “failed to adequately warn” about the cancer risks of their Actos diabetes medicine. Citigroup agreed with a group of 18 institutional investors to pay $1.125 billion to settle claims on mortgage-backed securities sold ahead of the financial crisis. Bank of America will pay $772 million to settle allegations it deceived customers with improper credit card marketing practices. Hewlett-Packard will pay U.S. regulators $108m to settle corruption allegations involving employees at subsidiaries in Poland, Russia, and Mexico.

The tag cloud below shows words found in news about these companies.

ESG News Review 5 - 11 April 2014

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.

ESG News Review 5 - 11 April 2014

Ratio of positive news / total news for 50 criteria last week 0 % countryofactionBAR130610_70 100 %

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.

ESG News Review 5 - 11 April 2014

Ratio of positive news / total news 0 % countryofactionBAR130610_70 100 %

In terms of volume of information USA, France, UK, Germany, China, Switzerland, Spain, India, and Mexico.

Last week statistics

Positives 983 Companies named 302 Countries 69
Negatives 1042 Mostly praised 179 Sources 247
Total 2025 Mostly criticized 117
Positives / Total 49%

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 5 – 11 April 2014.

Historical statistics

ESG News Review 5 - 11 April 2014
Positives 364150
Negatives 225046
Total 589196
Sources 38702
Start 01.01.2002
End 11.04.2014

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