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ESG News Review 29 March – 4 April 2014

Facebook was among the most praised companies last week as it has made significant progress in adopting renewable energy sources to power its web services, according to a report published by Greenpeace which also salutes Google and Apple. Volkswagen plans to make plug-in hybrids cars in China, according to Reuters; in Spain, VW renewed its collective agreement with workers for 4 more years. H&M and Inditex (the maker of Zara) have pledged to eliminate the use of endangered-forest fibers in all of their rayon and viscose clothing, in partnership with Canopy, a forestry nonprofit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized Sears Holdings with a 2014 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year — Sustained Excellence Award for its leadership in terms of energy efficiency.

JPMorgan Chase appeared among the most criticized companies last week as a US judge has ruled shareholders can sue the company for securities fraud over the activities of the “London whale” trader.  UBS and Credit Suisse, as well as other banks including Citigroup, are being investigated by Switzerland’s Competition Commission for possible manipulation of exchange rates; Credit Suisse reacted by saying that such allegations were “inappropriate and harmful to [its] reputation.” Deutsche Lufthansa faced a strike called by the pilots’ union Cockpit as part as a two years pay dispute.

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

ESG News Review 29 March - 4 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 29 March - 4 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 29 March - 4 April 2014

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

In terms of volume of information USA, Switzerland, UK, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, Spain, and Singapore.

Last week statistics

Positives 981 Companies 360 Countries 73
Negatives 2048 Mostly praised 172 Sources 260
Total 3029 Mostly criticized 176
Positives / Total 32%

These figures show the activity in Covalence EthicalQuote database during the week of 29 March – 4 April 2014.

Historical statistics

ESG News Review 29 March - 4 April 2014
Positives 363167
Negatives 224004
Total 587171
Sources 38564
Start 01.01.2002
End 04.04.2014

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