KPMG, Unilever, EDF Energy, BT Group, Heineken UK, Marks & Spencer, PwC, J Sainsbury and seven other companies earned the Platinum Plus rating for corporate responsibility, retaining their status from last year, in rankings from U.K. non-profit Business in the Community.
Platinum rankings, for scores of 95 percent and up, were earned by 42 companies including the BBC, Hallmark, National Grid, Heathrow Airport Limited, Tesco, and Jaguar Land Rover, the new report, “Corporate Responsibility Index 2012,” said.
The CR Index assesses companies in four areas – corporate strategy, integration, management, and performance – based on an online survey. BITC evaluated the companies on one of four geographical bases: global (multinational companies reporting on 100 percent of their global business operations), national (UK companies reporting on 100 percent of their operations), UK-only (multinationals reporting on UK operations only) and Australia (companies reporting on Australian operations).
Twenty-five companies were ranked gold, 18 were silver and seven were bronze, representing national and global corporations from industry sectors including construction and materials, electricity, technology hardware and equipment, gas, water, multi-utilities, and household and personal goods manufacturers, the report said.
This year, 45 percent of companies are FTSE-listed, 56 percent of multinational companies reported on their global operations while 17 percent of participants reported for the first time, the report said.
The CR Index, in its tenth year, logged reporting data from 110 companies, with an overall index average score of 89 percent, a high average that suggests that the companies participating have integrated responsible business practice across their business operations, BITC said. In 2012, participants scored 97 percent in corporate strategy and 90 percent for integrating strategy into their operations.
The index framework seeks to give the participating companies a yardstick with which they may judge their own progress, find performance gaps, benchmark performance against peers, track progress over time, and engage board members to raise awareness of CR issues internally, BITC said.
In one example of a company using the index to improve operations, gold-ranked Royal Mail increased recycling rates from 16 percent in March 2010 to 85 percent in September 2011, mapping and reporting its progress towards a target of zero waste to landfill.
The report also includes four subsections covering the results from financial services, retail, utilities, and construction and materials.
The Platinum Plus-ranked companies are listed in the chart above.
The Platinum-Ranked Companies were:
Alliance Boots
Anglo American
Ausgrid
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
British Broadcasting Corporation
BSkyB
Capgemini UK
Carillion
Centrica
Costain Group
The Crown Estate
Deloitte LLP
Diageo
Ernst & Young
F&C Asset Management
Hallmark Cards
Heathrow Airport Limited
Home Retail Group
Jaguar Land Rover
John Laing
John Lewis Partnership
Legal & General Group
Lloyds Banking Group
The Midcounties Co-operative
National Grid
Pearson
Places for People
Premier Farnell
Provident Financial
Reed Elsevier
Royal Mail Group
RSA Insurance Group
RWE npower
Tesco
Thames Water
Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK)
United Biscuits
Unipart Group
Veolia Environmental Services (UK)
Veolia Water UK
WH Smith
Whitbread
Correction: In an earlier version of this article, BSkyB was left off the list of Platinum-ranked companies. We regret the error.
