OK, this may not prove to be a useful book report, but it is interesting. The full title: The Corporate Report Card: Rating 250 of America’s Corporations for the Socially responsible investor, written by the Council on Economic Priorities [CEP] one decade ago: 1998.
From a database of 700 companies, 250 “of the largest corporations in a wide range of industries” were chosen for this report. Each company is rated in 8 categories:
*****Women’s Advancement,*****Social Disclosure, *****Community Outreach, *****Family Benefits,
*****Minority Advancement, *****Workplace Issues, *****Charitable Giving, ***** and Environment.
Six pages are devoted to the details of this rating system & the criteria used for the grades, which are A to F and N = not enough info or not relevant. It must have been tough research, for almost half of the 250 companies had more than one or two “N’s” in their scorecard.
The 24 best scores were put on CEP’s Honor Roll - In alphabetical order:
**Adolph Coors Co ----- Avon Products ----- BankAmerica Corp ----- BankBoston Corp
*Baxter International - Ben & Jerry’s ------ *Bristol-Myers Squibb -- Brooklyn Union
*Chevron Corp --------- Citicorp ------------- **Coca-Cola Co -------- Colgate-Palmolive
*Dole Food Co --------- *General Electric -- Hewlett-Packard ------- IBM
*Johnson & Johnson -- *Kellogg Co --------- **Merck & Co ----------- *Pepsico Inc
**Pfizer Inc ------------- Polaroid Corp ------ Sun Co ------------------ *Xerox Corp
I don’t feel this is 24 of our most socially responsible companies. It contains a beer company, two soft drink companies, and three drug companies- whose consumables are not exactly sustainable products. Worse, Coco-Cola(98,01,04), Coors(90), Chevron(92,98), Dole Foods(94), General Electric(88,91,92,94), Johnson & Johnson(95), Kelloggs(91), Merck(04), Pepsico(94), and Pfizer(88,95,98,06), have all been on the “10 worst corporations of the year” list. Also, Baxter is an 81% Red (see last Blog) company. Bristol Myers Squibb is a red company found in 2001 to have forced wholesale vendors to accept excess inventory. Over half of this list is tainted.
How could this report be so bad? Perhaps the misbehavior was not given enough weight. A better question: Who is the "Council on Economic Priorities"? From a website: “Founded in 1969, the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), is a public service research organization, dedicated to the accurate and impartial analysis of the social and environmental records of corporations”. Not one name was credited in the 260 page book and only one name was found on the CEP website: Tom Knowlton. Tom apparently created the organization and hired summer interns to do most of the research [internships are featured on the main website I found]. No current activities are reported. By searching the web I found him as an officer in a large consulting firm, tcc group, serving non-profit, philanthropic, and corporate clients, so apparently he has gone on to greater things.
Obviously this report is a little outdated anyway. [Ben & Jerry’s, BankBoston and Brooklyn Union have been swallowed up, and Polaroid is bankrupt.].
Unfortunately, some of the current lists of SRI companies are not much better, but at least their creators don’t appear to be non-profit organizations. Bottom Line: Rely on sources you trust & do your homework.
