Only three telcos make Global 100 “Green” list
The industry of telecommunications came in dead last in an annual list of corporate sustainability.
The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World is compiled by Canadian media firm, Corporate Knights Inc. and international investment advisory, Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc. and lists the top 100 sustainable large corporations across 17 countries. The companies were evaluated according to how effectively they manage environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities, relative to their industry peers.
The project identifies the world’s most sustainable corporations in 10 categories, including consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financials, health care, industrials, information technology, materials, telecommunications and utilities.
The project, launched in 2005, is unveiled at the high-profile World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland every year.
Only three telecommunications operators, NTT DoCoMo, British Telecom and Cable & Wireless made the list for 2008, the least number of companies in any category. Information Technology firms fared better with nine firms making list, including Nokia, HP, Intel, AMD, SAP, Ricoh, Agilent Technologies, Tietoenator OVJ, and Electrocomponents PLC.
“The concept of sustainability is a contentious one, to say the least. Debates have been raging in various circles (e.g. academia, business, government, the UN, etc.) for a number of years over exactly how to define sustainability, and more importantly over what it should look like in practice,” the authors said. “We do not have the pretence to know how to resolve this dispute, let alone be able to produce an authoritative blue-print for ‘sustainable behavior’. What we do know is that social, environmental and governance factors are increasingly relevant to financial performance, and that companies which show superior management of these issues are fast gaining an edge over their competitors – an edge which we believe will translate into outperformance in the long haul.”
According to the authors, the Global 100 companies are sustainable in the sense that they have displayed a better ability than most of their industry peers to identify and effectively manage material environmental, social and governance factors impacting the opportunity and risk sides of their business.
Of the operators included in 2008, BT and DoCoMo have made the list since 2005 while Cable and Wireless joined in 2007.
Interestingly, Deutsche Telekom made the list in 2006 and 2005 but not since while AT&T was listed in 2005 and Vodafone in 2006 only.
The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World is intended for “investors looking for self-enlightened companies that plan to be around for the long-haul; employees who want to work for a global campany they can be proud about; managers who want to benchmark their company’s sustainability performance; governments looking to attract companies that will contribute to building their societies; consumers wondering which global brands to buy; and citizen groups that want to know which companies they may be able to work with in meaningful ways,” the authors wrote.
For more information on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, visit: http://www.global100.org/index.asp
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