DreamWorks (Nasdaq: DWA), NASDAQ (Nasdaq: NDAQ) and Madison Square Garden (Nasdaq: MSG) are among 58 large coporations "black-listed" for their lack of transparency on issues related to corporate responsibility.
Corporate Responsiblity includes issues such as Environment, Climate Change, Human Rights, Philanthropy, Employee Relations, and Governance.
The list offsets the 100 Best Corporate Citizens List, which recognizes major corporations with the best transparency records. Both lists are produced by Corporate Responsibility Magazine.
"Our 100 Best Corporate Citizens List has been recognized by PR Week as one of America’s top three most-important business rankings. That’s why I find it absolutely incredible that any corporation would be so short-sighted as to let it end up on The Black List," says CR Magazine Editor & Publisher Dirk Olin.
"We track hundreds of data points of transparency for the Best list, but the companies tied for least transparent disclose exactly zero items. That displays an astonishing disregard for their stakeholders," he adds.
Which industries are the least transparent?
At 32 companies, the Financial industry occupies over half the list, followed by Energy companies at 12% of the total, and then Consumer Items and Health Care, at 10% each.
"The Black List sets a pretty low bar," says Richard Crespin, executive director of the CR Officers Association and chair of the CR Magazine Methodology Committee. "Just disclose one data element out of nearly 300 and you’re off. That’s why it’s so shocking that these firms remain so opaque to their stakeholders."
Both the 100 Best Corporate Citizens List® and Black List® rank Russell 1000 companies based on an audit of 100% publicly available data in seven categories. And while 100 Best companies often feature 250 of those data points in publicly available places, the Black List® companies reveal nothing about their practices in Environment, Climate Change, Human Rights, Philanthropy, Employee Relations, Financial Performance and Governance.
Here’s the Black List:
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this is rubbish – so, Nike “discloses” that workers making their expensive products are *still* being cheated and abused [http://tinyurl.com/68ncgau ]and the company is among the BEST Corporate Citizens! We need real journalism, not dubious sources like “Corp. Resp. Magazine & sustainablebusiness.com
The power of such lists is with the consumer and the investor. If companies make no effort to improve — perfection isn’t necessary but effort is — then we should shop elsewhere and invest elsewhere. When that’s not possible, as with NASDAQ, we can at least demand change. All the corporate social responsibility achievements, from Walmart to Nike, happened because people told the companies that CSR matters. The more we honor those who try and complain to those who don’t, the more we will achieve.