Corporate Responsibility Officer magazine just released its list of the top 100 companies for social and environmental practices. For the second year running, Vermont based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has been named Corporate Citizen of 2007. Green Mountain has been among the top 10 companies on the list for five years running.
The curve of this Social Responsibility index clearly skews toward companies already in the spotlight for such efforts. This might prove frustrating for those with an interest in expanding the word on the benefits of such a title, because there’s more to it than just environmental pursuits. I think this is where the media falls short on reporting on such annual surveys. This national indicator of best practices in the corporate arena also focuses on how these companies are serving their stakeholders.
We should be hearing more about the way in which these companies held to responsible standards, while primarily staying in the black. It’s not that these companies are hiding from the attention, it’s more like the topic isn’t sexy enough for the news headlines. I think we need to hear more details about the P/E ratios of these companies, and publicly explore the financial policies that put these socially corporate front runners on the top ten list.
