The
Ethisphere Institute, a New York think tank, on Tuesday released its fifth annual ranking of the world's most ethical large companies, expanding the ranking to a top 110.
At the heart of the evaluation and selection process for Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies is Ethisphere's proprietary rating system, the Ethics Quotient (EQ). The framework of EQ is comprised of a series of multiple choice questions that capture a company's performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected is not intended to cover all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance or ethics, but rather it is a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies. The EQ framework and methodology was determined, vetted and refined by the expert advice and insights gleaned from Ethisphere's network of thought leaders and from the World's Most Ethical Companies Methodology Advisory Panel. A methodology committee of leading attorneys, professors, government officials and organization leaders, assisted Ethisphere in creating the scoring methodology for the World's Most Ethical Companies awards.
The EQ framework consists of five core categories. The categories and associated weighting for each is defined as: Ethics and Compliance Program (30%), Reputation, Leadership and Innovation (30%), Governance (15%) and Corporate Citizenship and Responsibility (25%). Detailed read on the methodology is
here
There is no set number of companies that make the list each year. Rather, the World's Most Ethical Company designation is awarded to those companies that have leading ethics and compliance programs, particularly as compared to their industry peers. This year, there are 110 World's Most Ethical Companies. Of these companies, 36 are new to the list in 2011 and 26 companies dropped off from the 2010 list.