By Dan Oancea

 

On April 16, 2008 Geneva-based Covalence published its third annual ethical reputation ranking which pertains to three categories.

This is their ranking for the Mining & Metals business:

Best Ethical Quote Score (positive minus negative news, cumulated from 2002 to 31 March 2008):

  1. Alcoa
  2. Rio Tinto
  3. Anglo American
  4. BHP Billiton
  5. Gold Fields
  6. POSCO
  7. Xstrata
  8. Impala Platinum
  9. Nippon Steel
  10. Vale

Best Ethical Quote Progress (positive minus negative news, cumulated from 1 January to 31 March 2008):

  1. Alcoa
  2. Rio Tinto
  3. Vale
  4. Kinross
  5. POSCO
  6. Anglo American
  7. China Steel Corp.
  8. Nippon Steel
  9. JFE Holdings Inc.
  10. Impala Platinum

Best Reported Performance (positive news only, 1 January to 31 March 2008):

  1. Alcoa
  2. Rio Tinto
  3. BHP Billiton
  4. Anglo American
  5. POSCO
  6. Barrick Gold
  7. Xstrata
  8. Kinross
  9. Newmont
  10. Nippon Steel

There is even a weekly updated information system measuring the ethical reputation of multinational companies - http://www.ethicalquote.com/

And this is what they’re saying about themselves:

“Covalence’ s ethical quotation system is a reputation index based on quantifying qualitative data, which are classified according to 45 criteria such as Labour standards, Waste management, Product social utility or Human rights policy. It is a barometer of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field.

The system integrates thousands of documents found among media, enterprise, NGO and other sources, for producing the EthicalQuote curves. These curves measure the historical evolution of the reputation of companies regarding ethical issues. They are created through the cumulative addition of positive news (documents coded as “ethical offers”, which are weighed as +1, curve ascends) and negative news (“ethical demands” weighed as -1, curve descends). The Reported Performance measure is given by cumulating positive news only.

This tool received the Cantonal Sustainable Development Prize (Geneva) in 2004 and prompted Covalence among the finalists of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2005 award organised by the Schwab Foundation. Covalence research is also distributed by Reuters, Thomson Financial and Bloomberg.

Covalence is closely monitoring 10 sectors including 200 companies that are classified as the largest market capitalizations in the Dow Jones World Index. Covalence is a limited company that was founded in Geneva in 2001 by six persons coming from social sciences and finance.”