by Shane Henson — May 14, 2012—Although some U.S. companies are making significant strides in sustainability, many others are not as green as consumers and clients are led to believe through the businesses’ widespread claims of operating sustainably. According to Ceres, an advocate for sustainability leadership, and global research and analysis firm Sustainalytics, an assessment of how 600 U.S. companies are responding to environmental and social challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and supply chain conditions shows individual examples of leadership but significant need for overall improvement.
The survey findings are outlined in The Road to 2020: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, for which a report overview and methodology, key findings, sector analyses, and interactive data are available online.
The report evaluates companies based on specific expectations in the The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap to Sustainability, a how-to guide for companies to achieve sustainability by 2020. The evaluation was based on company data available as of December 31, 2011, says Ceres.
The report highlights dozens of company examples in hopes of inspiring others to take similar actions, says Ceres. For instance, Alcoa, Xcel and Intel are relative pacesetters in sustainable corporate governance practices; Baxter and Ford are setting a high standard in stakeholder engagement; and Exelon, Nike and the Coca-Cola Company are ahead of the pack in performance on metrics for reducing environmental impact and improving workers’ conditions, explains Ceres.
But in the report’s four-tier assessment system, just a quarter of all companies surveyed were in the top two tiers for progress on governance, while 24% have some degree of meaningful stakeholder engagement. On corporate performance metrics, only 13% of the companies evaluated on human rights policies and programs were ranked in the top two tiers. And just a third of the 600 companies had time-bound targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in direct operations.
