Wednesday, February 2, 2011

What does The Huffington Post's SRI list mean to this website...

The Huffington Post published a popular article called "8 Revolutionary Socially Responsible Companies." www.huffingtonpost.com  Readers were allowed to vote on companies they thought were best at ESG.

This is a very interesting take on the link between a corporation's Reputation and its social responsibility, which I wrote last October. Link

Arianna's website is well respected and we're not here to criticize but to make two key observations.  First of all, she notes that

"As a reminder, large profitable companies don't have to have the destabilizing effects of a BP or an AIG, we've compiled a list of some of America's most groundbreaking socially responsible entrepreneurs."  

These 8 companies in order of Best to Worst (based on voting) were:
  1. Seventh Generation
  2. Patagonia
  3. The Body Shop
  4. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
  5. Interface
  6. Stony Field Farms
  7. TOMS Shoes
  8. Honest Tea

However, we note that:
1) Several of the companies are not large (in terms of sales numbers)

2) Most of them are privately-owned or subsidiaries of larger companies that had bought them out.

My key question is then,  Can large companies truly be socially responsible ? and are they really being sincere about it ?

Note:
On the positive side, it was a pleasure to discover that our website's very own Interface Inc. (IFSIA), and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) were chosen as one of the 8 top SRI companies.  GMCR released great earnings on 2/2/11 Press Releases.



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