CSR Rankings Revisited

Somebody has put in a request that I update my January CSR Rankings post to include the 2010 Global 100.  For anybody not aware, the Global 100 is an annual list published Corporate Knights.  Not surprisingly, this exercise once again affirmed that there is limited consensus among CSR rankings groups about what qualifies as a "good" company.

My last post cross-referenced the Fortune 500 with Ethisphere Institute's 2009 Most Ethical Companies, CRO's 2009 Best Corporate Citizens, and the top 100 companies from Newsweek's 2009 Green Rankings.  The results of this study revealed that only sixteen Fortune 500 companies were deemed worthy of all three lists.  I explained this in part by pointing to differences in inclusion criteria--- for example, the Fortune 500 list is confined to U.S. companies, Ethisphere considers international companies, and Newsweek's Green Rankings is pretty much limited to environmental considerations.

As its name might suggest, the Global100 contains only twelve U.S. companies, only eleven of which are in the Fortune 500.  Six of these companies---- GE, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson Controls, Intel, Baxter, and Starbucks--- make all four lists.  Apparently Duke Energy wasn't quite good enough for Newsweek's top 100, and Coca Cola, PG&E, and Agilent Technologies aren't qualified to be one of the Most Ethical Companies.  Plus, nobody else seems to agree with the Global 100's Prudential Financial pick.

For the sake of brevity, I will stop here, but I would love to hear your opinions on what is driving these ratings.  What thoughts do you have when you compare these CSR rankings?