For the fourth year in row, Sun has been among the Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens on Corporate Responsibility Officer's (CRO) annual list, which claims to be "the world’s best-known apples-to-apples comparison of Russell 1000 companies’ performance in environment, climate change, human rights, employee relations, philanthropy, financial and governance."

This year, Sun came in at number 60. Previously, the company had been listed at number 19 for 2008, number 71 in 2007 and number 70 in 2006.

There has been some debate on the manner in which the CRO weighs particular categories in its methodology and also in the methodology itself, which changed during this year's research.

Mark Bateman, research director of IW Financial, which gathers and computes the numbers for the CRO commented: "This year’s list methodology continues to emphasize transparency and public disclosure in its evaluations. While there is some improvement among the better companies on things like environmental disclosure, the real story is the 12 percent increase in the number of companies with measurable environmental disclosure. In 2008, the basis for this Best 100 List, we had 322 companies with measurable environmental disclosure, but only 286 in 2007."

According to the CRO, the changes in methodology for the 2009 100 Best Corporate Citizens List reflect 5 major developments in the corporate responsibility field:

• The continued primacy of environment and climate change in importance among stakeholders, which in 2009 together represent 36 percent of the rating.
• The increasing understanding that engaging in “lobbying” activities has a neutral impact on a company’s ranking, since lobbying can have a constructive corporate citizenship effect.
• The increased understanding that employee relations and human rights are more important than ever in today’s two-faced labor market which features both prevalent layoffs and the rapidly-rising importance of engaging top in-house talent and supply chain resources as a surviving company’s primary competitive advantages.
• The mechanics of good governance are no longer a major differentiator among companies and have become “table stakes.”
• “Checkbook philanthropy,” where companies contribute only cash, is a thing of the past, with in-kind product, service and expertise donations represent well more than 60 percent of today’s corporate contributions.

Given all of this, Sun's Director of CSR Marcy Scott Lynn calls into question what some of these updates in CRO's methodology really mean. "I have two primary issues with the compilation of this year's list," she notes in her blog:

• "First, by rewarding disclosure over performance, it is my opinion that this list values quantity over quality. The more you disclose, the better you do on this ranking, although this disclosure does not necessarily mean your "corporate citizenship" performance is better or worse than those who come before or after you on the list. I believe this accounts for the number of oil & gas and mining companies on the list (Exxon is ranked at #11!) – much of their disclosure is legally required.

• "My second issue with the 2009 list is with the methodology itself ... The biggest grievance I have is with the neutering of the governance category. This was done in two ways: changing the weighting from 16% to 7% and removing CEO compensation as a factor in determining a company's governance 'score.' ... That's right – CEO compensation, a hot button governance issue, particularly as each day brings new headlines of exorbitant CEO pay and bonuses (at companies like Citigroup, #35 on the list) – is no longer a factor in determining the Top 100 Corporate Citizens."

Lynn elaborates on how these factors alter the results of what a Corporate Citizen means and how companies may approach their practices and performance. She concludes:

"If 'tough' questions are removed – CEO compensation, lobbying activities, protection of human rights under oppressive regimes (and I believe many of these questions are the ones that get at a company's performance, not just disclosure) – stakeholders have one less lever to use as they try to drive companies toward – and hold us accountable for – more sustainable business practices."

More Information

100 Best Corporate Citizens 2009—Full Story

100 Best 2009 Methodology & Penalty Box

The Top 100 Corporate Citizens List - or is it? - Lynn's blog entry [...read more...]

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