Owens Corning, the Toledo, Ohio-headquartered insulation and roofing company, has taken the number one spot in 3BL Media’s annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking, making it the first company to claim the top spot three years in a row.
The list, which recognizes the top 100 companies across ESG factors from the largest 1,000 firms in the US – the constituents of the Russell 1000 – sees General Mills, HP, Cisco and Intel round out the top five.
Twenty-four new firms have made the cut for 2021, with 14 appearing for the first time in the history of the ranking. You can find the full list here.
3BL Media, which took over the ranking in 2017, notes that since 2009, only 19 companies have made the list each year: 3M, Abbott, Accenture, Baxter, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Cisco, Colgate-Palmolive, Eaton, General Mills, Hess, IBM, Johnson Controls, Intel, Microsoft, Nike, PepsiCo, Gap, Weyerhaeuser and Xerox.
The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list is built on a methodology consisting of 146 ESG transparency and performance factors spanning eight pillars: climate change, employee relations, environment, ESG performance, finance, governance, human rights, stakeholders and society.
3BL Media says it has also incorporated ‘several factors’ into the 2021 methodology ‘that account for the response to the various social issues emerging during the pandemic’. It adds that through a partnership with InfluenceMap, an organization that maintains ‘the world’s leading database’ of corporate lobbying on climate policy, ‘the 2021 ranking ensures that ranked companies’ political actions are aligned with the Paris Agreement’.
‘In response to the many intersectional crises of 2020, the demands for corporate transparency, accountability and leadership have never been louder,’ says Dave Armon, CEO of 3BL Media, in a statement announcing the 2021 list. ‘Stakeholders at all levels are interested in how companies are engaging on issues from Covid-19 and climate change to systemic racism and voting rights.
‘That is why we’ve moved to measure performance on these emergent issues and increase our scrutiny of political actions, to ensure that corporate citizenship is defined by both internal action and external lobbying efforts.’
Armon describes the next decade as ‘pivotal if we are to achieve global climate and societal goals and rebuild an inclusive and resilient economy.’
