Reputation Institute, a global reputation-based advisory firm, has published the results of its annual study—2013 Global CSR RepTrak® 100—that surveyed more than 55,000 consumers from 15 countries to find out how the leading companies are perceived in terms of their sustainability performance.

For the second year in a row the study names Microsoft the company with the best CSR reputation globally, while Disney, BMW and Google are the top performers in other reputation dimensions: citizenship, governance and workplace, respectively.

About 50% of the respondents agree that Disney performs well supporting good causes and protecting the environment; 49% of them find BMW to be a responsible, open, transparent and ethical company; 51% think of Google as one of the most desirable places to work.

In the global RepTrak study, which analyzes companies’ reputation based on other factors, not just CSR, the ranking of the most reputable brands is crowned by BMW and followed by Disney, Rolex, Google, Daimler, Sony, Microsoft, Canon, Nestle and Lego at the bottom of the chart. The Institute assessed their reputation based on the following factors:

• prudent employment policies,
• sound financial standing
• strong leadership,
• transparency and ethics,
• community feedback
• innovation and forward-thinking.

 

 

The value of the CSR RepTrak® 100 study is that it secures ROI on sustainability efforts. 73% of global consumers surveyed are more likely to recommend a brand that is perceived to be delivering on their sustainability programs. Results of the study demonstrate that when a company jumps up 5 points on the scale, consumers tend to recommend this company more (actually 9%). About 59% of consumers say that they would «go out of their way to communicate something positive» about companies they feel deliver on their CSR programs, compared to only 23% for companies perceived to fail to do so.

“Unfortunately, Corporate Responsibility is still equated to philanthropy in many organizations and hence, given short shrift when it comes to strategic formulation and implementation. Although the top 100 companies all have well developed websites detailing their CR initiatives, how many of them do rigorous research to find out how their key stakeholders view these same initiatives?” comments CB Bhattacharya, E.ON chair professor in Corporate Responsibility at European School of Management and Technology.

These findings show that it is utterly important for a company to create social value to make business prosper.

The full report on the 2013 Global CSR RepTrak as well as the Top Line Report are available here.

2013 Global CSR RepTrak ranking

Rank	Company	CSR Rep Trak	Ranking	Company	CSR Rep Trak
1	Microsoft	72.97	51	Singapore Airlines	65.20
2	The Walt Disney Company	72.83	52	Cisco Systems	65.20
3	Google	72.71	53	Pirelli	65.18
4	BMW	72.14	54	HJ Heinz	64.95
5	Daimler (Mercedes-Benz)	70.65	55	Nintendo	64.91
6	Sony	69.49	56	Heineken	64.86
7	Intel	69.32	57	LG Corporation	64.74
8	Volkswagen	69.29	58	LVMH Group	64.69
9	Apple	69.21	59	Nokia	64.65
10	Nestle	69.00	60	Bayer	64.59
11	Lego Group	68.77	61	Panasonic	64.53
12	Rolex	68.45	62	Roche	64.51
13	Canon	68.02	63	General Mills	64.50
14	Kellogg Company	67.90	64	Toshiba	64.38
15	Johnson & Johnson	67.80	65	Unilever	64.10
16	Colgate-Palmolive	67.62	66	Marks & Spenser Group	64.10
17	Danone	67.25	67	BBC	63.96
18	IBM	67.09	68	Diageo	63.94
19	Philips Electronics	67.03	69	Nike	63.90
20	Honda Motor	67.03	70	Bristol-Myers Squibb	63.81
21	Toyota	66.96	71	Swatch Group	63.77
22	Adidas Group	66.90	72	Ford Motor	63.77
23	Michelin	66.75	73	Airbus	63.69
24	Loreal	66.66	74	Fujifilm	63.68
25	Hewlett-Packard	66.51	75	Xerox	63.50
26	Samsung Electronics	66.50	76	UPS	63.49
27	The Coca-Cola Company	66.43	77	ACER	63.35
28	Amazon.com	66.26	78	Carlsberg Group	63.31
29	Procter & Gamble	66.16	79	Du Pont	63.09
30	Ferrero	66.15	80	eBay	63.09
31	Giorgio Armani Group	66.14	81	Hertz Global Holdings	63.04
32	Volvo Group	66.13	82	Starbucks Coffee Company	62.97
33	Bridgestone	65.98	83	Suzuki Motor	62.95
34	Deutsche Lufthansa	65.93	84	Quantas Airways	62.95
35	Electrolux	65.91	85	GlaxoSmithKline	62.79
36	Siemens	65.86	86	Boeing	62.72
37	IKEA	65.84	87	Sharp	62.57
38	Oracle	65.72	88	Peugeot-Citroen	62.57
39	Eli Lilly	65.64	89	H&M	62.46
40	Marriott International	65.60	90	Air France-KLM	62.38
41	SAS (Scandinavian Airlines)	65.60	91	Lenovo Group	62.23
42	Goodyear	65.55	92	Hitachi	61.95
43	3M	65.54	93	General Motors Company	61.94
44	Whirpool	65	94	Pfizer	61.77
45	General Electric	65.42	95	Nissan Motor	61.76
46	FedEx	65.33	96	Fujitsu	61.50
47	Barilla	65.30	97	British Airways-Iberia	61.33
48	Abbott Laboratories	65.28	98	Zara (Inditex)	61.16
49	Kraft Foods	65.26	99	PepsiCo	61.04
50	Dell	65.25	100	Bacardi	60.67