Westpac Trumps Business in 3rd CRI Survey
25 May 2006 at 1:05 pm
The Westpac Banking Group has pulled off a hat trick scoring first place in an international benchmarking survey that measures corporate social responsibility – maintaining its top ranking in the third Australian Corporate Responsibility Index.
In 2005 29 CEO’s submitted to public examination of their corporate responsibility practice
According to the St. James Ethics Centre the results of the 3rd Corporate Responsibility Index demonstrate that running business better has extended beyond the triple bottom line.
The Centre says the CEOs who have taken the risk to engage in an open, sleeves up examination of their approach to corporate responsibility.
Every year, BRW top 250 companies and Business Council of Australia members are invited to participate in the Corporate Responsibility Index which it is subject to independent validation by Ernst & Young.
The commitment to voluntary public disclosure is a key feature of this index – with the results and analysis reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Westpac, Australia’s fourth largest bank, achieved a near perfect score of 99.9%, compared with 99.5% last year.
The top five participating companies in this year’s Index were Westpac, Toyota, ANZ, BHP Billiton and BOC Group. Other companies taking up the challenge were AMCOR, AMP, AGL, AstraZeneca, AWB, Boral, British American Tobacco, Cadbury Schweppes, Caltex Australia, EnergyAustralia, Ford, Foster’s Group, Hewlett-Packard Australia, GM Holden, IBM Australia, IAG, Lion Nathan, Minter Ellison, Newmont, Savings & Loans (SA), Suncorp, Telstra, Rio Tinto & Unilever.
The Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre, Dr Simon Longstaff says that
since inception, the majority of Australian participating companies have shown double digit performance improvements overall.
Dr. Longstaff says a key factor in this improvement has been the integration of the `high-level values’ of corporate responsibility throughout the company.
The Index is designed as a practical gap-analysis tool for those companies seeking to implement and improve corporate responsibility across their business operations.
Dr Longstaff says this year’s results are a vindication of the utility of the CRI as a tool for those embarking on the journey of CRI, not just those who are already there.
He says it’s far easier to participate when general acclaim is the most likely result than to do so knowing that the results will reveal a daunting list of further challenges.
He says the companies that persist demonstrate gritty leadership of a kind that will hopefully inspire others to embrace this measurement as the first step to improving performance.
For more details on the Index go to : www.corporate-responsibility.com.au .
