Business Ethics magazine has just published its list of the "100 best corporate citizens" for 2005, the sixth consecutive year they've produced such a listing. Companies from the top 1,000 biggest publicly-held firms are rated on how well they respond to the needs of shareholders, their communities, minorities and women, their employees, the environment, human rights, their customers and ethical governance. It's an interesting list (PDF); some familiar names rate highly, as do some unexpected firms, while some well-regarded companies don't appear at all. This could be because of the weighting of the various categories, or because scoring is based in part on whether the candidate firms respond to a questionnaire from the magazine.
The magazine's ratings add categories as ethical concerns evolve. The "governance" category is new this year, for example, in response to the growing concerns over the behavior of corporate management. I wouldn't be surprised to see energy efficiency, transparency, and "production sustainability" added in years to come.
