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Banks lead in corporate governance,
insurance companies decline
LONDON,
ON, May 12, 2009 - Companies
continue to make incremental strides on
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a
new report shows. According to the
second edition of the Ivey-Jantzi
corporate social responsibility research
report, Canadian companies have improved
their overall CSR performance in 2008.
The report,
based on an ongoing collaboration
between the Richard Ivey School of
Business and Jantzi Research, reveals
continuing improvement in performance
during 2008, with 79 per cent of
companies improving CSR ratings, up from
65 per cent the previous year. The study
finds, across all categories, that
companies are investing in, formalizing
and communicating their CSR initiatives.
"This trend
in corporate social responsibility in
Canada is encouraging," said Tima Bansal,
Associate Professor, Richard Ivey School
of Business, and one of the leaders on
the research. "Canadians are starting to
demand companies from all industries
consider their stakeholders, not just
their shareholders."
The 2009
Ivey-Jantzi research report examines the
corporate social responsibility of
Canadian firms and highlights trends
across industries in 2008. The firms are
listed on the S&P/TSX Composite Index
and are scored in six categories:
community and society, corporate
governance, customers, employees,
environment and human rights.
The intent
of the report is not to reward or rebuke
performance, but to help companies
understand overarching trends in order
to better inform their own policies and
initiatives.
Study
highlights include:
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Banks
continue to top the charts in the
corporate governance category, while
insurance companies continue a
two-year decline
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Despite
the attention to diversity
initiatives in the past few years,
the ratings show that firms are
still struggling with this aspect of
CSR
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Human
rights scores have improved
slightly. This increase was driven
by more attention to policies and
reporting
Community
and society scores continued to climb
steadily. Ongoing improvements to
reporting and stakeholder engagement
point to an awareness that companies
need to secure and maintain the trust of
communities and regulators and, in
effect, their social licences to
operate.
Senior oil
and gas companies had higher community
scores compared to junior oil and gas
firms. This higher community involvement
may be due to the extra resources
available to the larger
petroleum-producing companies, or to the
increased pressure imposed on them
because of their sheer size.
Canadian
companies continue to pay most attention
to corporate governance, such as
producing publicly available documents
such as codes of conduct and social
responsibility reports. However, this
category saw only slight improvements
from the previous year, suggesting firms
may now be turning their attention to
other areas of social performance.
The most
surprising score was in the environment
category, especially notable in the oil
and gas industry. It saw only modest
gains, despite the heightened media
attention surrounding climate change.
The report suggests companies that want
to improve their environmental scores
should begin by reporting and measuring
their environmental impacts.
The full
report, "Corporate Social Responsibility
in Canada: The 2009 Ivey-Jantzi Research
Report" is available at
www.ivey.ca/BSV and at
http://www.jantziresearch.com/publications.
About the Richard Ivey School of
Business, The University of Western
Ontario
The Richard Ivey School of Business at
The University of Western Ontario (www.ivey.ca)
offers undergraduate (HBA)
and graduate degree programs (MBA,
Executive MBA and
PhD) in addition to non-degree
Executive Development programs. Ivey has
campuses in London (Ontario),
Toronto, and Hong Kong. Ivey
recently redesigned its curriculum to
focus on
Cross-Enterprise Leadership – a
holistic issues-based approach to
management education that meets the
demands of today's complex global
business world.
About
Jantzi Research
Jantzi Research Inc. is an independent
investment research firm formed in 1992.
The firm evaluates and monitors the
environmental, social, and governance (ESG)
performance of global securities. Jantzi
Research is a proven innovator of
socially responsible investment (SRI)
products, services and research tools
whether clients require on customized
portfolios, engagement strategies, or
utilize Jantzi Research as part of their
risk/return analysis. To learn more
about Jantzi Research's Best of Sector™
approach or the Canadian Social
Investment Database™
(CSID) visit
www.jantzireserach.com.
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For more
information, please contact:
Dawn Milne, Communications Specialist,
Richard Ivey School of Business,
519-850-2536,
dmilne@ivey.ca
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