NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)– The Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, today announced 124 companies spanning five continents, 19 countries and 52 industry sectors as the 2017 World’s Most Ethical Companies ^® honorees.

Since 2007, Ethisphere has honored those companies who recognize their role in society to influence and drive positive change in the business community and societies around the world. These companies also consider the impact of their actions on their employees, investors, customers and other key stakeholders and leverage values and a culture of integrity as the underpinnings to the decisions they make each day.

“Over the last eleven years we have seen an impressive shift in societal expectations, aggressive emergence of new laws and regulation and geopolitical swings that can further disrupt the balance. We have also seen how companies honored as the World’s Most Ethical respond to these challenges. They invest in their local communities around the world, embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion and focus on long term-ism as a sustainable business advantage. In short, these companies are transformative, not just out of need, but because they recognize that integrity is the key to their advancement,” explained Ethisphere CEO, Timothy Erblich. “Congratulations to all of the 2017 honorees.”

Ethisphere’s notion that the financial value and ethics are inexorably tied together has been explained through an analysis of how the stock price of publicly-traded 2017 honorees compare to the S&P 500 over the last two years. The analysis demonstrates a 6.4% premium Ethisphere refers to as an ‘ethics premium.’

Among the 2017 list of companies are 13 eleven-time honorees and 8 first-time honorees. 2017 also marks the first-time appearance of a Mexico-based company.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 11 consecutive years,” said Kao Corporation President and CEO, Michitaka Sawada. “For 130 years, we have upheld the value of Integrity passed down from Kao’s founder. As a core value, we positioned integrity as the foundation of the Kao Group Mid-term Plan 2020 (K20), which started from this year. This Integrity continues to be embraced as K20 guides the group’s daily business activities.”

“We’ve always been committed to demonstrating the highest level of integrity, ethical business practices and social responsibility in everything we do,” said Petco CEO, Brad Weston. “It’s an honor to continue receiving this distinguished recognition and a direct reflection of our commitment to doing the right thing for people and pets.”

“Companies are the bricks of modern society. In order to make positive change happen throughout the world, ethics must be a core of private enterprise,” said illycaffe S.p.A. Chairman, Andrea Illy. “The Ethisphere Institute’s work is inspiring and helping companies prioritize meaningful investments that push them to be the best.”

“Singtel is honoured to again be recognised as a World’s Most Ethical Company for our longstanding commitment to transparency and the highest level of corporate governance. I’m especially proud of our more than 25,000 employees who bring our core values to life every day. We believe our long-term success depends not just on our financial performance, but how we maintain the highest standards of corporate governance and create positive change in society,” expressed Singtel Group CEO, Ms. Chua Sock Koong.

Methodology
The World’s Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient ^® (EQ) framework which offers a quantitative way to assess a company’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics.

The methodology is weighted into five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).

Honorees
The full list of the 2017 World’s Most Ethical Companies can be found at http://worldsmostethicalcompanies.ethisphere.com/honorees/.

Best practices and insights from the 2017 honorees will be released in a series of infographics and research throughout the year. Download the 2017 executive summary here. Organizations interested in how they compare to the World’s Most Ethical Companies are invited to participate in the Ethics Quotient.

About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere ^® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with the publication of Ethisphere Magazine. More information about Ethisphere can be found at: http://ethisphere.com.

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Contacts

The Ethisphere Institute
Clea Nabozny, 1-480-397-2658
clea.nabozny@ethisphere.com