10 Most Sustainable Global Retailers

Sustainability and CSR business values are becoming more important to corporations and it can also have an impact on consumer reaction to brands. The sustainability trend has even made its way to retailers who aren’t traditionally very forthcoming with information. CSR business values are also important to Miratel and we have highlighted the efforts of like-minded businesses in posts like the Best Corporate Citizens in Canada 2012, the Top Organizations for Employee Engagement, the Greenest Canadian Employers, the Top Diversity Employers in Canada, the Top Canadian CSR Business List, Canada’s Top Employers for 2013,  the top Canadian boards according to gender representation, the Top Canadian Boards According to Visible Minority and Aboriginal Representation, the Top Sustainable Companies, the best corporate citizens list, the  top countries for Clean Capitalism, the Green Business Leaders for 2013, the 10 Green Business Leaders, the B Corp Best for the World List, the top foreign corporate citizens in Canada, the most reputable companies, the most visible companies with the best reputation and the top 10 North American retailers for Carbon Productivity. Today I’ll be adding to this list with the top 10 entries from the 2013 Global Retail Ranking released by Corporate Knights (CK).

CK is “a media, research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating clean capitalism drivers for decision makers” and they released this inaugural report to highlight companies that are making sustainable choices clear for their consumers. The research model was based on 12 key performance indicators (KPIs) but companies were scored on the priority KPI for their respective sector: Energy productivity; Carbon productivity; Water productivity; Waste productivity; Percentage tax paid; Leadership diversity; Clean capitalism pay link; CEO-to-average worker pay link; Innovation capacity; Employee turnover; and Pension fund status. “In industry groups where all 12 KPIs are deemed to be priority KPIs, each KPI will have a weight of (100%/12) = 8.3%. This amount is then percent-ranked against that of all same-industry group peers within the CK coverage universe.” Based on this methodology, the 10 Most Sustainable Global Retailers are:

1. Marks & Spencer Group – Country: United Kingdom
2. Inditex – Country: Spain
3. Wesfarmers – Country: Australia
4. Kesko – Country: Finland
5. Canon Marketing Japan – Country: Japan
6. Cia Brasileira de Distribuicao Grupo Pao de Acucar – Country: Brazil
7. Aeon – Country: Japan
8. Yamada Denki – Country: Japan
9. Loblaw Companies – Country: Canada
10. Hennes & Mauritz – Country: Sweden

Japan leads the way with three companies in the top ten and Canada was the only representation from North America in the top ten.

The trend that CK found was that sharing and reporting KPI’s isn’t the norm in North America as it is in other developed areas. According to Maaike Fleur, Senior Manager, Reporting Framework at the GRI in Amsterdam, “There is a reluctance to have sustainability data assured. It is said that is because of the culture, where people don’t necessarily always want to be held accountable for the data that they publish.” This general lack of accountability is alarming, as this information becomes something that consumers are clamouring for.

Hopefully these companies listed will set the trend for all retailers and consumers will play a part in setting that trend as well by demanding accurate information. Companies will have to follow suit or risk being left behind.

___________________________________________________________________________________

For nonprofit, nonprofit fundraising, CSR business and other news, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest or subscribe to our RSS feed.

Miratel Solutions is a Canadian call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.