Glencore, Unilever, Yara, EDP named top firms on social and ethical issues

2,000 companies were assessed on ethics, decent work, and human rights

Four companies have been named as the top performers on social and ethical issues in a review of 2,000 listed firms.

Mining giant Glencore, consumer goods firm Unilever, chemicals company Yara and electric utility EDP beat the rest of the world’s “most influential” companies in the assessment, which looked at how entities met “societal expectations”.

The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) marked the 2,000 “most influential” global companies out of 20, based on evaluation of how they respected human rights, provided and promoted decent work, and acted ethically.

The four top scorers – all of whom secured an overall mark of 15.5 – were awarded low grades for their contribution to decent work, but high marks for respecting human rights.

WBA awarded Glencore the top spot for “acting ethically”, along with oil major Shell.

Shell is currently suing Greenpeace for damages associated with an environmental campaign and last month agreed to pay $15.5m to settle lawsuits relating to alleged human rights violations and the execution of protesters in Nigeria in the 1990s.

In February, Glencore was ordered to pay $700m by a US judge after it pleaded guilty to bribery.

Both scored 3.5 out of 4 for their ethical actions.

Around 80% of the 2,000 companies scored an overall mark of ‘0’ in the assessment.