There's Only One Value Where Companies Score Positive on Average
We score companies across 11 ethical values. Each score is built from court filings, regulatory actions, investigative reports, and NGO documentation.
Ten of those values average negative. One -- just one -- averages positive.
The Full Picture
Why Cultures Wins
Respect for Cultures & Communities measures corporate investment in local communities, diversity and inclusion programs, indigenous rights, and cultural preservation efforts.
It is the one area where corporate spending is both visible and verifiable. Community grants, diversity reports, and partnership agreements produce documented evidence of positive action. Companies invest in these programs because they generate goodwill, media coverage, and regulatory favour.
The result: more positive evidence in the data. 1,387 companies score positive versus 900 negative. A 61% positive rate among non-zero scores -- the only value where positives outnumber negatives.
Why Everything Else Fails
The further you move from voluntary programs toward operational behaviour, the more negative the data becomes.
Climate requires changing how a company operates. Worker pay requires spending more. Honest business requires foregoing profitable shortcuts. Animal welfare requires changing supply chains. These are structural, not promotional.
Companies invest in culture programs. They do not invest at the same rate in reducing emissions, raising wages, or eliminating weapons contracts. The data reflects that asymmetry.
The Bottom Line
The corporate world averages positive on exactly one ethical dimension: the one that costs the least and generates the most PR value. On everything that requires operational change, the average is negative.
This is 135,796 data points speaking.
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