Fortune Rates Top 100 Corporate Citizens

Fortune magazine has announced the results of its 2005 Accountability Rating, a rating of corporate responsibility of Fortune Global 100 companies. The Accountability Rating -- compiled by the London think tank AccountAbility and the consultancy CSRnetwork -- scores companies on how seriously their future decisions will consider nonfinancial matters. Topping the survey is BP, followed by Royal Dutch Shell Group (No. 2); Vodafone (No. 3); HSBC Holdings (No. 4); Carrefour (No. 5); Ford Motor (No. 6); Tokyo Electric Power (No. 7); Electricite de France (No. 8); Peugeot (No. 9); and Chevron (No. 10).

The Accountability Rating is not an index of how much good the company does or how loud its critics are. "It doesn't seek to label the good or bad but rather to identify the smart," says Simon Zadek, chief executive of AccountAbility. "It's a business, not a moral, rating. It looks at the world's biggest corporations and asks, 'Do they understand how to create and exploit effective business opportunities by addressing the needs of the poor? Do they understand how to make money by investing in environmentally sound business practices? Are they, in short, prepared to maximize the opportunities for our changing world?'"

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