What do a luxury watch company, a children’s toy company and a technology giant have in common? They were the top three most responsible companies in 2018. And while Rolex and Lego remained in the top three every year we tracked, Google surprisingly dropped out of the top 10 all together in 2019 and 2020.
Each year, there are significant variations in the top 10 companies that practice conscious capitalism. In 2019, Disney, Adidas and Microsoft enjoyed a boost to their RepTrak rankings, while Canon fell three places and Bosch lost two positions. In 2020, Lego made a move for No. 1, while Rolex fell to third place. Additionally, perhaps due to efforts to help entertain during lockdowns caused by COVID-19, Disney and Netflix gained ground.
Overall, Disney increased from fifth place in 2018 to second place in 2020, and Canon fell off the list entirely. As rankings change, it is clear that conscious capitalism must be a sustained and legitimate effort to value stakeholders alongside revenue.
So which companies’ conscious capitalism efforts were the most consistent? We ranked the top 10 most reputable companies based on the average of their rankings on each of the three RepTrak lists. Lego and Rolex tied for first place with an average ranking of 1.7, with Disney and Ferrari being the closest competitors at 3.3 and 4.0, respectively.
With a wide variety of companies scoring so well, it was clear that corporate responsibility is not limited to or dominated by any one industry. To determine whether there are any synergies between corporate responsibility and industry, we analyzed the most represented industries out of the companies that appeared on the RepTrak 100 at least once.
Technology and automotive companies tied with 15 representatives. One possible explanation for the technology industry could be because of a boom after environmental issues shifted into the spotlight of cultural and social discourse. While much more rooted in history than technology companies, automotive brands are under the weight of immense public and governmental pressure to be kind to the environment.
Conglomerates were next on the list with 11 representatives. These are corporations that own a controlling stake in multiple different companies in which each operates independently from one another.
Food processing and the pharmaceutical industry claimed 10 represented companies each. While 2021 data was not available at the time of this study, we can only imagine a dramatic shift in reputation for 2021 due to the countless person-hours going into the development of vaccines for COVID-19, and how food processing was handled safely during the pandemic.
Knowing which companies and even which industries claim the title of “most responsible,” we also wanted to know where they call home. We looked up the headquarters for each represented company to generate a map of the most responsible states.
