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November 17, 2021

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CVS, Microsoft, GM among the Top 10

BERKELEY, CA—NOV. 16, 2021—As You Sow today released an update to its Racial Justice Scorecard and Workplace Equity Scorecard expanding coverage from the S&P 500 to include the Russell 1000.

The two scorecards offer a benchmark that distinguishes leaders from laggards on these material issues by assessing companies on a total of 57 key-performance indicators on workplace equity disclosure, racial justice, and environmental racism. 

The Racial Justice Scorecard data includes 26 key-performance indicators on racial justice, including what companies say and how they say it. Weighted more heavily, are their policies and practices, as well as four indicators specifically focused on environmental racism. Our environmental racism data tracks corporate environmental violations, fines, and penalties since 2015, core products and services, and corporate actions since 2010.

The Workplace Equity Scorecard data includes 31 key-performance indicators on workplace Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) disclosure including recruitment, retention, and promotion rates cut by gender, race, and ethnicity.

The data for both updated scorecards is presented in an interactive data visualization tool, enabling sorting and comparisons by sector, market cap, number of employees, and geography. Each company is scored against its peers; any three companies can be overlaid on a bar or radar chart for competitive comparison. 

The racial justice and workplace equity scorecards identify best practices, encourage corporate leadership, inform shareholder advocacy, and expose laggards in the transition to a more just society as featured in this TODAY show segment. 

The top 10 companies on both scorecards include:

• CVS Health Corp.
• Microsoft Corp.
• General Motors Co.
• Intel Corp.
• Campbell Soup Co.
• Alphabet Inc.

The bottom 10 companies on both scorecards include:

• O’Reilly Automotive
• Berkshire Hathaway
  
  

“George Floyd’s murder reshaped corporate America at the highest level; demanding a reckoning of systemic racism and creating spaces for productive engagements to end corporate complacently in a broken system,” said Olivia Knight, racial justice initiative manager at As You Sow.

She said the past 18 months have been a nationwide journey, in which the country is still finding a path forward. Despite a volatile political climate and an increasingly polarized public, corporations are still acknowledging the importance of DEI and taking steps to make organizational changes to support DEI within their organizations, Knight added.

“We have engaged in meaningful conversations with a number of companies to explain our scoring and suggest areas for improvement,” she said. “However, the results of our inclusion of the environmental justice KPIs show that there is much work to be done to align corporate statements about equity with corporate actions. Of the Russell 1000, 85 companies have a total score that is less than zero, meaning that they do more harm to communities of color than they make up for with positive policies and practices. Thirty-one percent of the companies in the Russell 1000 have significant environmental fines and violations, and negative impacts on BIPOC communities. These metrics demonstrate that environmental racism is a core component of corporate racial injustice.”

“The pace at which we are seeing companies step forward to share data is heartening. In our corporate dialogues, a few companies have continued to resist sharing data on the effectiveness of their workplace equity programs,” said Meredith Benton, workplace equity program manager at As You Sow and consultant with Whistle Stop Capital LLC.

However, she said, far more have agreed to disclose, viewing transparency as one component of the commitment they have made to offer a fair and equitable workplace.

"The results underscore that diversity, equity, and inclusion disclosure is still a priority issue for investors which is amplified by the recent investor statement, signed by parties representing more than $4.6 trillion in assets, calling for greater corporate disclosure of workplace equity practices. Investors see a strong link between a company's diversity, equity, and inclusion and the long-term strength of a business,” Benton said. “They are concerned that limited disclosure prevents a clear understanding of the scope of racial disparity in U.S. companies and prevents recognition and benchmarking of best practices. Shareholders are calling for granular workforce diversity statistics along with recruitment, retention, and promotion rates by gender, race, and ethnicity.

"A shift of consumer and cultural expectations, clear investor demand, and corporate leadership have changed the landscape for diversity data disclosure,” she added.

For example, in August 2020, only 20 companies in the S&P 100 released their consolidated EEO-1 forms, the best practice standard to share workforce composition statistics, Benton, adding that as of today, a little over a year later, an additional 63 companies in the S&P 100 have released or committed to release this data set; 83% of the S&P 100.

“Corporate disclosure of data related to the inclusiveness of their workplaces has also increased, with companies moving towards detailed disclosure of their hiring, retention, and promotion rates by gender, race, and ethnicity,” Benton said. “However, our research found that only 27 of the 1,000 companies in the Russell 1000 explicitly acknowledged a connection between environmental justice and their business practices.”

 About As You Sow

As You Sow is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies. Click here to see As You Sow’s shareholder resolution tracker.