Measuring Sustainability Practices

An important portion of my project includes asking my survey respondents to identify which of two companies in a pair manufactures its products in a sustainable way. Of course, an objective standard of "sustainability" is hard to come by, so how could I truly ask my respondents to differentiate these companies?

One of the best known sustainability measures is the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which was launched in 1999 to enable people to track the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies. Each year it releases a review of the companies in the index and ranks them based on their environmental, economic, and social performance. The companies, of course, use their nomination to get a little good PR about their eco-friendly behavior. Research suggests, however, that DJSI tends to have a large cap bias. In other words, it tends to be biased toward larger corporations. (Cerrin & Dobers. (2000). What does the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index tell us?)

Joel Makower of GreenBiz.com notes that consumers shouldn't get too excited if a company is named to the DJSI because "it isn’t really a marker for 'green.'" Although he agrees that there may be some truth to DJSI claims that these companies are the "leading sustainability-driven companies," Makower also notes that being named as a component of the DJSI doesn't necessarily mean that these companies have comprehensive green policies and practices, let alone performance. (Is the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Worth a damn? @ grist.org)

In the absence of any truly objective measure of sustainability, I wanted to make sure the companies I chose for my pairings could reasonably be distinguished by their commitment to sustainability. In order to do this, I spent a lot of time reading through company reports like 10ks, sustainability & CSR reports, corporate labor codes, and annual reports to try to get an understanding of each company's practices in three areas, respectively: environmental impacts, labor standards, and community engagement.

In the following posts, I will detail the 6 pairs of companies I have selected for this project. By exploring each company's commitment to protecting the environment, upholding labor standards, and benefiting the communities they are located in, I hope to present an accurate picture of the company's sustainability efforts. Since the pairs were selected based on how differently the companies operated, the information should give the reader a good idea of which company should be voted the "most sustainable" of the pair.