This week I was forwarded the list of Canada’s 50 Best Corporate Citizens (2011). It’s a list that Corporate Knights (“the Magazine for Clean Capitalism”) started about 10 years ago.
Who knew there was such a list? I was amazed!
I discovered through Madelaine Drohan’s article in the report (entitled Big country, small steps) that corporate social responsibility can mean very different things; from making sure child labour isn’t used in the supply chain, to building schools in Africa, to preventing high school drop outs right here at home. Not bad, I thought. Good to know that there are large companies that are looking at more than profits. Hooray!
Further into the report, I came across a scorecard which tracks “the environmental, social and governance performance of the S&P/TSX60 Companies on the 2011 Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada. I thought I would find some great stats about what these companies are doing internally as well, to match their social responsibility externally.
I was disappointed.
A few things stand out in particular among these stats about corporate citizens who are up to some great things:
- the number of female company directors in 2010 was 14.61% (UP from 14.49% in 2009, but still low)
- the number of company directors who were either visible minorities or aboriginal in 2010 was 2.92% (DOWN from 4.06 in 2009)
- and the ratio of CEO salary to the lowest paid employees salary INCREASED by 8.70%
Sigh.
I’m not sure why I’m surprised. I often see companies making efforts in diversity and inclusion outside their walls (arguably where it looks good and they get kudos) before tackling any change inside. I guess I thought that with the corporate halo shining brightly for these 50 companies, that maybe, just maybe, they would be different. I know it’s just a graph and I don’t have the whole story by far, but it suggests a lot.
Would it be great if corporate social responsibility included creating an inclusive, welcoming workplace that valued diversity and inclusion – with representation at all levels and smaller pay gaps (for example) to prove it?
See more.
Copyright 2011 Annemarie Shrouder
author, speaker and facilitator on issues of diversity and inclusion
www.beeing.ca
Leave a Reply