The financial services industry has emerged amongst the front-runners in the latest Corporate Responsibility Index results, with two major banks among those recording the highest scores.
The index looks at 34 companies in both Australia and New Zealand representing 1.24 million employees and accounting for $520 million in revenue.
The companies scoring 95 per cent or above in the latest index were Westpac, Toyota, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and ANZ.
The Corporate Responsibility Index is a project of the St James Ethics Centre and its executive director, Simon Longstaff, said the results showed 83 per cent of participants now evaluated community, workplace, marketplace and environmental issues within their formal risk and management processes.
He said the groundswell of public awareness on the crisis issues of climate change and water shortages, and clear government support for voluntary initiatives, had moved more companies to initiate corporate responsibility policies.
