Research Guides: Company Research: Social Responsibility

Quick Places to Start

Sustainable Shopping Tips
The free database at this site has profiles of 350+ companies that describe how the company has been criticized and/or praised on social responsibility topics related to the environment, corporate ethics, labor issues, discrimination/diversity, corporate welfare, unfair competition, antitrust, safety, human rights, executive compensation, privacy, charitable giving, community involvement, legal disputes, etc.
CSR Wire - Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire Service
This is an easy source for getting the "company side" of the story. You can do keyword searches of a company name to find press releases from the company about their socially responsible actions such as community programs, charitable giving, awards, environmental efforts, etc. You might also be able to search on this site for reports such as a Corporate Social Responsibility Report, Corporate Environmental Report, or other such report.

Google to look for CSR report on Company Web site:

Hint:
Try looking for an Investor Relations section on the company web site.

CSR Report Collections

If you are looking for a CSR report on a specific company, you may find it on the company's web site. The sites below are useful for browsing reports from many companies.

CorporateRegister.com
This site aspires to be a "comprehensive directory of corporate non-financial (environment/social/sustainability/CSR) reports. ... the site aims to provide access to all current reports, as well as developing an archive of all reports published since 1990." You can search by company name and or do advanced searches to find reports using criteria such as business sector, country, year published, and report type.
Free, but registration required.

Social Responsibility/Environment Rankings

Worlds Most Ethical Companies Rankings
Ranking by Ethisphere magazine.

Research Tips

Many companies produce annual reports with info on environmental performance and/or positive social impacts. Often called a Corporate Social Responsibility Report (CSR), Environment Report, Sustainability Report, or similar title--these reports are often posted on the company web site, sometimes in the investor relations section of the web site.

Companies also often send out press releases about positive social efforts.

To find unbiased info on social performance, you may need to look at sources that don't originate with the company--such as the Responsible Shopper site or articles in news sources that don't rely entirely on press releases.

For more in-depth advice, see the guide for MGMT 480 - Social Audit of a Company.