New Zealand’s Contact Energy has been awarded the top rank in the Thomson Reuters’ 2017 global Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Index.
Corporate Secretary sister publication IR Magazine reports that this year, 34 new companies earned a top-100 spot on the D&I Index, which launched in 2016 and ranks the publicly traded companies globally with the most diverse and inclusive workplaces, as measured by 24 metrics across four key categories: diversity, inclusion, people development and news controversies.
The index is then calculated by weighing each metric based on importance in the market and how each company compares with its peers. The index ratings are informed by Thomson Reuters ESG data and are designed to objectively measure the relative performance of more than 6,000 companies. Index scores are calculated for each company across the key category pillars and only companies with scores across all four pillars are assigned an overall score (the average of the pillar scores).
Contact Energy took the top spot with a score of 84.25 percent. US companies Gap and Johnson & Johnson tied for second place with scores of 81 percent each. They were closely followed by DiGi.Com and Diageo.
‘Embracing inclusion and diversity is vital for any successful business and we’re really pleased to be recognized, but of course we have plenty more work to do,’ Contact chief customer officer Venasio-Lorenzo Crawley says in a statement. ‘To truly understand our customers our Contact team must reflect the diversity of New Zealand society, which is why we embrace a workplace culture that is firstly inclusive, which in turn enables our diversity of thought, age, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.’
‘We know the best way to reach the patients, doctors and consumers we serve—whose demographics are rapidly changing—is by having a workforce that reflects their diversity,’ Johnson & Johnson chief diversity and inclusion officer Wanda Bryant Hope says in a statement.
Debra Walton, chief product and content officer for financial and risk at Thomson Reuters, says: ‘The global evidence is overwhelming clear: diversity is increasingly becoming a performance issue, a growth engine, and companies can no longer afford not to realize its societal benefits as well.
‘Our research shows that over one-, three- and five-year periods companies that make investments and focus on ESG metrics can have a stronger stock performance and better long-term profitability.’
Top 25 index rankings, with corresponding overall D&I score (%)
1 Contact Energy
84.25
=2 Gap
81.00
=2 Johnson & Johnson
81.00
4 DiGi.Com
80.00
5 Diageo
79.25
=6 Colgate-Palmolive
79.00
=6 Novartis
79.00
=6 Roche Holding
79.00
9 Kathmandu Holdings
78.75
10 Cisco Systems
78.50
11 Natura Cosméticos
78.25
12 Accenture
78.00
13 Medtronic
77.50
=14 Eli Lilly and Co
77.25
=14 Hera
77.25
16 Nedbank Group
76.75
17 Unilever
76.25
=18 Allianz
76.00
=18 Bank of Montreal
76.00
=20 Bristol-Myers Squibb
75.75
=20 Norsk Hydro
75.75
=20 Procter & Gamble
75.75
=20 Unilever Indonesia
75.75
=24 Kering
75.25
=24 Verbund
75.25
