Chevron, Hess, Sunoco Make List of Top Corporate Citizens

NEW YORK – Several convenience industry companies were listed among the top 100 corporate citizens yesterday in a ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange conducted by Corporate Responsibility magazine.

Oil companies Chevron, Hess, and Sunoco were among the companies that made the list based on a consolidated score for such categories as environment (19.5 percent of total score), human relations (19.5 percent), climate change (16.5 percent), employee rights (16 percent), and financial (12.5 percent).

The scores ranged from 46.245 to 176.53 for the top 100 with the lowest the score being the best. Chevron ranked No. 36 with a score of 112.6, Hess Corp. was 43rd with a score of 119.49 and Sunoco, 61st with a score of 138.175.

The list, which was unveiled in a ceremony at the NY Stock Exchange at the closing bell on Wednesday revealed an unprecedented level of transparency. Overall, according to Elliot Clark, CEO of SharedXpertise Media, which publishes CR Magazine and produces the Commit!Forum, the top 100 demonstrated a 5 percent year-over-year improvement compared to last year in the overall rating. These same companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 4 percent over the same time period.

"The market for transparency is expanding rapidly," said Dirk Olin, Editor & Publisher of CR Magazine Just like the dashboard on my hybrid affects my driving behavior through real time feedback. There is a competitive advantage that these companies are discovering, in excelling in the transparency market and it's really as simple as that. Transparency pays."

"Compliance is not the same as responsibility," said Clark, when asked why they are asking for more than what is required by law. "There's a difference between not speeding and driving safely. We're trying to create a voluntary standard. If all companies aspire to do better at the same time, that would be a much better world. So, in creating achievable standards for self-regulation, we can start to get companies to actually become better citizens themselves and then raise those standards year after year after year. We're seeing that with the improved scores, the rankings get better and the standard deviations get narrower, we're seeing companies become, based on our definitional construct, better citizens."