Racial Justice, Workplace Equity Data-Refresh Shows Largest Public Companies Bending Toward Justice
Two updated As You Sow scorecards reveal greater disclosure and actions by 1,000 largest public companies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Stefanie Spear, sspear@asyousow.org, 216-387-1609
BERKELEY, CA—NOV. 3, 2022—As You Sow today released an update to its racial justice and workplace equity scorecards to include the most up-to-date information on the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies. The data-refresh found companies are taking steps to increase transparency and accountability on the path to justice.
The two scorecards offer a benchmark that distinguishes leaders from laggards on these material issues by assessing companies on key performance indicators (KPIs) on racial justice, environmental racism, and workplace equity disclosure.
The racial justice scorecard data includes 27 KPIs including what companies say, how they say it, and more importantly their policies and practices demonstrating what they do. There are four KPIs specifically focused on environmental racism that tracks corporate environmental violations, fines, and penalties since 2015, core products and services, and legal actions taken by communities against the corporation since 2010.
New to the dataset is a KPI that tracks whether companies have conducted independent third-party civil rights and racial equity audits and if their results have been made publically available.
The workplace equity scorecard data includes 31 key-performance indicators on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) disclosure including detailed recruitment, retention, and promotion rates reported by gender, race, and ethnicity.
Ninety-four percent of the S&P 100 have released, or have committed to releasing, their EEO-1 forms, a best practice in diversity data reporting. This sits in contrast to September 2020, when only 23 did so. Between September 2020 and September 2022, S&P 100 companies also increased their release of hiring rate data by gender, race, and ethnicity by 298%; retention rate data by 481%; and promotion rate data by 300%.
The data for both updated scorecards is presented in an interactive data visualization tool, enabling sorting by sector, market cap, number of employees, and geography and company overlay comparisons. Each company is scored against its peers; any three companies can be overlaid on a bar or radar chart for competitive analysis.
The racial justice and workplace equity scorecards identify best practices, encourage corporate leadership, inform shareholder advocacy, and expose laggards in the transition to a more just society as featured in this TODAY show segment.
Companies on the top 10 on both racial justice and DEI scorecards include:
CVS Health Corp.
PayPal
Activision Blizzard
Other top-10 companies Include:
Microsoft
Visa
Netflix
Eversource Energy
Lululemon
UnitedHealth Group
Bottom 10 companies on both scorecards:
Berkshire Hathaway
Other companies in bottom 10 include:
US Steel
ExxonMobil
Valero
Mohawk Industries
Coinbase
Tripadvisor
Victoria’s Secret
Teleflex
Olivia Knight, racial justice initiative manager at As You Sow, said:
“The new civil rights and racial equity audit KPI is an important addition to our racial justice scorecard. This is the result of numerous shareholder resolutions filed by SOC Investment Group, and others, over the past three years.
“Companies have responded by performing their own voluntary audits as they see that it is a competitive advantage and informs their policies and practice on justice, creating a culture that attracts and retains the best and the brightest.
“To date, 12 companies have either completed and publically released, or committed to conducting independent third-party civil rights and racial equity audits. Currently, we are not grading the substance and results of the audits. As You Sow plans to engage directly with companies in the 2023 season to prompt action on this important front.”
Meredith Benton, workplace equity program manager at As You Sow and founder of Whistle Stop Capital, said:
“A company that refuses to provide diversity and inclusion data is at a competitive disadvantage. Shareholders see this as a material risk that is at odds with our current culture and the priorities of employees, consumers, and investors. We have spoken to hundreds of companies about the need to be open and transparent on workplace equity; not one has told us that this information is unimportant internally. The timeline for when, not if, the data will be released is most often the focus of our conversations.
“However, some holdouts remain. Most notably, Berkshire Hathaway. At the April 2022 Berkshire annual meeting, in response to investors requesting quantitative diversity and inclusion data, Warren Buffet stated, ‘If I’d been born female, black, in various other countries, I would not have had remotely the life that I’ve enjoyed.’ He also stated that ‘40 or 50 years ago’ corporate America was a ‘boys’ club’ and that how it treats Black individuals had not ‘changed by a substantial margin.’
“Mr. Buffet, however, indicated an inaccurate understanding of the disclosure request being made by investors, stating ‘the idea that we should replace any of the people that run the businesses … I just don’t think that’s the way to operate.’
“Investors' interest in this data does not indicate a desire to replace well-performing managers. They seek to understand how companies are hiring, promoting, and retaining the best possible employees. This is a core human capital management function at any company.”
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As You Sow is the nation’s leading shareholder advocacy nonprofit, with a 30-year track record promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility and advancing values-aligned investing. Its issue areas include climate change, ocean plastics, pesticides, racial justice, workplace diversity, and executive compensation. Click here for As You Sow’s shareholder resolution tracker.