The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
We recently came across an interesting site that uses market data to rate the environmental sustainability of leading corporations. We had a look for the best known names in the graphic arts, and were pleased to find that all the founder members of the Verdigris project are on the list and all score high. EFI and Heidelberg, Associate Members for many years, are also listed and doing well when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility.
CSRHub has been around for a few years and is basically a subscriber service, but there is loads of stuff available for free. The web based tool rates employee, environmental, community and governance behaviour for companies in North America, Asia and Europe. Data comes from investment ratings agencies, news and networking sites, NGOs and media sites. CSRHub’s tools use millions of facts and figures to come up with their ratings on CSR performance and sustainability.
The idea is to provide tools that help people understand a company’s sustainability and how it compares to that of other businesses in their sectors. At first glance the CSRHub site seems to be only really important for investors. However a print buyer can use CSRHub to rate manufacturers of printing equipment, and then choose service providers whose suppliers have a high sustainability rating. Indeed for print buyers whose companies have CSR policies of their own to live up to, the data on CSRHub can make life much simpler. Having tools to reduce complexity can only be a good thing, when companies struggle to focus on sustainability further down their supply chains.
Print buyers, especially for large corporates, are starting to care more about meeting sustainability and CSR promises. They will be pleased to know that according to CSRHub big printers such as RR Donnelley has pretty high ratings and Quad Graphics is also included, albeit with less than stellar scores. On the list as well are Polestar, which unsurprisingly has the lowest rating possible, and St Ives which has quite respectable marks. Publishers Axel Springer and Fairfax Media are also rated pretty highly.
A company’s CSR ratings are important because they can be used to make investment decisions, not just of the financial variety. CSR ratings can influence decisions about whom to do business with, and within the printing and publishing sector this means equipment investment as well as services. But most important of all, CSRHub raises the profile of corporate sustainability. The site does this using a simple and accessible toolset, one that is easy to use for making comparisons and sustainable investment decisions.
– Laurel Brunner
This blog is yours to use if you want, as long as you fully credit the Verdigris supporters who make it possible: Agfa Graphics, Digital Dots, EFI, Fespa, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Mondi, Pragati Offset, Ricoh, Shimizu Printing, Splash PR, Unity Publishingand Xeikon.