CSRHub Blog Research on ESG metrics and comments on sustainability best practice

CSRHub is proud to announce the launch of its Sustainability Ratings Widget on Huffington Post Green. This tool enables users to quickly access environmental, employee, community and governance ratings on 8,900 companies in 135 industries in 103 countries. You can see the widget in the right side bar on The Huffington Post Green.

“We are excited to have our Sustainability Ratings Widget on Huffington Post Green, and pleased that they share this excitement,” said CSRHub Co-founder and CEO, Bahar Gidwani. “Knowledge is power, and CSRHub gives the widest access to companies’ CSR and sustainability performance to help people make their social value convictions actionable.”

The ten companies that Huffington Post readers have shown the most interest in so far are: Apple, Wal-Mart, Google, Microsoft, Ford Motor, Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Target, Costco Wholesale and General Motors. The CSRHub widget allows readers to see a quick summary of the sustainability performance of these companies and compare their performance to those of their peers and competitors, without leaving the Huffington Post site.  While reading the latest green business news, individuals can easily find a company's overall sustainability rating, environment, employee, community and governance ratings, and see their industry category and number of rating sources.

CSRHub developed the widget as part of a suite of API tools that allow web publishers and software developers to integrate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) information into their products. CSRHub also has a RESTful API (application programming interface) to its 49 million-item database of sustainability information. You can see the widget at http://www.csrhub.com/content/sustainability-rating-widget and documentation on the API at http://www.csrhub.com/content/api-methods/.

"This widget will give HuffPost Green readers a clearer understanding of the sustainability efforts of major companies and is a welcome addition to our page. We're excited to be working with CSRHub to provide this information," said James Gerken, HuffPost Green Editor.

Huffington Post and CSRHub both seek to raise public awareness about the environmental and social performance of businesses and to call attention to special issues such as fracking, coal, and nuclear power involvement. CSRHub believes that its ratings improve understanding of CSR progress and performance, encourage critical discussions of how companies treat their employees, affect the environment, adjust their carbon footprint, act in their community, and govern themselves, and encourage companies to provide innovative sustainability-driven products and services. The placement of the CSRHub widget in Huffington Post’s Green section is part of a broad movement towards transparency that ties the marketplace performance of companies to their environmental, social and governance performance.

About CSRHub

CSRHub is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings tool and sustainability information hub that enables managers, researchers, consultants, students and activists to track the CSR and sustainability performance of major companies. CSRHub aggregates data from more 300 sources to provide its users with a comprehensive source of CSR information on about 8,900 companies in 103 countries. CSRHub is a B Corporation. Browse CSRHub’s ratings at www.csrhub.com.

About The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is a Pulitzer Prize-winning source of breaking news, features, and entertainment, as well as a highly engaged community for opinion and conversation. The Huffington Post has 94 million monthly global unique visitors (comScore, November 2013) with more than 40% coming from outside the US. The site has over 50,000 bloggers -- from politicians, students and celebrities to academics, parents and policy experts -- who contribute in real-time on the subjects they are most passionate about and the site posts over eight million comments each month. The Huffington Post has editions in the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Maghreb and Germany. The Huffington Post is part of AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL).

By Carol Pierson Holding

Three recent headlines offer disturbing news to climate advocates. Together, they show catastrophic aggression from the fossil fuel producers.

First, Huffington Post reported on predictions from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the U.S. will by bypass both Saudi Arabia and Russia in oil production by 2016 “at the latest,” a year earlier than it predicted in 2012. The U.S. will be world leader in oil production, subsuming climate to energy self-sufficiency.

The second astonishing headline covered the Climate Accountability Institute’s most recent study, as reported by Suzanne Goldenberg for The Guardian: “Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions.” The list is topped by state-owned monopolies in China and Russia, with well over 8% each, and includes 50 fossil fuel investor-owned firms, including such widely recognized brands as Chevron, Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, British Coal Corp, Peabody Energy and BHP Billiton.

[csrhubwidget company="Chevron-Corp" size="650x100" hash="c9c0f7"]

The list’s top 20 produced nearly 30% of historical emissions. Chevron alone produced 3.5% of total global emissions and Exxon produced 3.2%; the U.K.’s BP and Shell are close behind. We’ve known the primary sources of carbon emissions for some time, but this study quantifies the relative damage each has done. It’s shocking all over again.

The third depressing headline is about the failure of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which just concluded two weeks of meetings in Warsaw on Friday. As the New York Times reported, talks stalled because the developed countries refused to pay the $100 billion they’d promised to underdeveloped countries, which suffer the worst of climate change impacts.

But it’s not just developed countries that are responsible for emissions. As Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard and co-founder of the Climate Accountability Institute, explained in The Guardian article, "There are all kinds of countries that have produced a tremendous amount of historical emissions that we do not normally talk about. We do not normally talk about Mexico or Poland or Venezuela. So then it's not just rich v poor, it is also producers v consumers, and resource rich v resource poor ."

Not surprisingly, the entities most at fault for carbon emissions flaunt their disdain for the U.N.’s process. As evidence, the environmental NGO 350.org cites this fact: “The Polish government not only allowed corporate sponsors for the talks, but co-sponsored a major coal summit during the negotiations. It’s hard to see the U.N. gaining any traction around proposed financial consequences for countries.

But there are consequences for investor-owned companies. We know who those companies are, and now we know how much each is to blame.

Compare the problem of assigning blame and penalties for emissions to the 2008 financial crisis. At first, the task seemed impossible. It was too complex. The problem was systemic. Those who might be at fault were just too powerful. There was no way to parse the blame.

But with the force of public outrage and regulatory will and enough time to unravel specific causes, that’s changing.

Five years later, JP Morgan is the first to be fined, $13 billion for corrupt mortgage practices alone. And while many argue that financial penalties have not hurt the bank, it suspended stock buybacks last year and more could happen again to accommodate growing fines and penalties. And at least one analyst, Oppenheimer’s Charles Peabody, cut the bank’s 2013 earnings estimate by 12.5%.

So far, the only blame fossil fuel companies have suffered has been for oil spills such as Chevron’s currently contested $19 billion fine for polluting in Ecuador. But fossil fuel industry hubris towards global warming is pushing the same combination of public outrage and regulatory will as resulted in financial penalties for powerful banks. And now, thanks to the IEA report, we have the piece that took longest in punishing the banks, a way to quantitatively parse blame.

It’s a long game but it looks like the most recent combination of events —the U.S. becoming the world’s top oil producer, specific emissions numbers making it easier to assign blame, and failure at the U.N. — might just enable a remedy, at least in the U.S., forcing financial penalties on fossil fuel companies that more accurately reflect their true costs.

Picture courtesy of lightsinmotion via Flickr cc.

Carol Pierson Holding writes on environmental issues and social responsibility for policy and news publications, including the Carnegie Council's Policy Innovations, Harvard Business Review, San Francisco Chronicle, India Time, The Huffington Post and many other web sites. Her articles on corporate social responsibility can be found on CSRHub.com, a website that provides sustainability ratings data on 8,400+ companies worldwide. Carol holds degrees from Smith College and Harvard University.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 8,400+ companies from 135 industries in 104 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 290+ data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

CSRHub is proud to announce the release of a new Sustainable Ratings widget plugin specifically designed for WordPress.org. Now, the CSRHub Sustainable Ratings widget found on Huffington Post, CSRwire, TriplePundit, International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP), BrownFlynn, ISOS Group, and many other partner sites can simply be added to any WordPress.org site or blog by downloading our WordPress plugin.

Use the CSRHub Sustainability Rating widget to access corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on nearly 5,000 companies from 135 industries in 65 countries. Bloggers, managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to improve company performance and change the world.

Bloggers can download the plugin and easily add a one-line code to embed one of 4 widget sizes in their blog posts to highlight a company's social performance or an industry. For example, we use the widget in 2 locations on our own WordPress blog, one in our post, and one in the right sidebar, at www.csrhub.com/blog/2012/08/residential-solar-comes-of-age.html. We offer complete instructions on our WordPress plugin page and via our Sustainability Ratings widget Quick Guide.

[csrhubwidget company="SunPower-Corporation" size="650x100" hash="c9c0f7"]
Click “Alternative Energy” in the CSRHub Sustainability Ratings widget above to see all the companies and their ratings in this industry.

Give your visitors immediate access to sustainability ratings data on nearly 5,000 companies. Download the new CSRHub Sustainability Ratings WordPress plugin today!

Contact partners@csrhub.com if you would like to set up a co-brand opportunity, which can be reflected in the widget.

When The Huffington Post was designing its new Money section, they looked for a partner who could offer sustainability ratings on domestic and international companies. They found that partner in CSRHub, the broadest sustainability database giving users access to sustainability ratings and information on nearly 5,000 companies from 135 industries in 65 countries. Working with Huffington Post, CSRHub designed a widget that gives readers quick access to a company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) progress using CSRHub's ‘Sustainability Index’ tool. 

“I’m delighted that CSRHub is joining HuffPost Money in our mission to make sense of the big financial stories of our time,” said Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. “CSRHub’s core values of transparency and corporate responsibility are a perfect fit for HuffPost Money and our community of readers, who look to us as a go-to resource for all things money-related.”

“We have been pleased to see how many people and businesses are interested in sustainability.  The Huffington Post will further expand awareness of this area and stimulate research and discussion that should accelerate its growth," said Bahar Gidwani, CSRHub Co-founder and CEO.

The CSRHub widget allows readers to view a company’s sustainability ratings instantly, without leaving the Huffington Post site.  While reading the latest business news, individuals can easily find a company's overall sustainability rating, environment, employees, community and governance ratings, and see their industry category and number of rating sources. These ratings are based on Huffington Post's value profile. CSRHub's database offers aggregated sustainability ratings based on data from over 140 sources.

Together, Huffington Post and CSRHub are helping to raise public awareness about environmental and social performance of businesses and flag special issues such as animal testing and nuclear power. CSRHub believes that providing ratings will increase the transparency of CSR progress and performance, and more openly encourage critical discussions of how companies treat their employees, impact the environment, adjust their carbon footprint, act in their community, govern themselves, and provide innovative products and services for sustainable development. The placement of the CSRHub widget in Huffington Post’s new Money section is part of a broader change that relates the marketplace performance of companies to their environmental, social and governance performance.

To learn more about CSRHub, please visit us at www.csrhub.com or contact us at: info@csrhub.com.

About CSRHub

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on nearly 5,000 companies from 135 industries in 65 countries. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

CSRHub rates 12 indicators of employee, environment, community and governance performance and flags many special issues. We offer subscribers immediate access to millions of detailed data points from our 140-plus data sources. Our data comes from six socially responsible investing firms, well-known indexes, publications, “best of” or “worst of” lists, NGOs, crowd sources and government agencies. By aggregating and normalizing the information from these sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links each rating point back to its source.

For press inquiries, please contact Cynthia Figge, COO and Co-founder, CSRHub, at cynthia@csrhub.com.