In today’s economy, it’s refreshing to know that companies are still upholding their ethical values. Ethical business practices can pertain to honest policies with investors, employees, customers, competition, government and environment, and ethical companies don’t just make statements about the values behind their business, but truly translate their values and ethics into their actions.
Compiled by the Ethisphere Institute, “World’s Most Ethical Companies” is an annual, worldwide list of companies awarded for leading ethics and compliance programs compared to their industry peers. Many of the American companies on the list are names we know, such as:
• eBay
• Gap
• Patagonia
• Timberland
• Ford Motor Company
• Microsoft
• Salesforce.com
• Xerox
• Colgate-Palmolive Company
• General Electric Co.
• Freescale Semi-Conductor
• Texas Instruments
• American Express
• General Mills
• PepsiCo
• Whole Food Market
• Marriot International
• Caterpillar
• Zappos
• Starbucks Coffee Company
• Target
• Ten Thousand Villages
• UPS
• T-Mobile USA
Large and small companies who are doing business ethically is motivating to see, and we hope it’s a business practice that companies continue following or start implementing. To see the full list of companies, go to http://ethisphere.com/2011-worlds-most-ethical-companies/
Ethical business practices are not only good for your company, but they are also good for your company’s reputation. For example, take a look at Whole Foods.
Whole Foods, one of the companies in the list above and headquartered in Austin, advocates principles and values that broaden corporate priorities far beyond traditional business goals of profit and shareholder enrichment. Whole Foods has a number of documents, charters, policies, and processes to maintain ethical standards in all interactions with their consumers, team members, and vendors. Among the company’s ethical standards, Whole Foods makes an active effort to be environmentally friendly by purchasing green power. Last year, Whole Foods voluntarily purchased extensive amounts of green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use and was listed as one of the top 6 purchasers by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership. In addition to its renewable energy purchase, Whole Foods announced plans last April to reduce energy consumption at all stores by 25 per cent per square foot by 2015.
As the nation’s largest natural and organic foods supermarket, Whole Foods Market truly makes an effort to practice what they preach. As a result of their ethical practice, Whole Foods Market ensures a sense of trust and loyalty within their consumers that serves as a motivating example of a company whose ethics have brought them success.
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We have always prided ourselves in our ethics. Doing business the “old fashioned” way has given us a national reputation as a company that it pays to do business with. Good ethics should always be the most important part of a companies business plan. Everything else will fall into place.