The Ethisphere Institute announced its sixth annual selection of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. One hundred forty-five organizations made the list in 2012 from more than three dozen industries, including 43 headquartered outside the United States.
Twenty-three companies that have been honored each of the six years the WME has been awarded, including Aflac, American Express, Fluor, General Electric, Milliken & Company, Patagonia, Rabobank. and Starbucks.
In the past, I’ve analyzed the list and found that investing in the companies on the list was a good choice. Last year, I looked at the 2007 list and projected forward and found that an investment in those companies would have out-performed the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials.
Last year, Ethisphere highlighted the fact that this list of companies outperformed the S&P 500. That’s missing this year. I went back to the 2007 list to see what happened .
I still see an outperformance: 13.12% versus -3.48% for the S&P and 3.02% for the Dow Jones Industrials.
You can see my calculations in this spreadsheet (in Google Docs):
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuuCq02eKVqldDhydERtRmVsdVo2X0NfOUdXbkZTcmc&hl=en
That seems to show that being ethical is generally good for a company’s shareholders.