Hershey’s commitment to ‘Bringing Goodness to the World’ results in first ranking on 2015 Most Ethical Company List.
The Hershey Co. announced that it has been recognized as a 2015 World’s Most Ethical Company by the Ethisphere Institute.
The Hershey Co.’s first appearance on the World’s Most Ethical Companies list underscores the company’s commitment to leading ethical business standards and practices ensuring long-term value to key stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers, regulators and investors. Hershey is one of only five global companies in the Food & Beverage category honored this year.
“Hershey is committed to bringing goodness to the world, whether it’s our iconic products or how we operate our business,” said J.P. Bilbrey, president and CEO, The Hershey Co. “Our longtime values are rooted in the belief that we can do well by doing good in society and we are honored that this core part of who we are as a company is being recognized.”
The World’s Most Ethical Companies designation recognizes those organizations that have had a material impact on the way business is conducted by fostering a culture of ethics and transparency at every level of the company.
Hershey has distinguished itself in recent years for its achievements in ethical and responsible business practices and corporate social responsibility. The company has recently received other recognition for its responsible practices:
Named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the second consecutive year and the North America Index for the third consecutive year based on substantial progress in environmental sustainability and our ethical sourcing.
Received the P3 Impact award honoring the best public-private partnership that has the greatest impact on improving communities and the world for its CocoaLink technology program for West Africa Cocoa Farmers. The award is given by The University of Virginia Darden School of Business’ Institute for Business in Society, Concordia, and the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Partnerships.
Hershey’s CEO was recently named a 2014 Responsible CEO of the Year Award winner by Corporate Responsibility Magazine.
“The World’s Most Ethical Companies embrace the correlation between ethical business practice and improved company performance. These companies use ethics as a means to further define their industry leadership and understand that creating an ethical culture and earning the World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition involves more than just an outward facing message or a handful of senior executives saying the right thing,” said Ethisphere’s CEO, Timothy Erblich. “Earning this recognition involves the collective action of a global workforce from the top down. We congratulate everyone at The Hershey Co. for this extraordinary achievement.”
The Ethisphere Institute is a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. The World’s Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient (EQ) framework developed over years of research to provide a means to assess an organization’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).
The full list of the 2015 World’s Most Ethical Companies can be found at http://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/.