I’ve spent most of my career working on some aspect of company evaluations or ratings, and all I can say is that if there was an easy single answer to “which is the best company?”, I could be retired on a lovely beach somewhere.

In my own view, the current discussion of the usefulness and quality of sustainability ratings and rankings is more hopeful than discouraging. If I look back over the past decade, many ratings and rankings have greatly improved their quality and methodology. Companies are more transparent and more managers and corporate executives are asking questions about how to drive value through corporate responsibility (driven in part by the attention and competition generated by ratings).