Ethics vs Environment

For Indian companies, environmental concerns do not form a part of their ethical conduct. At least a nation-wide survey, conducted by Businessworld to identify India's most-respected companies, shows so. The survey shows that the rank of companies vary when they are evaluated under categories of ethical conduct, community and eco-friendliness. Most of the companies scoring 'good' under ethical conduct have per formed badly under the community and eco-friendliness heads. There were 12 parameters to identify the most-respected company.

The survey, conducted by Businessworld -Indica Research covered 229 companies from 21 sectors and some 2,034 corporate executives were interviewed. Browsing through the rating of the top 100 companies, shows that the concern for environment does not effect the ethical conduct of the corporate world. For example, tyre giants MRF Ltd tops the list as far as rating of ethical conduct is concerned. But it ranks 32nd in the eco-friendly category. Interestingly, it also ranks first under the leadership criteria. "Parameters like community, eco-friendliness and ethical conduct are different in nature. While the former reflects environmental concerns, the latter deals with corporate governance," says D N Mukerjea, assistant editor, Businessworld .