You gotta wonder what companies they're competing against in this category.

Best Buy v Puppy Kicking, LLC.

Hmmm - it seems this list is compiled on the merits of the companys' procedure manuals, documentation, contributions to charity, etc. and not the huge pile of anecdotal evidence of weirdness and wrongdoing by individual frontline employees. They might as well just automatically include any company that passes any ISO standard.

Consumer complaints rarely get counted in any of those categories. Maybe "Regulatory and Reputation Track Record" but the average complaint wouldn't register there. The vast majority of Fortune 500 companies have official policies in all of those categories. At one point those might have been good indicators, now they are just one more category on which most companies have some lip-service-y policy.

Fake internal website, chronic sleazy company headline causing, pricematch/return fraud-sters? Guess the whatever "pr firm/viral marketing/astroturf" service company they hired is doing the trick. . .

So, it sounds like the company that lies the most on it's ethics survey is the one that wins? Irony anyone?

reminds me of the Onion story: Gap kids, for kids, by kids

@Applekid: Hrmm...what's Puppy Kicking LLC's return policy?

Yeah, what's the point of asking a company to rate its own ethics?

Can we add Ethisphere to our WCIA bracket for next year? Third-party corporate propaganda machines need to feel the Consumerist's wrath more often.

Anyone know how much they paid to make it on the ethics list? I think my company should be on there also. How much do I make the check out for?

Sort of reminds me of a question my boss asked me when I worked for an Psychologist.

What's the fundamental flaw of all honesty testing?

The answer? People lie.

so this is a list made up of companies writing about them selves and ethisphere just takes there word for it? Yeah, that will be an accurate list.

"Ethisphere" I can't take that seriously.
It's as if they just slapped together a bunch of their favorite companies and called them "ethical."
And Nintendo gets no love?!

@Smooooth: Seconded.

So the companies fill the surveys out on their own behalf. I guess they accidentally forgot to include all their bad business and unethical practices at the store level.
Just because they have manuals, procedures and specific duties to follow in accordance with whatever they must follow certainly does not mean they follow them.
This list is bogus.

@Applekid:
Say what you will about their business practices, Puppy Kicking, LLC are refreshing straightforward in this age of marketing speak and corporate lies.

it's awesome when you can get your cohorts together and create a foundation that praises you! I was shocked to see some of those as well-

This is no different from JD Power inventing a million award categories so every possible angle is covered and then awarding them to paying companies.

"Best mid-sized all-wheel-drive import sedan in initial quality"

Schools do this too. A school in my district was bragging about receiving some award and I found out all they had to pay a fee and get a testimonial from ONE family.

You know who DIDN'T make the list? Ethisphere.

@stephenwdaries: Hear, hear!
Ethisphere deals with internal ethical issues in businesses, not how the business deals with their clients.

Ignore this rabble and move on.

@deadandy: And every student in that family is listed in Who's Who Among Students and they own multiple copies of the book.

@nataku83: Not only that, they're basically self-nominated -- the companies themselves apply to be on the list.

Caterpillar is on the list. What a joke. They hate the environment: [www.epa.gov]

Public butt-kissing for profit.

How delightfully meta.

@Smooooth:
Thirded

With all those big, fancy terms to judge from, I wonder - just wonder - why they didn't include "Customer Satisfaction" in there. Or is it unethical to worry about that?

I was thinking that most of these teams were part of the Consumerist's March Madness

@Belabras Ate My Baby!: No they're not, they kicked my baby instead of my puppy! When I demanded my money back they said I'd have to take it up with their boot suppliers!

Obviously this magazine is bought by and paid for by these companies. Nike owns sweatshops still, Best Buy fixes your computer problem by replacing parts until it starts working again and general electric is in the business of buying and selling entire countries electric supply just so they can raise it's price. Almost none of the companies in that list are ethical, you'd find more ethics in a huge pile of shit.

@magic8ball: Based on the reading I have done here, I sometimes think that "Ethical Corporation" is an oxy moron.

@Canino: Exactly. This is all related to compliance type ethics such GAAP, Sarbanes Oxley, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, etc. It has very little to do with whether you're an "ethical" company in the sense of treating employees well, having good customer service, exploiting suppliers, environmental policies, etc.

@Applekid: To be fair, with the reorganization that Best Buy is doing, they're treating their employees remarkably well.

Quite frankly, The Consumerist approach to selecting the worst company in America is pretty stupid. It's a self-selecting bunch (Consumerist readers and submitters), and it focuses on popular sentiment based on a relatively few bad examples rather than any substantial data. It's a mistake to believe that a few bad experiences are indicative of those of the public at large.

I'm not saying Consumerist is bad or doesn't work. It's profile is relatively high, and it gets results most of the time for people's complaints. I'm here, and I enjoy it. But it has absolutely *zero* credibility when it comes to picking "The Worse Company in America."

This study announcement is like Ethisphere's bullhorn announcement of "HAAAAAY PROPS FOR $SALE$!!!!11111"

Nike? Best Buy? Who are they fucking kidding

I wonder who's on the board of this "company"

@godai:

What are you talking about? All you can do is lie if you don't know the truth.

@ARP: Or in Nike's case "look! We developed an eco friendly shoe that's made entirely of cabbage and walnut shells, please ignore the fact that it's made in a sweatshop.."

Way to go - you took down their website lol. "Error establishing database connection". Tried repeatedly.

well to be quite frank from what i heard, is that best buy employees are some of the happiest employees around so even though they're swindling customers, i guess that counts. :)

What's wrong with Nike?

And how do they check on "compliance"? Pretty useless list.

Eti who? Another publicity stunt. ''We were approved by this **** ( smart marketing agency, that gives impression that it's an independent evaluation service. And charges big bucks to be able to ''show off'' your ''rating''

@webreacher: )

@tbax929: Fourthed? Quaded? Double Seconded?

What gives Ethisphere? You only have the technology to plot stock performance before 5/1/2008?

Inquiring minds want to know how the Most Ethical companies performed in the finaciocolypse.

@Greg []: I totally fell for that in high school.

@sinfonian94: Thousanded. I hate useless studies and lists from these mouthpiece organizations.

Looks like with some of these companies paid (sorry)invested in the right people to get on this list
example Target Best Buy the list goes on

Just remember, this may be like someone being on the list of "Most Pleasant Murderers" :P