Lack of Controversies

A good company has to ensure that it meets the requirements of international and national environmental legislation, protects occupational health and the right of communities to live in a healthy and sustainable environment.

In case of a lawsuit, a company should demonstrate its ability to meet the decision of the court, ensure proper rehabilitation of the contaminated sites and provide compensation to affected communities. It should also demonstrate improvements in its chemicals management.

Where does the data come from?

Information about corporate misconduct has been retrieved from the violation tracker project of Good Jobs First. We have also found information about lawsuits associated with environmental pollution, toxic spills, land or water contamination, and human rights violations through internet research, by local NGO partners and/or affected communities.

Examples of the search words used for internet research are “toxic spills”, “environmental degradation”, “water pollution”, “air emissions”, “hazardous waste”, “occupational health”, “explosions”, “fire”, “community rights”, and “human rights”.

Criteria in this category

• Actual track record of accidents and controversies

Scoring and criteria assessment

• Severe impact controversies (0 points): The company has been repeatedly fined for environmental pollution, toxic spills, land or water contamination, or human rights violations exceeding 10 million USD. Or, the company has been involved in at least one severe incident with a fatality or very large impact on the environment over the past ten years.
• Medium impact controversies (3 points): The company has been fined for environmental pollution, toxic spills, land and/or water contamination, or human rights violation exceeding 1 million USD. However, the magnitude of these violations has not been severe over the past ten years. Nor have any of the incidents resulted in a fatality.
• Low impact controversies (6 points): The company is not accountable for any, or only low, impact records of environmental law violations, toxic spills, or human rights violations over the past ten years. None of the incidents have resulted in a fatality.