Corporate Reputations Under Scrutiny as Public Sentiment Drives Up Importance of Sustainability

The Ireland RepTrak® Sustainability Index 2023, carried out by The Reputations Agency, revealed today that increased public scrutiny of sustainability credentials is having a negative impact on the reputation of organisations, with significant declines witnessed in the sustainability ranking of 100 of Ireland’s most recognisable organisations. 

 

Bord Bia have topped the Ireland RepTrak® Sustainability Index 2023 with An Post taking second place and the Credit Unions taking third place.  The Ireland RepTrak® Sustainability Index 2023 ranks 100 of the largest, most familiar, and most important organisations in Ireland by the public’s perceptions of their performance across four sustainability drivers  -   Social Performance, Conduct, Workplace, and Environmental Impact -  which are then broken into a further 16 sustainability factors. 

 

Bord Bia jumped nine places in the overall rankings from tenth in 2022 to first in 2023.  The other big movers in the top ten include Kerry Group from 34^th to seventh and Toyota from 25^th to ninth.   Three of the big media players in the Irish market saw significant improvements to their ranking within the top 100.  Bauer Media Group jumped from 65^th to 23^rd, the Irish Times moved from 64^th to 32^nd and Mediahuis climbed from 91^st to 45^th.   All three recorded average sustainability reputation scores and although RTE did improve its ranking from 92^nd to 88^th it produced a weak sustainability score.

 

Sustainability is increasing in importance in the eyes of consumers with 53% of a company’s reputation being driven by sustainability factors up from 51% in 2022, and an increase of almost 10 percentage points in the past decade, from 44% in 2013.

 

In 2022, 43 companies achieved a Strong score (70-79 rating) on the Index, with one company achieving an Excellent score (80+ rating), but in 2023 just 16 companies achieved a Strong score and none of the top 100 achieved an Excellent score.  The number of companies with Weak scores increased from nine in 2022 to 14 in 2023 while one company received a Poor score (0-39,) whereas no company had received a Poor score in 2022. Scores decreased in part as uncertainty and financial burdens amongst the public drove reputation scores down, but also due to a more rigorous sustainability research methodology put in place in 2023.

 

Launching the results of the Ireland RepTrak® Sustainability Index 2023, Niamh Boyle, Chief Executive, The Reputations Agency said, “In 2023 scores decreased in part due to concerns about war in Ukraine, international food supplies, the energy crisis, inflation, interest rate hikes and early year shocks to the global banking sector. Scores also declined due to a more rigorous research methodology that we put in place in 2023. Important elements of the new EU CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards) were included in this year's study, increasing the number of Sustainability factors that we measured from nine to 16 in 2023. Of the 16 sustainability factors that we studied, we found that the four most important elements driving corporate reputation amongst the public are ‘improving the lives of people and their communities’, ‘having a positive influence on society’, ‘being fair in the way they do business’ and ‘behaving ethically’”.

Dr Jennifer Scott, Managing Director, The Reputations Agency, said, “Consumers are not currently prioritising Environmental factors as being major drivers of a company’s reputation – such as being environmentally responsible, preventing pollution or using renewable energy sources.  However, this does not mean enterprises can deprioritise their efforts in this area. The public currently rates company performance on these factors as Weak or Average, and we believe that, as the consequences of environmental degradation begin to impact more people personally through things like floods, wildfires or food shortages, they will increasingly perceive these as more immediate Social Performance and Conduct issues and therefore raise their expectations for enterprises to address them.

 

Deirdre Ryan, Director of Sustainability & Quality Assurance, Origin Green at Bord Bia, said, “At Bord Bia we’re proud to be recognised for our work in sustainability, environmental impact and social performance in this year’s Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index – particularly given the impressive and important work that is being undertaken by our peers, industry partners and other leading Irish brands, many of whom are here today.

Enabling the sustainable growth of our sector is central to Bord Bia’s mission to bring Ireland’s outstanding food, drink and horticulture produce to the world, and we endeavour to place sustainability, in all its forms, at the heart of all we do. This is an ongoing, challenging and ever-evolving journey.” 

 

The Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index 2023 is an independent study carried out by The Reputations Agency and is based on the views of over 5,500 informed members of the public in the Republic of Ireland who participated in an online survey for over two months from 2^nd January to 28^th February 2023, rating the performance of organisations which they are familiar with. 

The Reputations Agency has calculated sustainability rankings using 16 factors or indicators of Sustainability across Environmental Impact, Social Performance, Conduct and Workplace.   One of the 100 organisations in the Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index 2023 has a Poor score, 14 have a Weak score, 69 an Average tier score and 16 have a Strong tier score.  No company achieved an Excellent score in Sustainability this year. 

 

The Top 10 most reputed Irish organisations in the Ireland Sustainability RepTrak® Index 2023 are:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
1.	Bord Bia	78.1
2.	An Post	75.6
3.	Credit Union	75.4
4.	Glanbia	74.2
5.	Aldi	73.6
6.	Lidl	73.4
7.	Kerry Group	73.0
8.	Tourism Ireland	72.8
9.	Toyota	72.3
10.	Enterprise Ireland	71.9

 

Top 10 Leaders within Conduct – Ireland Sustainability RepTrak®  Index 2023:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
1.	Bord Bia	80.0
2.	Credit Union	76.6
3.	An Post	76.5
4.	Kerry Group	73.5
5.	Aldi	73.2
6.	Tourism Ireland	72.8
7.	Toyota	72.7
8.	Glanbia	72.7
9.	Boots	72.6
10.	Lidl	72.2

 

Top 10 Leaders within Environment – Ireland Sustainability RepTrak®  Index 2023:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
1.	Bord Bia	76.0
2.	Coillte	75.2
3.	Glanbia	72.2
4.	Failte Ireland	70.4
5.	Toyota	70.2
6.	Tourism Ireland	69.9
7.	An Post	69.3
8.	Enterprise Ireland	69.3
9.	Kerry Group	68.9
10.	EirGrid	68.7

 

Top 10 Leaders within Social Performance – Ireland Sustainability RepTrak®  Index 2023:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
1.	Credit Union	79.7
2.	An Post	79.6
3.	Bord Bia	78.7
4.	Lidl	77.1
5.	Aldi	76.5
6.	GAA	76.1
7.	IRFU	76.0
8.	Glanbia	75.9
9.	Tourism Ireland	75.2
10.	Enterprise Ireland	74.8

 

Top 10 Leaders within Workplace – Ireland Sustainability RepTrak®  Index 2023:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
1.	Bord Bia	76.4
2.	Kerry Group	76.2
3.	Boots	75.9
4.	Glanbia	75.3
5.	Aldi	75.1
6.	Credit Union	74.7
7.	Lidl	73.8
8.	Kelloggs	73.5
9.	An Post	73.4
10.	Samsung	72.4

 

100 Organisation Ranking – Ireland Sustainability RepTrak® Index 2023:

 

Rank	Organisation	Sustainability Index Score
Excellent Scores 80+ (0)
Strong Scores 70-79 (16)
1.	Bord Bia	78.1
2.	An Post	75.6
3.	Credit Union	75.4
4.	Glanbia	74.2
5.	Aldi	73.6
6.	Lidl	73.4
7.	Kerry Group	73.0
8.	Tourism Ireland	72.8
9.	Toyota	72.3
10.	Enterprise Ireland	71.9
11.	Boots	71.7
12.	Failte Ireland	71.2
13.	Blackrock Health	70.7
14.	IDA Ireland	70.1
15.	St Vincents Privat Hosp.	70.0
16.	Coillte	70.0
Average Scores 60-69 (69)
17.	IRFU	69.8
18.	Revolut	69.7
19.	Samsung	69.7
20.	SuperValu	69.7
21.	Mater Private	69.2
22.	Kelloggs	69.1
23.	Bauer Media Group	69.1
24.	Bon Secours	68.6
25.	Irish Distillers	68.4
26.	Vhi Healthcare	68.0
27.	Microsoft	67.6
28.	EirGrid	67.6
29.	Laya Healthcare	67.3
30.	Aviva	67.2
31.	Tesco	66.9
32.	The Irish Times	66.7
33.	M&S	66.3
34.	Centra	66.2
35.	Lloyds Pharmacy	66.2
36.	PwC	66.2
37.	AXA	65.8
38.	GAA	65.8
39.	Gas Networks Ireland	65.7
40.	Allianz	65.5
41.	Irish Rail	65.5
42.	Olympic Fed. of Ireland	65.5
43.	Electric Ireland	65.4
44.	ESB	65.4
45.	Mediahuis	65.2
46.	Bord na Mona	65.1
47.	Irish Life	65.0
48.	Zurich	64.8
49.	Janssen	64.7
50.	Spar	64.6
51.	Google	64.6
52.	Diageo	64.4
53.	Volkswagen	64.4
54.	Dublin Bus	64.2
55.	Linkedin	64.2
56.	Grant Thornton	64.1
57.	Dunnes Stores	63.9
58.	BMW	63.7
59.	Ford	63.7
60.	Dublin Airport	63.5
61.	National Lottery	63.4
62.	Deloitte	63.3
63.	FBD	63.2
64.	An Garda Siochana	63.1
65.	EBS	62.8
66.	Bus Eireann	62.8
67.	Aer Lingus	62.8
68.	SKY	62.8
69.	Penneys	62.7
70.	Bord Gais Energy	62.5
71.	Apple	62.5
72.	Pfizer	62.4
73.	Energia	62.2
74.	EY	62.1
75.	Vodafone	62.1
76.	Applegreen	62.0
77.	Heineken	61.9
78.	Permanent TSB	61.9
79.	SSE Airtricity	61.7
80.	Virgin	61.0
81.	Bank of Ireland	60.8
82.	Circle K	60.5
83.	Eir	60.3
84.	KPMG	60.3
85.	Coca Cola	60.2
Weak Scores 40-59 (14)
86.	Texaco	59.9
87.	AIB	59.6
88.	RTE	58.9
89.	DAA	58.4
90.	Brown Thomas	57.4
91.	Central Bank	57.2
92.	Three	57.0
93.	Maxol	56.2
94.	Irish Water	51.7
95.	Ryanair	51.5
96.	An Bord Pleanala	50.4
97.	HSE	48.5
98.	FAI	48.2
99.	Meta	42.9
Poor Scores 0-39 (1)
100.	X (formerly Twitter)	38.4