DISPATCHES FROM THE ETHICS ECONOMY

The First,
Wildest,
Wisest Thing

by ERICA SALMON BYRNE

_{SPRING 2025 | DISPATCHES}

The First, Wildest, Wisest Thing

by ERICA SALMON BYRNE | Chief Strategy Officer & Executive Chair, Ethisphere

Evolution, according to Merriam-Webster, is the gradual development of something from a simple to a more complex form. Few things embody this as well as the World’s Most Ethical Companies®. Ethisphere began this recognition program 20 years ago, during that tumultuous time between Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley and the Great Recession. We saw corporate scandal after corporate scandal. And in every case, we noticed a small handful of people who made wrong choices that impacted entire organizations. We saw large numbers of good people who were just trying to do their jobs and couldn’t understand how they had become part of a worldwide villain story.

But we also saw an opportunity to celebrate those companies that were making the right choices and were quietly prioritizing their stakeholders. So, in 2007, we launched the World’s Most Ethical Companies. We did a six-month review of thousands of companies across multiple business categories and named fewer than a hundred companies to our list that first year. It was a pretty simple process compared to how much it has since evolved.

By 2015, the Ethics Quotient® (EQ) had grown from a handful of questions to a 50-page PDF. Now, it’s 142 pages. And since then, we’ve also made significant changes to the methodology and weighting of our evaluation process. The EQ continues to grow in response to the changing nature of the ethics and compliance landscape. For instance, in 2011, we had eight governance questions in Section One of the EQ in comparison to the 31 that are there today.

An important change this year is that we increased the weight we give to third-party management, because we believe firmly that just as you all have evolved, your third parties need to evolve too. That’s why we are measuring how you vet and support your third parties. We think of ourselves as an organization that is advancing business integrity for everyone, and the only way organizations can do that is together.

We have been doing this for a long time, and we have seen many changes to the ethics and compliance space. Now, more than ever, trust is a key business differentiator, which is why we are seeing so many companies struggle to develop shorthand language to convey trust—and by extension, their worthiness as a business partner.

That’s why the World’s Most Ethical Companies matters so much. This program is a lot of work for everyone involved—especially those who have to answer questions around why one company earns honors and another doesn’t. But this work is worth it. It gives us the opportunity to empower a network of people around the globe who go to work every day trying to serve as human translators between the outside stakeholders who set expectations and requirements for organizations and the business leaders who don’t always understand what is being asked of them but must make it a reality anyway.

The poet Mary Oliver wrote, “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know: that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” When you apply to the World’s Most Ethical Companies journey, you exemplify that attentiveness, whether it’s advancing your speak-up culture to engage employees, making sure your managers are strong ethical leaders, or helping your third parties navigate risk.

You have built the kinds of practices that enable your employees to make the right decisions on your behalf, and you have empowered them to be attentive. You have a board and management teams that engage in effective oversight and attend to their broad stakeholder groups.

These things build better, stronger, more sustainable companies. We see it in how World’s Most Ethical Companies honorees financially outperform their peers. And we see it in organizations that look upon the application process itself as the kind of assessment that improves any organization.

Doing that, they embrace a pursuit of ethical excellence that makes the world a better place. I can’t think of a more worthy aspiration. And I can’t wait to see who applies this year. ■

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