history of the corporate responsibility index

The Corporate Responsibility Index was designed by over 80 UK businesses with Business in the Community (BITC), a unique movement of 700 member companies committed to continually improving their impact on society.

BITC's purpose is to inspire, challenge, engage and support business in continually improving its positive impact on society.

BITC is the largest and longest-established independent business-led UK charity with over 20 years experience. Member companies employ over 15.7 million people across 200 countries. In the UK, members employ over one in five of the private sector workforce.

The idea of an index was first raised in BITC's 2000 Winning with Integrity report. The BITC 2001 survey of UK businesses, Investing in the Future, then identified a need for reliable, standardised information that would enable a company's performance to be compared with that of its peers.

Additional market research concluded that "there is no authoritative, voluntary, CR (corporate responsibility) initiative that is business-led and engages with companies from all sectors, publicly ranking their CR activity, whilst consolidating information demands made on companies".

This, coupled with the success of the Business in the Environment Index, established for eight years in the UK, indicated a new, wider index would help meet this need.

St James Ethics Centre recognised the need in Australia for a voluntary, business-led Index with sound methodology and focusing upon corporate responsibility. The Ethics Centre was introduced to Business in the Community through Jane Tewson from Pilotlight Australia.

Business in the Community generously agreed to donate the Corporate Responsibility Index under licence to St James Ethics Centre to be implemented in Australia with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and supported by Ernst & Young who will validate the results.

The UK experience of the Corporate Responsibility Index has been highly successful, with 122 businesses participating in its first year in 2002, including 93 companies from the FTSE 350 and 53 from the FTSE 100. 139 companies participated in the second year, an 85% retention rate.

The Corporate Responsibility Index was launched in Australia in 2003 with the first results being published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on 28 August 2004.  The Index now runs on an annual cycle with results being reported in May each year.

View the most recent results.

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The Corporate Responsibility Index is funded by the Australian Federal Government. The Index, developed and maintained by Business in the Community in the UK, is a project of St James Ethics Centre supported by Ernst & Young. Our media partners are The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Project catalyst: Pilotlight Australia.