The Top 10 Bay Area CSR Reporters and Performers

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It’s no secret that the Bay Area in California is a mecca for startups, entrepreneurs, high-tech companies and even food lovers. Still, one might wonder if it also means the Bay Area is a hub for CSR leaders – after all, it is one of the most progressive areas in the U.S in terms of politics, culture and technology, not to mention the fact that it’s the birthplace of TriplePundit.

We decided it’s time to check if San Francisco, Palo Alto, Oakland, San Jose and other cities around the Bay, which is the home of  30 Fortune 500 companies, including many well-known brands such as Apple, Google, Chevron, Cisco, Clorox and eBay, are also a stronghold of CSR reporters and performers.

Many of the Bay Area companies make headlines at TriplePundit quite often and most times, they are positive ones. Yet, when it comes to CSR reporting, the results are average at best, with only 14 Fortune 500 companies releasing CSR reports (47 percent), 13 of them in accordance with the GRI guidelines (43 percent). In terms of reporting, the results are almost similar to ones among S&P500 companies (48 percent, 2011 figures). The good news is that compliance with GRI guidelines is much higher (among S&P500 companies it’s only 21 percent). The bad news is that only one company (3 percent), Clorox, had its report audited by a third party – this is much lower than the average among S&P500 companies, which is about 10 percent. So the bottom line is that companies in the Bay Area report similarly to the national average, make more use of the GRI guidelines, but don’t have their reports audited by a third-party.

When it comes to CSR performance, the results look a little bit better with 10 of the Bay Area companies having been listed in Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s 2012 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. It means that 10 percent of the CSR leaders in the U.S. come from the Bay Area, which seems to be greater than the relative part of the Bay Area companies among the companies reviewed for the list.

So how do the companies in the Bay Area approach CSR reporting and performance? Here are the results:

Company	Fortune 500 Rank	City	Revenue (in $ millions)	CSR Report	GRI Report	GRI Level	CR Magazine 2012 Top 100
Agilent	456	Santa Clara	5,326	Yes	Yes	B
AMD	393	San Francisco	6,163	Yes	Yes	A
Apple	228	San Jose	11,658	Supplier responsibility progress report	no
Applied Materials	353	San Mateo	7,140	yes	Yes	C	92
Charles Schwab	185	San Francisco	14,549	no	no
Chevron	306	Foster City	8,385	Yes	Yes	no	40
Cisco	73	Mountain View	37,905	Yes	Yes	B	43
Clorox	10	Palo Alto	127,245	Yes	Yes	B+	97
Core-Mark Holding	51	Santa Clara	53,999	no	no
eBay	14	San Francisco	112,084	no	no
Franklin Resources	474	San Mateo	5,123	no	no
Gap	82	Redwood City	35,622	yes	GRI - reference	NA	13
Gilead Sciences	179	San Francisco	14,956	no	no
Google	299	Pleasanton	8,608	no	no
HP	63	Pleasanton	43,630	Yes	Yes	B	27
Intel	430	Milpitas	5,662	Yes	Yes	A	3
McKesson	376	San Jose	6,602	Yes	Yes	C
NetApp	391	Mountain View	6,190	no	no
Oracle	253	Fremont	10,410	no	no		76
PG&E	275	San Francisco	9,545	Yes	Yes	no	38
Ross Stores	281	San Francisco	9,188	no	no
Safeway	26	San Francisco	87,597	no	no
SanDisk	483	Sunnyvale	4,984	no	no
Sanmina-SCI	456	Oakland	5,326	no	no
Symantec	393	San Francisco	6,163	Yes	Yes	B	85
Synnex	228	San Jose	11,658	no	no
URS	353	San Mateo	7,140	no	no
Visa	185	San Francisco	14,549	no	no
Wells Fargo	306	Foster City	8,385	Yes	Yes	C
Yahoo	73	Mountain View	37,905	no	no

Combining the information on the companies’ CSR reporting and performance, the top 10 companies are: Intel, Gap, HP, PG&E, Cisco, Chevron, Oracle, Clorox, Symantec and Applied Materials. Here are five more titles we would like to give:

The best company: Intel. “At Intel, corporate responsibility is a crucial component to the overall growth of our business,” said Michael Jacobson, Intel’s director of corporate responsibility following Intel’s release of its 2012 CSR report. “From product to customer to employee to environment, corporate responsibility allows Intel to have a greater and more influential impact on industries, communities and the global economy," he added. With approach like this and implementation that follows suit, it’s no wonder Intel is among the leaders, not just in the U.S., but also worldwide when it comes to CSR.

The company that surprised me: PG&E. I was surprised to see a utility on the list, but apparently I shouldn’t be, at least not when it comes to PG&E. The company proves to be one of the most progressive utilities, from quitting the Chamber of Commerce back in 2009, to starting a $100 million tax equity fund to finance residential solar systems to collaborating with IBM and Honda on Smart EV Charging.

The biggest disappointment: Yahoo. With their green data center, positive feedback from Greenpeace on their data centers’ energy use, and general openness to collaboration with stakeholders, one would assume Yahoo would be on the top of the list, or in the middle of it, but certainly not at the bottom, with no CSR reporting nor a place on the CR magazine list. Another disappointment I have to mention is Google, which I also expected to see at the top.

The most non-surprising company: Apple. If you follow our coverage of Apple and its CSR flawed strategy, you’re not really surprised not to see it at the top of the list or to find out that it doesn’t release a CSR report. It’s fair, though, to mention that at least Apple releases a supplier responsibility progress report, which is more than we can say about many other companies in the Bay.

The company it seems weird to find at the top: Chevron. Having an oil company on the top of a CSR list always looks like an oxymoron – after all, they’re producing oil, right? Not to mention its battle against the ruling against the company for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which is mentioned everywhere, except the company’s CSR report. Yet, we still have to commend Chevron for taking some positive steps in areas like community engagement and human rights. Chevron is far from being perfect, but it’s better than nothing or close to nothing, which is the record of many of its peers.

[Image credit: Lawrence's Lenses, Flickr Creative Commons]

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris, a green company working to green up the book industry in the digital age. He is an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and the New School, teaching courses in green business and new product development.