Today, Just Capital, in partnership with CNBC, is proud to announce the Just 100 list as part of the 2025 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. Each year, JUST Capital begins by polling the American public on a fully representative basis on their priorities for business behavior. It then evaluates how the largest corporations in the country perform against those criteria. Leading companies are recognized for their performance on top priority issues such as: paying fair, living wages; supporting worker well-being; career advancement, training, and work-life balance; treating customers fairly; creating value for shareholders; communicating transparently; strengthening communities; and ethical leadership.
“Hewlett Packard Enterprise is honored to be recognized as #1 by Just Capital in their 2025 Rankings for the second year in a row,” says HPE President & CEO Antonio Neri. “This recognition validates the work we have been doing to understand and serve all our stakeholders in order to drive marketing-leading performance.”
In a year marked by significant geopolitical, cultural, and economic change, business leaders are under pressure with high performance expectations and intense scrutiny. The central message from the public, as detailed in Just Capital’s Americans Views on Business Report and Polling released in 2024, is clear: focus on the basics, do right by your customers, look after your workers, create value for your shareholders, and lead with integrity.
Despite being highly polarized on political issues, Americans are generally united in their expectations for corporations – particularly in areas where positive corporate conduct dovetails with positive business performance – and concerned about kitchen table issues like their economic well-being, how they are treated as consumers, and being able to support their families. Many appear to be distrustful of institutions as they call for increased transparency, corporate accountability, and ethical leadership.
The Just Capital 2025 Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies and Just 100 list celebrate top-performing Russell 1000 companies that are demonstrating leadership in meeting these concerns and responding to the needs of the American people. By tapping into public sentiment, these Rankings offer corporate leaders an objective, empirical roadmap across stakeholder issues that helps businesses navigate a changing socio-political and economic landscape in order to unlock enduring business value.
This promise of value creation is not mere conjecture. As of December 31, 2024 the JULCD (212.2%) – which tracks the top 50% of Russell 1000 companies ranked by Just Capital by industry, and is constructed to match its industry weights – has out-performed Russell 1000 Cap-Weighted Benchmark ( 202.04%) by 10.11% since inception. The Just 100 (116.7%) – which includes the top 100 Russell 1000 companies ranked by Just Capital – has out-performed Russell 1000 Equally Weighted Benchmark (70.8%) by 45.8% since inception.
“Just Capital Rankings stand apart because they measure companies against what matters most: the priorities set by the American public,” says Just Capital CEO Martin Whittaker. “When companies – like those featured in this year’s Rankings – actively deliver on stakeholder expectations, namely those of American workers, consumers, and shareholders, they create enduring business value while advancing solutions to our nation’s most pressing economic challenges. It’s a powerful win-win.”
Today’s corporate leadership demands data-driven insights that align with stakeholder interests and drive lasting value. Just Capital is excited to introduce Just Intelligence – a cutting-edge analytics tool that empowers companies to navigate complex stakeholder issues and fuels their competitive advantage.
This year, all ranked companies will have access to standard Just Intelligence features including an interactive explorer of their performance in the 2025 Rankings and highlights of their highest and lowest performing data points. Just Intelligence subscribers can dive deeper on critical data points, benchmark against peers, and identify best practices of top-performing companies.
“In a rapidly evolving and high-pressure landscape, today’s corporate leaders need a strategic insider to support their competitive edge. Just Intelligence is that strategic insider,” says Whittaker. “We are extremely proud to bring empirical evidence to corporate leaders that allows them to cut through the noise, benchmark their performance, make smarter decisions, and ultimately be more successful in the marketplace.”
As part of its 2025 Rankings, Just Capital is proud to present its list of Industry leaders, or companies that receive the highest overall rank within each of our 36 industries.
Of this year’s 36 industry leaders, 21 companies remained the leaders of their industry while 15 companies dropped out of the industry leader spot this year. Below is the full list of industry leaders for 2025. Industry leader shifts can be explained by both improved year-over-year performance of individual companies as well as shifting industry compositions.
Among the industry leaders, the following saw the biggest increases in their rank (and are not influenced by treatments, such as Unique Event Treatment, applied to the model). Three of these five companies (The Hershey Company, Lear Corporation, and Otis Worldwide Corporation) also moved into the Just 100.
This year, 30 out of the 36 industries were represented in the JUST 100: In other words, six industry leaders are not part of the JUST 100 this year. These industry leaders are listed below.
Industry Trends in 2025
Though there are 30 industries represented in the JUST 100, some industries make up a higher share of the JUST 100 than others. There are:
Certain industries tend to perform better than others, on average. Companies in the Utilities and Chemicals industries rank, on average, the highest at 275 and 317, respectively. When breaking industry average rank down by the five Stakeholders, we find that:
Companies in the Internet and Commercial Vehicles & Machinery industries saw some of the largest average gains in rank, rising 118 and 103 ranks, respectively. Companies in the Telecommunications and Clothing & Accessories industries saw the biggest average declines, dropping 91 and 75 ranks, respectively.
For more information on our Rankings, to engage with us on our corporate initiatives, please reach out to us.
In our 2025 Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies, we remain dedicated to capturing companies’ commitment to all of their stakeholders. We also recognize the importance of addressing the whole of each stakeholder, which in a practical application can mean the entirety of a company’s workforce – including workers who aren’t legally or technically considered employees.
To that end, prior to the 2023 Rankings, we employed an “Under Review” designation for companies that meet two criteria: business models that center gig workers and self-identification as members of the Flex Association. This applied to three companies in our Russell 1000 universe at the time: Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash.
Beginning with the 2023 Rankings, we have been reaching out to these companies requesting additional data to help us more accurately capture the experience of gig workers and to ensure that these companies’ scores reflect the entirety of their workforce. In our outreach to Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, we request public company sources with information about the share of gig workers in their workforce, as well as the offerings and policies accessible to them. Using the information provided, we proportionately discount the scores of these companies across our Workers stakeholder data points when there is no evidence that gig workers are covered by the offerings or workplace policies tracked in our model.
This year, in our review of companies meeting these criteria, we determined that Maplebear (Instacart), which joined our Russell 1000 universe, should also receive a similar treatment.
We recognize that our work in capturing the workplace experience of the many Americans who work in the gig economy, or more broadly as contractors, remains in progress, but we believe that continuing this approach is a step in the right direction. Our team will work to further refine our methodology to ensure that we best capture companies’ commitment to all their workers.
Just Capital’s annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies assess corporate performance of the Russell 1000 against the priorities that matter most to the American public. Throughout the year, we monitor any unique events that are not captured by our current metrics and should theoretically impact a company’s overall score and rank. We identify those events as instances which result from a company’s actions or inactions and satisfy the following criteria: (1) considered material to just business behavior as defined by the American public, (2) have the potential to affect a company’s standing outside the normal architecture of our ranking process, and (3) are sudden, extreme, or unusual in nature.
This year, the four companies which received a unique event treatment are: Wells Fargo, Tesla, Johnson & Johnson, and Boeing.
The process of determining a unique event involves monitoring media coverage of companies through an independent feed with minimized bias, as well as consultation with the public, independent specialists, and other neutral third parties.
The details of each event, and how a company has or hasn’t responded to it, will determine the type of treatment given to the company’s overall Ranking performance. These treatments, in order of increasing severity, are Serious (I), Severe (II), and Most Severe (III). Each step of the process, including the final results, are reviewed by independent specialists and other neutral third parties.
This year, Just Capital is applying the unique event treatments only to the Most Severe (III) category. Each event should fall into one of five stakeholders, with each company receiving the lowest score corresponding to that stakeholder that the event pertains to.
We identified 41 companies throughout the monitoring process, which were cross referenced along geographical and legal considerations amongst the full Russell 1000. From that, we evaluated 18 events which satisfied Just’s criteria for a unique event. We narrowed down to a further four incidents and the related companies which received the Most Severe (III) category qualified for a unique event treatment. Further details on the monitoring process and evaluation criteria can be found in our 2025 Rankings Methodology.
The four cases which Just evaluated as Most Severe (III) are as follows:
The first recurring unique event case applies to Wells Fargo, a financial services company that provides retail, commercial, and corporate banking services through branches, the internet, and other channels to individuals, businesses, and institutions across the U.S. and in other countries. Given the evidence of its history of labor and banking violations, such as creating fake accounts and retaliation against its employees who speak up about labor conditions, continued lack of meaningful remediation efforts, and more recently the controversies regarding unionization efforts, Just Capital has given Wells Fargo the lowest score for the Shareholder Stakeholder.
The second recurring unique event case applies to Tesla. Tesla designs, develops, manufactures, and sells electric vehicles and energy storage systems and also installs, operates, and maintains solar and energy storage products. One of its products, the autopilot vehicles, has resulted in hundreds of crashes and several fatalities. Since last year, there has been at least one additional fatality attributed to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology. In response to these events, Tesla’s communication regarding the safety of its products has also been misleading to its customers, and has doubled down on this technology with the unveiling of its new robotaxi, Cybercab, despite significant safety concerns from experts and regulators. For these events, we have given Tesla the lowest score for the Customers Stakeholder.
The third recurring unique event case applies to Johnson & Johnson, which makes a range of health and well-being products in three business segments: consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices. Johnson & Johnson continues to attempt to use bankruptcy filings to avoid paying the estimated $9 billion settlement to tens of thousands of people affected by the contamination of its talc products. Due to the continuation of these financial maneuvers, Johnson & Johnson has received the lowest score for the Customers Stakeholder.
Since our initial unique event treatment, there have been no substantial changes in business practices by any of the above companies that would result in the removal of this treatment. Barring any significant changes in business practices specifically related to these events, this treatment will remain in effect for a maximum of three years. If another event or development occurs after the three-year period, the event can be evaluated and, in appropriate cases, treatment can be reinstated.
The fourth and final unique event treatment was applied to Boeing, which is an aerospace and defense corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells commercial airplanes, defense systems, and space technology to customers worldwide. On January 5, 2024, a fuselage plug door blew off mid-flight, the latest in several safety-related incidents that have plagued the manufacturer in recent years. Several whistleblowers have come forward alleging a culture that promotes production speed and efficiency over product safety. As a result of these events, Boeing has received the lowest score for the Customer Stakeholder.
It’s been a busy week to say the least. MLK Day, the inauguration of President Trump, a flurry of executive orders and announcements, the World Economic Forum in Davos, not to mention the most snow in Houston, Charleston, and New Orleans in 130 years and more L.A. fires.
But let’s start with the newly-released 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, which centers on a “crisis of grievance”. It’s disturbing reading. According to the report, optimism for the next generation is lacking, over half of young adults approve of hostile activism, and there’s been an “unprecedented global decline in employer trust”. Grievances against government, business, and particularly the rich are widespread, and with greater grievance comes more suspicion of AI and more belief in politics as a zero-sum game.
Interestingly, only business is seen as both ethical and competent. CEOs are considered justified for acting on social issues if they can have a major impact and improve business performance. Priority issues included providing good paying jobs, employee training and reskilling, and nurturing workplace civility. Tackling affordability, climate change, misinformation and discrimination were identified as areas where business should go further.
All of this dovetails neatly with Just’s own recent survey work. Though global in nature – as this week’s Davos agenda demonstrates (see below) – the themes in the Edelman report are especially resonant in the U.S. They will likely shape the second Trump Presidency. They also give U.S. corporations an incredible opportunity to step up and lead, not only in providing the pathways to economic security that Dr. King espoused, but to heal division and rebuild trust within society itself.
Be well,
Martin
With Davos in full swing, here are some of the biggest news stories coming from the conference:
CNBC has written an extensive summary of how CEOs are talking about the number one issue at Davos this year: AI. Coverage includes some of the biggest takeaways and quotes on which workforces the technology threatens, what regulation can help or hurt the industry, and more.
The other major theme of Davos? Growth. HP CEO Enrique Lores is optimistic about Trump administration deregulation policies and their capacity to drive growth, echoing similar comments from the CEOs of BNY, TCW Group, and more.
Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey believes global inflation will finally moderate in 2025.
The AP runs down a list of some of the largest companies announcing layoffs, including BP’s recent announcement that the company is eliminating nearly 4,700 jobs worldwide as a cost-cutting measure.
TikTok is back – for now. The Washington Posts writes on Trump’s executive order, which allows the app to function for another 70 days while searching for a U.S. buyer.
Fortune examines the trend of Gen Z creating companies and getting into self-employment at a higher rate – and earlier age – than previous generations, and what that means for the future of employment.
Reuters reports that Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon is being offered an $80 million dollar stock bonus to stay on as the head of the company for another five years.
The FTC is suing PepsiCo for allegedly giving one big-box retailer more favorable pricing than others. CNBC has the story.
Nearly 18,000 Costco workers are preparing to strike on February 1st if their new union contract demands are not met, per CBS News.
This chart comes from the Edelman Trust Barometer, and shows that employees across the world are demanding more action from businesses on affordability, climate change, retraining to adapt to technological changes, and more. Explore all the details inside.
In the last few days, massive LA wildfires have caused thousands of residents to flee their homes for safety. Accuweather is predicting that the total damage from the fire is already totaling nearly $57 billions, and is certain to grow. And while that sum is enormous, it says nothing about the lives and livelihoods lost in the destruction.
In the wake of such devastation, companies are stepping in to help out the affected communities. We’ll be updating this tracker daily over the next week as more businesses come forward to provide aid.
Here is what we have seen so far: (Updated 1/21/24)
Airbnb is working with the LA government to offer free housing to evacuees.
Amazon has pledged $10 million to disaster response groups dealing with the fires.
AT&T is offering free talk, text, and data to residents in affected billing zipcodes on Feb 6th.
Bank of America commits $1 million to the Red Cross to assist those impacted by the wildfires.
Disney is committing $15 million to immediate response and rebuilding efforts.
Fox Corporation is donating $1 million to the Red Cross for relief efforts.
Instacart is waiving delivery fees for all grocery and daily essential deliveries in affected areas.
Kroger is raising $1 million for people impacted by the fires.
Lockheed Martin is donating $1 million to Los Angeles relief and recovery efforts.
Planet Fitness gym has opened its facilities from now until Jan. 15, providing access to wi-fi, showers, facilities, and more.
Skechers gives $1 million to relief efforts.
Sweetgreen is delivering free meals to firefighters, first responders, and those displaced by the fire.
Verizon is waiving domestic call/data/text usage from until January 16th for those affected, and is deploying wi-fi and charging stations at shelters.
Uber is offering free rides of up to $40 for those evacuating, while Lyft will offer two rides up to $25 each ($50 total).
U-Haul is opening its facilities for 30-days of free self-storage to those who have to flee their homes.
Walmart is committing $2.5 million to relief efforts.
On a local level, many restaurants around LA are offering free meals to evacuees.
