In our 2024 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies, we remain committed 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.
Prior to last year’s 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 amounted to three companies in our Russell 1000 universe: Uber, Lyft, and Doordash.
Beginning with last year’s 2023 Rankings, we reached out to the same qualifying companies to more accurately capture the experience for gig workers and to ensure that these companies’ scores are more reflective of their entire workforce. In our outreach to Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, we requested public company sources with information about the share of gig workers in their workforce population and the benefits/policies that are accessible to them. Using the information provided, we proportionately discounted the scores of these companies across our Workers stakeholder data points when there was no evidence that gig workers are covered by the benefits or workplace policies that are tracked in our model.
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 score corporate performance of the Russell 1000 against the priorities of the American public. Throughout the year, we monitor any unique events not captured by our current metrics that should theoretically have an effect on a company’s score and rank. Our analysts identify those events as instances resulting from a company’s actions or inactions that are: (1) considered material to just business behavior as defined by the 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, ten companies received a unique event treatment.
Our team screens possible events that fit the above criteria. The methodology involves a formal process of monitoring media coverage related to companies under consideration through platforms such as RepRisk, 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, determine the type of treatment given to the company’s 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, the screening process identified 36 incidents, which were cross referenced along geographical and legal considerations among the full Russell 1000. Independent specialists evaluated the incidents to identify events that meet JUST Capital’s definition of a unique event. From there, 10 incidents and their related companies qualified for unique event treatments and assigned one of the three treatments listed above. Further details on the screening process and evaluation criteria can be found in our 2024 Rankings Methodology.
The ten cases JUST executed the unique events protocol in the 2024 Rankings are as follows:
Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc
Hawaiian Electric is a holding company with its principal subsidiaries engaged in electric utility and banking businesses operating mainly in the State of Hawaii. In 2023, the island of Maui experienced a deadly wildfire that resulted in destroyed towns, burned homes, and killed many residents. Three lawsuits allege that power lines owned by Hawaiian Electric, the main energy provider for the state, should have shut down to avoid this outcome. Due to the alleged negligence of the company with respect to this event and the company’s response and offerings of aid to the communities affected, they received a Severe (II) treatment resulting in the lowest score for the Community Development Issue.
Norfolk Southern
Through its freight railroad subsidiary, Norfolk Southern is engaged in rail transportation and transport of overseas freight in the United States. Norfolk Southern’s train equipment in Ohio experienced a major derailment that affected the local community’s health and safety due to the hazardous contents spilled in the derailment. Upon further investigation, it was found that a pattern of negligence and disregard of safety warnings led to the derailment, according to reports by theNational Transportation Safety Board. Norfolk Southern agreed to take responsibility for the cleanup, which affected the community’s soil, air, and water. This event resulted in the implementation of a Severe (II) treatment, yielding the lowest score in the Pollution Reduction Issue in the Environment Stakeholder.
Fox Corp
Fox Corporation is a media and entertainment company that produces and distributes news, sports, and entertainment content. At least one lawsuit alleged that coverage of the 2020 Election by Fox Corporation included misleading and false information. Some shareholders allege that by not monitoring the defamation risk of these broadcasts, it opened up the company to great risk with respect to its profits and stock prices. The alleged spread of misinformation and its negative impact on shareholders of the company has resulted in a Severe (II) treatment resulting in the lowest score for the Ethical Leadership Issue.
3M Co
3M is a global technology and materials company with products in industrial, health care, electronics, energy, and consumer industries. A subsidiary of 3M, Aearo, manufactured military earplugs that did not meet the standards for protection required by the government. 3M had tried placing Aearo into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but a federal judge rejected that attempt in June, per reports.The company’s actions resulted in a Severe (II) treatment resulting in the lowest score for the Ethical Leadership Issue.
Tesla Inc
Tesla designs, develops, manufactures, and sells electric vehicles and energy storage systems along with installation, operation, and maintenance of solar and energy storage products. Tesla’s vehicle technology, specifically its driver-assistance system, has been involved in a number of crashes. This year it was found that the amount of crashes and fatalities related to the system is far higher than previously reported, which resulted in an investigation into possible fraudulent marketing, per reports Tesla recently recalled 2 million vehicles to address this technology specifically. Tesla will receive the Most Severe (III) treatment resulting in the lowest score in the Shareholders Stakeholder due to the role of company leadership in this issue.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson makes a range of health and well-being products in three business segments: Consumer, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Devices. Johnson & Johnson has been subject to lawsuits since their talc baby powder was linked to various forms of cancer. A subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, LTL Management, was formed for the express purpose of holding legal liabilities, filed for bankruptcy. A court dismissed this filing. Johnson & Johnson halted the global sale of talc powder in 2023. They received the Most Severe (III) treatment, resulting in the lowest score for the Shareholders Stakeholder.
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo is 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. Wells Fargo was found to have opened up millions of accounts without the authorization of the customers. A Wells Fargo executive pleaded guilty in 2023 to obstructing the investigation of the remediation of this fraudulent activity. The Bank’s history of labor and banking violations extended into recent findings on employee usage of personal messaging for legal matters. The Most Severe (III) treatment will be reflected by giving Wells Fargo the lowest score in the Shareholders & Governance stakeholder.
The final three cases are carried over from the unique rankings treatment in our 2023 Rankings. Altria, Meta, PG&E all received a Most Severe (III) treatment last year in our Rankings.
Altria is a manufacturer and seller of cigarettes, machine-made large cigars and pipe tobacco, smokeless tobacco products, and wine in the U.S. We assigned a substantial penalty to companies in the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) Tobacco Subsector, following results from our 2016-2019 survey research. Our survey research has consistently revealed that most Americans believe that companies that make and market tobacco products are extremely harmful, less just, and should be in the bottom quartile of JUST Capital’s Rankings. Altria receives the lowest score in the Customers stakeholder.
Meta is a social media conglomerate with billions of active users worldwide and owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, among other products. The company has faced growing reports of its involvement in the spread of misinformation, hate speech, and other discriminatory and incendiary content on its platforms. This event is reflected in the Customers stakeholder. Meta receives the lowest score in the Customers stakeholder.
PG&E is the holding company for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a public utility involved in the sale and delivery of electricity and natural gas in California. They became notorious nationwide in 2019 for the bankruptcy connected to its wildfire liabilities in California. In 2021, the state determined that PG&E’s alleged negligence sparked or contributed to regional wildfires that resulted in human deaths, widespread destruction of property, and endangerment of local communities. PG&E receives the lowest score in the Communities 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.
As part of its 2024 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, 23 companies remained the leaders of their industry, while 13 new companies moved in to take the industry leader spot this year. Below is the full list of industry leaders for 2024. 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.
This year, 32 out of the 36 industries were represented in the JUST 100: In other words, four industry leaders are not part of the JUST 100 this year, including Baker Hughes (111), CVS Health (126), eBay (143), and Cummins (123).
Though there are 32 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 Semiconductors & Equipment industries rank, on average, the highest at 320 and 341, respectively. When breaking industry average rank down by the five Stakeholders, we find that:
Companies in the Restaurants & Leisure and Food, Beverage & Tobacco industries saw some of the largest average gains in rank, rising 115 and 82 ranks, respectively. Companies in the Consumer & Diversified Finance and Banks industries saw the biggest average declines, dropping 118 and 88 ranks, respectively.
For more information on our Rankings, to engage with us on our corporate initiatives, please reach out to us.
We are proud to release our JUST 100 list, in partnership with CNBC, today as part of the 2024 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. Each year, we take our polling of what the American public most prioritizes when it comes to just business behavior – including paying a fair, living wage, creating jobs in the U.S., and supporting workforce retention and training – and see how the largest public corporations in the United States stack up.
This year, out of the 937 companies we ranked based on their performance across stakeholders, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) tops the list for the first time, with Bank of America, Accenture, Intel, Citigroup, Cigna Group, Ecolab, Elevance Health, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Micron Technology rounding out the top 10.
We believe that business can play a role in creating an economy that works for all Americans, and that the evidence shows the best way to build and run a great business comes through a stakeholder-focused approach. Here are some ways that all stakeholders – workers, communities, customers, the environment, and shareholders and governance – are linked, as shown through outperformance of JUST 100 companies.
As of January 25, 2024, The JUST 100 Index (JUONE) that tracks the top 100 ranked companies outperformed the R1000 Equal Weighted Index by 38.4% since inception.
For this year’s Rankings, our survey research team asked a representative sample of 3,001 Americans to prioritize which Issues matter most. The following chart, pulled from our 2023 Issues Report, shows the probability that an individual would choose an Issue as most important to defining a just company, and serves as the weighting for this year’s Rankings.
Over the last seven years, Worker Issues have consistently commanded the highest share of priority among the 20 stakeholder-related issues we measure, and this year is no different. As you can see, four of the five Worker Issues – including paying a fair, living wage, supporting workforce training, protecting worker health and safety, and providing benefits and work-life balance – are among the top six priorities of the public, and the collective prioritization of all five worker issues comprise 42% of a company’s score this year.
And despite the ongoing political polarization in the U.S., Americans are united when it comes to just business behavior. Among every demographic group – liberal, conservative, high-income, low-income, men, women, young generations, older generations, and white, Black, and Hispanic Americans – the Workers stakeholder is the top priority. And for nearly all of these demographic groups, the most important Issue is “Pays workers fairly and offers a living wage that covers the cost of basic needs at the local level,” which comprises a significant 17.7% of companies’ scores in this year’s Rankings.
The second-highest ranked Worker issue, “Focuses on workforce retention and employee advancement by providing training, education, and career development opportunities,” now comprises 8.3% of a company’s score. In the past two years, we’ve seen the issue of retention and advancement steadily increase in importance among the public. It’s important to note that this increase occurs alongside the rapid evolution and adoption of AI by many employers, bringing fears of how his technology could replace, or diminish, certain jobs.
This year is HPE’s first time in the top spot, after being recognized as a JUST 100 leader every year from 2018 through 2024. HPE’s standout leadership on issues like having verified SBTi 1.5-degree Net Zero commitment, providing apprenticeship programs for caregivers and the formerly incarcerated, and ensuring both women and people of color earn 100% of what similarly situated peers earn, helped propel its performance.
CNBC will delve into the data, highlighting trends and spotlighting corporate performance stories about this year’s JUST 100 leaders across the network’s broadcast and digital platforms at cnbc.com/just100. Tune into Squawk Box at 8:15am EST on Feb. 5 to see our co-founder and chairman, Paul Tudor Jones join HPE CEO Antonio Neri, interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin.
“Rebuilding Trust” is the official theme of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Trust in what? you might ask. Trust in business and capitalism? Trust in the WEF itself? In fact, we’re talking about trust in the broadest sense – trust in “the future, within societies and among nations” – and the basics on which it is built, including “transparency, consistency and accountability.”
Judging from the notable moments so far – Jamie Dimon on Trump, Javier Milei on socialism, Marc Benioff on AI, the WTO’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Red Sea trade disruptions – it seems to me that trust, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder.
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, released this week, sheds light on specific trends in trust overall. Researchers note a gradual decline of trust in authority over the past decade, particularly in developed democracies, with governments viewed as being far less competent and ethical than business. There’s also a dearth of trust in leaders overall, with over 60% believing government, business and journalist leaders are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or grossly exaggerated.
The good news for business is that it is still the most trusted institution, and CEOs are still the most trusted leadership group. Interestingly, business is also the most trusted institution to introduce new innovations into society in safe, beneficial and accessible ways (presumably AI is included in this). Consistent with JUST’s own research, safeguarding jobs and taking a stand on emerging ethical concerns were identified as being the standout issues.
In less than one month, we’ll be unveiling our 2024 JUST 100 and spotlighting which U.S. corporations are doing the best job on these and other critical societal issues. Please get in touch if you’re interested in engaging more deeply with our work!
Be well,
Martin
“Artificial intelligence will be more ‘transformational than the mobile phone.’ It will be everywhere and we have to adapt to it and we have to be trained how to use it … It’s not something that we should be afraid of, even if there will be a few years where the adaptation of AI may create some job destruction, but all in all AI will be a good thing for humanity.”
One of the major themes coming out of Davos this week is how generative AI will impact corporations around the world. CEOs are already feeling the pressure – this week AP News highlights a new survey by PwC which reveals that 45% of CEOs don’t believe their companies will be around in 10 years without a major overhaul due to the rapid growth of AI.
Bill Gates remains an optimist on AI’s effects on jobs and the economy. In his latest interview with CNN, he states, “As we had [with] agricultural productivity in 1900, people were like ‘Hey, what are people going to do?’ In fact, a lot of new things, a lot of new job categories were created and we’re way better off than when everybody was doing farm work.” Google’s SVP of Research, Technology, and and Society feels the same, but says, “people understand that AI will disrupt their lives–but they hope it’s for the better. We must not let them down.”
This week, The Financial Times reports that PwC has dropped some of its diversity targets and ended race-based eligibility criteria for a student internship program and several scholarships, and the New York Times reports that many corporations are rebranding their DEI efforts in anticipation of more pushback. Roy Swan, leader of the Ford Foundation’s Mission Investments team, takes to Fortune on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to decry the “bad-faith reverse discrimination claims” currently being aimed at universities and corporations.
Face-time matters – and we’re not talking about zoom calls. Fortune highlights a study that despite there being no meaningful difference in work output, workers that show up in-person at a company are being promoted at a far higher rate than their hybrid counterparts.
NBC News reports on the death of Lincoln University’s VP of Student Affairs Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey, who died by suicide weeks after family members say she told them her relationship with the university’s president had deteriorated. Candia-Bailey’s death is sparking much conversation on LinkedIn on race and gender, workplace culture, and respect in the professional world.
Fortune’s Executive Editor Peter Vanham writes about how climate talks and global health issues took a backseat at Davos, while concerns over war and geopolitical risk and AI dominated conversations. CNBC’s recap expressed similar themes.
A new study published on Harvard Law School’s website shows that just over 75% of S&P 500 companies now embed some type of ESG metric into their leadership compensation policies, per 2023 data, compared to about 66% in 2021.
In MIT Sloan’s Management Review, Lynda Gratton, a professor of management practice at London Business School, revisited predictions she made about work and business 15 years ago. She discusses her thoughts on worker sentiment, leadership traits, and more here.
This chart comes from the recently released 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, highlighting the fact that for the majority of people, business remains the only trusted institution after years of eroding faith in others. Read the full report for more info on what Edelman calls the overall “decline of authority.”
Recruitment and retention remain key challenges corporate leaders faced this year. Against a backdrop of unionization drives, strikes, return-to-office plans, and AI evolution, workers are continuing to ask for what they want in a good job and are willing to voice their discontent – or find another role – if they feel overlooked. One central component they’re seeking? Opportunity. A majority of workers expect employers to prioritize advancement, career development, and skills-building – but too many executives are not following through.
JUST Capital’s polling of the American public consistently finds that Americans want to see investment in creating quality jobs that lead to opportunities for the workforce from companies. Americans we polled across party lines overwhelmingly agree that it’s a company’s responsibility to create quality jobs by providing clear career pathways to job opportunities with higher pay (83%) and regularly increasing wages to keep up with the rapidly rising cost of living (87%).
Investing in workers also makes operational sense for businesses. Research shows that when employers give workers learning opportunities in the workplace, they’re less likely to leave. Similar findings highlight that “employment capital” – non-wage components of work like benefits and career advancement prospects – are important to job quality and economic security. JUST data also finds that companies with better disclosure and performance on human capital issues don’t suffer financial consequences beyond short-term profit maximization and tend to outperform their Russell 1000 peers.
When companies invest in their employees’ careers and provide opportunities for advancement within and beyond the company, it’s something to celebrate. At JUST, we firmly believe in the importance of elevating business leadership on the issues of importance to the American people. It’s why we’ve been excited to partner on the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative, create Rankings that track performance on the issues that matter most in defining just business behavior, and highlight the state of disclosure on key workers metrics. It’s also why we’re excited to partner with The American Opportunity Index, which assesses economic mobility and opportunity generation for American workers at some of the largest employers in the country. The Index highlights leaders in real-world outcomes for workers. But what are companies doing to create the conditions that lead to those opportunity outcomes for workers?
JUST Capital is partnering with the Schultz Family Foundation and the American Opportunity Index to connect the dots on how corporate policies translate to real-world outcomes for workers.
In a series of leadership spotlights, we’ll lift up examples of corporate policies and performance, tracked in JUST Capital’s forthcoming JUST Jobs Scorecard, that respond to the American public’s expectations of business today and create the positive outcomes for workers assessed in the Index. This work will serve as an opportunity to learn from leaders about their company’s journey, challenges, and successes in creating opportunity in the workplace. It will illuminate how strategic inputs – commonly disclosed workplace policies – can serve as actionable catalysts for economic opportunity and overall job quality.
The Index assesses how well companies are investing in their workforce to drive business performance and individual employee growth by focusing on worker outcomes, i.e., the level of opportunity workers achieve within the company and beyond. And to understand what’s behind these leaders’ success, we must also look at the policies and practices in place that create an environment in which opportunities for workers to thrive exist.
The series of spotlights on leaders’ policies and practices aims to offer guidance on specific actions that companies can take to drive opportunity and mobility for their workers. It will highlight key practices from JUST Capital’s JUST Jobs Scorecard that yield the impacts measured in the American Opportunity Index. Insights from the forthcoming JUST Jobs Scorecard and the recently released Index can be used together to understand what policies and practices – or inputs – create conditions for opportunity outcomes – or outputs. These tools together offer a look at the corporate journey from policy to outcome and can be helpful in informing job quality and worker strategy.
At JUST Capital, our understanding of companies’ stakeholder performance is grounded in recognizing crucial inputs that lay the foundation for desired outcomes. These inputs, such as pay equity policies and apprenticeship programs, form the basis of our analysis and align with the Index’s five performance areas.
As we establish this connection, it becomes imperative to pinpoint key inputs, or policies, that companies should prioritize when shaping and investing in their workers to influence the outcomes tracked by the Index. Companies can view these inputs as potential actions to adopt, in turn creating the conducive conditions necessary to foster more opportunity for their workers. By strategically implementing and emphasizing these policies, companies can shape a work environment that not only meets performance standards, but also enhances overall job quality and opens up avenues for professional growth and development.
As we delve into upcoming leadership spotlights, there is a valuable opportunity for companies to glean insights and enhance their performance in terms of job quality, influencing the real-world experiences of countless workers. We encourage companies to actively engage with the Index, understanding their own strengths and growth areas, while keeping an eye out for the JUST Jobs Scorecard in early 2024 to delve into specific data details around policies and practices.
For more information on the American Opportunity Index, JUST Jobs Scorecard, our partnership, or more, please reach out to corpengage@justcapital.com.
