January 10, 2023
We are proud to announce the 2023 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies, led by the JUST 100, in collaboration with CNBC. Each year, we take our polling of what the American public most prioritizes when it comes to just business behavior and see how the largest public corporations in the United States stack up. It’s a massive undertaking fueled by tens of thousands of hours of work over the last year from each and every staff member at JUST Capital.
This year, out of the 951 companies we ranked based on their performance across stakeholders, Bank of America tops the list for the first time, with NVIDIA, Microsoft, Accenture, Truist, Verizon, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Apple, Intel, and JPMorgan Chase rounding out the top 10.
You can explore the complete Rankings, with detailed breakdowns for each stakeholder metric, on our site, and find links to CNBC’s multimedia coverage at cnbc.com/just100, also showcased at the bottom of this report.
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 December 30, 2022, our JUST 100 Index (JUONE) that tracks the top 100 ranked companies outperformed the Russell 1000 by 13.3% since inception.
For this year’s Rankings, our survey research team asked a representative sample of 3,002 Americans to prioritize which Issues matter most. The following chart, pulled from our 2022 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 44% 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 each 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 21.2% of companies’ scores in this year’s Rankings.
As more industries implement layoffs and fears of a 2023 recession loom, it’s also important to note that the second most important issue that powered significant shifts in the rankings model is “creating jobs in the U.S. and providing employment opportunities for communities that need them.”
We have made enhancements to the way we measure a company’s performance on the top priority of the public – paying a fair, living wage – with the help of our data partner Revelio, that drove significant shifts in the Rankings this year including a new minimum wage disclosure data point and new assessments on living wage, wages compared to industry peers, CEO-to-median worker pay, and more.
This year’s Rankings are led by Bank of America, the first bank to ever top the list, because they’ve been a trailblazer on worker issues (1st in industry and 1st overall). Bank of America raised its minimum wage to $22 an hour and committed to $25 an hour by 2025. It’s invested millions in career development and tuition assistance, offers 16 weeks of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers, and provides flexible work scheduling and backup dependent care. It is one of 14% of companies to conduct and release the results of its pay equity analysis, and also discloses detailed workforce demographic data by race and gender. The bank is also a strong environmental performer (1st in its industry and 6th overall) and has committed to reaching Net-Zero across its financing activities, operations, and supply chain by 2050, a goal that just 19% of companies in the Banks industry, and 32% of Russell 1000 companies overall, are committed to.
As an industry, Banks made significant gains this year because they categorically outperformed on worker issues, especially in transparency over wage data, pay equity, and commitments to larger national minimum wages than peers. Banks also saw an average Ranking increase of 134 in the “Creates jobs in the U.S.” Issue, the second-highest-weighted of the model (11.1%). Banks are consistently in the top third of our Rankings when it comes to U.S. job numbers and they also have the highest number of companies with second chance/reentry policies, four of which are in the JUST 100.
Overall, transparency continues to improve in key areas. Year over year we saw increases in disclosure of 10 percentage points or more in diversity metrics (e.g. pay analysis by race and gender, and board disclosure race and gender), as well as environmental metrics (e.g., emissions, renewable energy use, total energy use).
This year we also developed a new way of factoring gig workers into a company’s Workers score, and penalized six companies for unique events. Download our Methodology to explore other updates to the model this year.
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, TechCheck, and Closing Bellover the next month to hear from CEOs of JUST 100 companies including Bank of America, Microsoft, Accenture, Verizon, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, VMWare, and more. Our co-founder and chairman, Paul Tudor Jones, will be joining Andrew Ross Sorkin and T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert on Squawk Box to kick off the coverage this morning at 8:15 a.m. EST.
There’s a lot to unpack, and we hope you enjoy exploring the list and all the coverage to come on CNBC.
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, the six companies that received a unique event treatment are Wells Fargo, Uber, Boeing, Altria, Meta, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).
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 42 companies, which were cross referenced along geographical and legal considerations among the full Russell 1000. Independent specialists evaluated a total of 18 incidents to identify events that meet JUST Capital’s definition of a unique event. From there, six 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 2023 Rankings Methodology.
The six cases JUST executed the unique events protocol in the 2023 Rankings are as follows:
The first 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. We assigned a Serious (I) treatment to Wells Fargo due to news of the company conducting fake job interviews for women and people of color. Wells Fargo has since suspended the hiring policy that allowed for this behavior. The company will receive the lowest score in the Employee Discrimination Controversies Metric within our Workers stakeholder, resulting in a rank of 42. On December 20, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau confirmed Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1.7 billion in penalties and another $2 billion in damages to settle claims that it engaged in an array of banking violations that harmed millions of consumers. While there are several customer-related controversies captured in our Ranking model this year – including discriminatory lending practices against minorities, illegal account openings without knowledge or consent of customers, irresponsible sale of inverse and leveraged ETFs, and a rate-fixing scheme linked to variable-rate demand obligations – Wells Fargo does not receive an additional unique event treatment for the most recent customer-related fines and penalties because the case was settled outside of our tracking window.
Second, Uber, a company offering ride sharing, meal delivery, and logistics services for customers across the world, will receive a Severe (II) treatment. This is due to business practices that included efforts to specifically undermine taxi driver’s rights in the process of expanding its business. Uber receives the lowest score in the Community Development Issue in our Communities stakeholder, and sits at a rank of 505.
The third instance applies to Boeing, one of the world’s major aerospace companies that develops and produces commercial airplanes, military aircraft, space and satellite systems, and intelligence and security systems. One of Boeing’s airplanes, the 737 Max, experienced two fatal crashes within six months of each other in 2018-2019 – one of which occurred after the company assured the plane was safe despite knowing the plane’s flight control system posed an ongoing safety concern. Boeing has since replaced its CEO and settled charges with the SEC for misleading the public regarding the safety of its product. Boeing receives a Severe (II) treatment and the lowest score in the Customer Experience Issue, with a rank of 245.
The final three cases are carried over from the unique rankings treatment in our 2022 Rankings. Altria, Meta, and PG&E all received a Most Severe (III) treatment last year in our Rankings. We have placed all three of these companies at the same rank of 710th.
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 – and that it was aware of these issues and has failed to address them. This event is reflected in the Customers stakeholder. Meta receives the lowest score in the Customers stakeholder.
PG&E is a utility company that became notorious nationwide in 2019 for the bankruptcy connected to its wildfire liabilities in California. In 2021, the state determined that PG&E’s continued negligence sparked or contributed to extreme regional wildfires that resulted in human deaths, widespread destruction of property, and endangerment of local communities. PG&E receives the lowest score in the Environment 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.
For our 2023 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies, we have removed the “Under Review” designation for Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash implemented during our 2022 Rankings.
We used this label last year to acknowledge and flag challenges in assessing how companies treat their entire workforce based on publicly available data. We selected these three companies specifically due to the centrality of gig workers to their business model and their self-identification as members of the Flex Association.
This year, to more accurately capture the experience for gig workers at Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash and to ensure that these companies’ scores are more reflective of their entire workforce, we reached out to the companies and requested public company sources with information about the share of gig workers 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, is not yet done, but we believe this new approach is a step in the right direction. Our team will continue working on refining our methodology to ensure that we best capture companies’ commitment to all their workers.
