World's Most Ethical Companies Named

The Ethisphere Institute released its list of "The World's Most Ethical Companies." This year's 144 honorees represent 41 industries and include 21 first-time honorees. This year, Ethisphere is honoring the largest group of organizations based outside the U.S., including 38 organizations from 21 countries and five continents.

The World's Most Ethical (WME) Companies designation recognizes companies that go beyond making statements about doing business "ethically" and translate those words into action. WME honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, but also exceed legal compliance minimums, and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today.

The scoring is based on five sets of criteria, including ethics and compliance programs, reputation, leadership and innovation, governance, corporate citizenship and responsibility, and a culture of ethics. The complete list of honorees is available here.

The Ethisphere Institute is an independent center of research, best practices and thought leadership that promotes best practices in corporate ethics and compliance, and enables organizations to improve governance, mitigate risk and enhance relationships with employees, business partners, investors and the broad regulatory community.