The sustainability rankings of many of the country's most recognisable organisations have taken a hit over the past year, as a result of growing scrutiny of their activities, a new index has found.
The Ireland Reptrak Sustainability Index 2023 was carried out by the Reputations Agency.
It ranks large businesses and other bodies, based on the views of more than 5,550 members of the public here.
The survey took place over two months earlier this year and the results were calculated using 16 indicators of sustainability across environmental impact, social performance, conduct and workplace.
Among the 100 organisations rated, Bord Bia came out on top, having risen nine places since last year.
An Post came in second, with Credit Unions in third.
Other big movers in the top ten included Kerry Group, which moved from 34th position to seventh, while Toyota went from 25th to ninth.
Three of the big media players in the Irish market saw big improvements to their rankings within the top 100 as Bauer Media Group jumped from 65th to 23rd, the Irish Times moved from 64th to 32nd and Mediahuis climbed from 91st to 45th.
While RTE did improve its ranking from 92nd to 88th, the broadcaster posted a weak sustainability score.
X - formerly Twitter - was at the bottom of the table, with Ryanair, An Bord Pleanála, the HSE, the FAI and Meta making up the bottom six.
Today's report show that sustainability is increasing in importance in the eyes of consumers with 53% of a company’s reputation being driven by sustainability factors up from 51% in 2022.
This marked an increase of almost 10 percentage points in the past decade, from 44% in 2013.
It also reveals that last year 43 companies achieved a Strong score (70-79 rating) on the index, with one company achieving an Excellent score (80+ rating).
But this year just 16 companies achieved a Strong score and none of the top 100 achieved an Excellent score.
The number of companies with Weak scores increased from nine in 2022 to 14 in 2023 while one company (X - formerly Twitter) received a Poor score (0-39,) while no company had received a Poor score in 2022.
Niamh Boyle, chief executive of The Reputations Agency, said this year's scores decreased parlyt due to concerns about war in Ukraine, international food supplies, the energy crisis, inflation, interest rate hikes and early year shocks to the global banking sector.
She also said that scores declined due to a more rigorous research methodology that was put in place in 2023.
"Important elements of the new EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and European Sustainability Reporting Standards were included in this year's study, increasing the number of Sustainability factors that we measured from nine to 16 in 2023," the CEO said.
"Of the 16 sustainability factors that we studied, we found that the four most important elements driving corporate reputation amongst the public are 'improving the lives of people and their communities', 'having a positive influence on society’, ‘being fair in the way they do business’ and ‘behaving ethically'," she added.
