ABB, the power and automation technology group, has been named by the Ethisphere Institute, an independent research center promoting best practices in corporate ethics and governance, to its 2014 list of the world’s most ethical companies.

This is the second consecutive year that ABB has been recognized by the Institute, which acknowledges organizations that continue to raise the bar on ethical leadership and corporate behavior. According to Ethisphere, honorees understand the correlation between ethics, reputation and daily interactions with their brand.“We are once again very pleased with the progress we have made in ethical leadership in our business processes and our organization,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “Ethical leadership is key to ABB’s long-term success and we are therefore very proud that Ethisphere recognizes this.”

“We want to integrate ethical leadership deep into our organization. Our integrity program relies on local management to lead by example,” Diane de Saint Victor, ABB General Counsel and member of the Executive Committee, added. “All local managers have to take responsibility for ethical leadership and corporate behavior to ensure that the ethics message comes from the same person that sets the business targets.”

The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based on the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient framework, which has been developed over years to provide a means to assess an organization’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics. The Ethics Quotient framework and methodology was determined, vetted and refined by the expert advice and insights gleaned from Ethisphere’s network of thought leaders and from the World’s Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel. 

“The entire community of the World’s Most Ethical Companies believe that customers, employees, investors and regulators place a high premium on trust and that ethics and good governance are key in earning it,” said Ethisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Erblich. “ABB joins an exclusive community committed to driving performance through leading business practices. We congratulate everyone at ABB for this extraordinary achievement.”

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (25%), reputation, leadership and innovation (20%), governance (10%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (25%) and culture of ethics (20%).