Bord Bia Tops RepTrak Sustainability Index for 2023

Bord Bia has topped this year’s Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index 2023 with An Post taking second place and the Credit Unions taking third place.

The Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index 2023 ranks 100 of the largest companies and organisations in Ireland by the public’s perceptions of their performance across four sustainability drivers – social performance, conduct, workplace, and environmental impact –  which are then broken into a further 16 sustainability factors.

The Index is published and managed by The Reputations Agency.

Bord Bia secured the top slot after  jumping nine places in the overall rankings from tenth in 2022 to first in 2023.  The other big movers in the top ten include Kerry Group from 34th to seventh and Toyota from 25th to ninth.

According to Indec, 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, and an increase of almost 10 percentage points in the past decade, from 44% in 2013.

In 2022, 43 companies achieved a Strong score (70-79 rating) on the Index, with one company achieving an Excellent score (80+ rating), but in 2023 just 16 companies achieved a Strong score and none of the top 100 achieved an Excellent score.

The number of companies with Weak scores,meanwhile, increased from nine in 2022 to 14 in 2023 while one company received a Poor score (0-39,) whereas no company had received a Poor score in 2022. Scores decreased in part as uncertainty and financial burdens amongst the public drove reputation scores down, but also due to a more rigorous sustainability research methodology put in place in 2023.

Launching the results of the Ireland RepTrak Sustainability Index 2023, Niamh Boyle, Chief Executive, The Reputations Agency said, “In 2023 scores decreased in part 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. Scores also declined due to a more rigorous research methodology that we put in place in 2023. Important elements of the new EU CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and ESRS (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. 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’”.

 The Top 10