CSR Ratings Trends: Does No Change Mean No Change?

Feb 21, 2012 9:30 AM ET

 By Bahar Gidwani 

This post is part two of a two part series. Read part one >>

We recently published a chart that shows that the CSR performance of the roughly 5,000 companies in the CSRHub database has been remarkably stable over time. In fact, the average overall rating for the past 16 months has stayed between 47.4 and 48.7 on our 0 to 100 scale. (Note that all ratings mentioned here were estimated using our CSRHub average user profile. The results might be slightly different under different user rating profiles.)

Is this stability real or is it an artifact of the way we generate our ratings?  We have checked our approach and believe it is real. However, we also believe ratings groups have a responsibility to be transparent about their processes. Therefore, we will share with you some of the details of our analysis.

First, we wondered if we had no change in our average rating, because there was no change in our individual ratings. If all or almost all of our company scores are the same each month, it would be natural for the average to remain unchanged.

To read more on CSRHub's ratings analysis, click here >>