Rio Tinto website outstanding for CSR

Rio Tinto has come third in a new UK ranking of the best online communicators of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and fourth in the equivalent global study.

Energy and natural resources firms dominated the top of the rankings in the latest CSR Online Awards 'UK 2009' and 'Global Leaders 2009' Awards.

The new study of online CSR communications was conducted by communications consultancy Lundquist and published on 4 December in PRWeek. It revealed how Britain's largest companies perform in communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the internet.

With the aim of stimulating debate about the importance of the web as a strategic tool for corporate responsibility, the study evaluated how well the 30 largest companies in the FTSE 100 Index by market cap use their corporate websites as a platform for CSR communication. Rio Tinto came third.

A larger study for the CSR Online Awards 'Global Leaders 2009' ranking covered 91 members of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Rio Tinto came fourth.

Each website was assessed using a set of 76 evaluation criteria, drawn up on the basis of a survey conducted by Lundquist of 184 CSR professionals and sector experts from 30 different countries.

Lundqhist said most of the companies studied provide a sufficient range of pertinent information online, although a significant minority fails to go beyond communication of basic content.

The average score was 49.3 points out of 100: websites performed best in providing environmental and community information and CSR/sustainability reports. They were weakest at providing news and events, interactivity, information on socially responsible investment (SRI) and contact information.

In general, companies were stronger in online presentation (average score of 55 per cent) than in CSR content (48 per cent).