Benchmarking sustainability for the electronics industry: The Dow Jones Sustainability Group Indexes

Public awareness toward sustainability that includes traditional economic, environmental and social factors is increasing. Such awareness reflects changes and trends in the society, for example, changes in the social structures, concerns for ecological systems, technological innovation, and economic development. In order to respond to these trends, companies need to integrate environmental and social values into their fundamental business operations. It allows them to make differentiation from the competitors, to explore new opportunities in business, and to increase competitive advantage. In a consequence, they can create additional shareholder value in terms of sustainability and profit. The Swiss based SAM Sustainability Group together with Dow Jones, the world's leading indexes supplier, has recently launched the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index (DJSGI). The new index consists of about 225 sustainability leader companies selected from the 2000 global blue chips represented in the Dow Jones Global Index. Regarding the criteria of sustainability, only the top 10% companies of some 77 sectors qualify for the DJSGI. Historical back-tracking shows the outstanding performance of the concept: From January 1993 to April 2000 the DJSGI rose by 172% compared to DJGI's 116% performance in the same period.