Ethical, Social and Environmental Standards and Practices of Microsoft

Corporate Social Responsibility and its monitoring by governments, activists and the media have incorporated CSR into the daily activity of companies which desire to remain competitive in today’s market.

“Microsoft Wins 'Most Ethical' Award--Google, Facebook, Apple Don't Make The List” was the headline of Huffington Post and according to Ethisphere Institute, the award is presented to those companies who lead their industry in the ethics and compliance programs. The companies evaluated span several industries, from food to banking industries. A few examples of other companies that made the 110 most ethical list are Adobe, Cisco, eBay and Symantec. Companies are analyzed based on corporate social responsibility, citizenship, governance, innovation, social contribution and many others factors.

Ethisphere is an institution that entitles itself as the following:
“The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. We have a deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere believes integrity and transparency impact the public trust and the bottom line of any organization.”

Microsoft started to make a big "corporate citizenship" push in the early 2000s following the negative fallout from its antitrust trials, and has since donated millions to non-profits, invested in programs for economic development, and tightened up its internal reporting processes. All of this was apparently enough to get the company on the list this year. Yet, that has not always been the case.