K of C Named as a World's Most Ethical Company

 

The Knights of Columbus has been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute, the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as a 2015 World’s Most Ethical Company®.

The World’s Most Ethical Companies designation recognizes those organizations that have had a material impact on the way business is conducted by fostering a culture of ethics and transparency at every level of the company.

Being a two consecutive year honoree underscores the Knights of Columbus’ commitment to leading ethical business standards and practices ensuring long-term value to key stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers, regulators and investors. The Knights of Columbus is one of only three companies in the Life Insurance category honored this year.

"For more than 130 years, the Knights of Columbus has been protecting the financial future of Catholic families and providing charity to those on the margins of society,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. “That founding principle of helping those in need is at work in every aspect of our business, guiding our corporate governance, our professional agency force, our investments, and our day-to-day business operations. It is this continued commitment to our foundational, Catholic principles that is the key to our ethical, sustainable and successful business model.”

“The World’s Most Ethical Companies embrace the correlation between ethical business practice and improved company performance. These companies use ethics as a means to further define their industry leadership and understand that creating an ethical culture and earning the World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition involves more than just an outward facing message or a handful of senior executives saying the right thing,” said Ethisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Erblich. “Earning this recognition involves the collective action of a global workforce from the top down. We congratulate everyone at Knights of Columbus for this extraordinary achievement.”

The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient™ (EQ) framework developed over years of research to provide a means to assess an organization’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics. The EQ framework and methodology is determined, vetted and refined by the expert advice and insights gleaned from Ethisphere’s network of thought leaders and from the World’s Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel.

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).

The full list of the 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at http://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/.