Tom Stieghorst
Carnival Corp. has been recognized for its model citizenship by a publication that tracks corporate behavior, another step in its image rehabilitation that began after the 2013 Carnival Triumph fire.
The acclaim comes from Corporate Responsibility magazine, which put Carnival on its latest list of Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens.
Now you might wonder how many people can be reading a magazine called Corporate Responsibility, but in fact it is just one of a dozen or so magazines and newsletters on the general topic.
There are nearly 20,000 subscribers to Corporate Responsibility, which is read by company board members, auditors, risk managers, corporate lawyers and a small army of other compliance officials.
All of which is to say that corporate governance is big business. Keeping companies on the safe side of legal issues that attract the attention of regulators and gadflies can save them tons of money.
So it means something that Carnival wound up #23 on the list. That put it ahead of some oft-praised travel and tourism companies such as Southwest Airlines (#33), Walt Disney Co. (#39) and Marriott International (#62).
The Top 100 score is comprised of sub-ratings in various categories. Carnival ranked as high as #12 in employee relations and as low as #122 in financial performance. It scored 23rd out of the 100 in corporate governance and 119th for philanthropy.
It also ranked #16 in environmental stewardship, an area in which it has been working hard but also one that could be its downfall in next year's rankings.
On Dec. 1, 2016, Carnival pleaded guilty to criminal pollution charges and agreed to pay a $40 million fine after employees from its Princess Cruises brand dumped oily waste water from a bypass pipe meant to evade pollution sensors.
It's hard to tell if this is reflected in the ranking. An effort to seek comment from the magazine wasn't successful. However, five companies that would have made the list (DuPont, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Merck and Johnson & Johnson) were disqualified, the magazine noted, for a range of missteps, mostly civil charges or settlements of lawsuits alleging wrongdoing.
None were related to criminal charges. So it's hard to imagine that the Princess lapse is reflected in Carnival's spot on the current list, or that it won't affect its standing in next year's edition.
Which is a shame, because on so many measures Carnival is doing well by doing good. To read the full list of companies on Corporate Responsibility's Top 100 list, click here.