The Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility Ratings for the Largest Russian Arctic Companies

Introduction. The large mining companies are actively engaged in economic activities in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation in connection with the declared course for the socio-economic development of the territories. Such activities may have negative consequences for the environment and local populations. Therefore, the corporate social and environmental responsibility policy of such companies is becoming increasingly popular. There are various ratings to measure it, the results of which are sometimes contradictory. The scientific problem and relevance of the chosen topic are presented by the reasons for the contradictory results of a comparative analysis of data of authoritative Russian ratings of twenty companies operating in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation for the last years. The novelty of the work lies in the development of recommendations for improving rating methods.
Methods and materials. The study used document analysis, comparative analysis, case-study, generalization and synthesis. The empirical base is represented by by-laws of the Russian Federation, company reports, data from the websites of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, rating agencies and the considered companies.
Results. The corporate social and environmental responsibility activities of a number of Arctic companies were analyzed based on information from company websites and published sustainability reports. The reasons for the discrepancies in the rating results have been identified; they lie in the differences in the methods used to analyze and evaluate the indicators of corporate social and environmental responsibility of Arctic companies. Recommendations for improving the methods of the reviewed ratings have been developed.
Discussion and Conclusions. The obtained results allow us to conclude that a comprehensive picture of the ranking of companies based on their policies in the area of corporate social and environmental responsibility hasn't been formed. The ratings take into account different criteria and don't take into account many unique to the Arctic indicators, so resulting in inconsistencies in company assessments, which leads to a lack of confidence in the ratings results. We think that developing a new rating of Russian Arctic companies based on the proposed recommendations will help resolve this problem.