+ Corporate Engagement on Racial Justice
Since 2020, the Racial Justice Initiative has developed Racial Justice Scorecards on the Large-Cap 3000, to monitor publicly available information on key actions related to racial equity, diversity, and inclusion disclosure and policies, and environmental justice. The Racial Justice Scorecards are an educational tool with guidelines that assist a variety of stakeholders in understanding and gauging corporate progress on racial equity and environmental justice. Companies, investors, consumers, and other stakeholders actively use our work to make policy, financial, and personal decisions.
As shareholder advocates, we educate and motivate companies to examine implicit biases built within their systems by engaging directly with public companies. The Racial Justice Scorecards serve as the backbone of our corporate engagement strategy and our key performance indicators (KPIs) are evaluation guidelines which track and monitor corporate progress.
Our data is thoroughly quality-checked, with a transparent methodology available on our website. The data is updated quarterly, giving companies we engage with the opportunity to improve real time, as well as annually- with an intensive research update occurring each year.
+ Racial Justice Scorecards: Quarterly Update Key Findings as of March 31st, 2025
View our Racial Justice Scorecard Data Visualization Tool
- During this year’s research, no clear indication has been found that companies have stopped the usage of the term “ESG” on their website or as part of their reporting. However, many companies no longer label their annual ESG data disclosure “ESG Report” but instead opt for – often colorful – alternatives: Do More Good Report, Sail and Sustain Report, Stewardship Report, Health for Humanity Report, Responsible Business Practices Report, Snacking Made Right Report, Comfort Report, to mention a few.
- Since 2020, only a very small number of companies (32) conducted a racial equity audit and/or released their findings. Only 5 reports were released in 2024, none in 2025 so far.
- A third of the Large-Cap 3000 companies (1003) have some kind of Employee Resource Group (also referred to as Affinity/ Business/ Colleague/ Resource Group or Network) for BIPOC employees. However, we also found that some companies that previously mentioned each of their ERGs by name now only mention the overall number of groups, without disclosing their actual make-up.
- A number of companies (1103) require or offer some form of DEI training – either for all employees (629 companies) or at least for a certain group of employees (472 companies) – with the majority of companies simply calling it “anti-discrimination” training, while others emphasize “diversity”, “inclusion”, or “unconscious bias”.
- Despite the recent discussions around DEI, the percentage of companies in the Large-Cap 3000 with initiatives, programs, and policies that would typically fall under the purview of a DEI department has remained at around 65%.
- DEI leaders hired in late 2020 and 2021 were predominantly in executive positions. We have seen a gradual decline since then, with 277 companies having a C-Suite employee as its DEI leader in March 2024 compared to only 175 companies in March 2025. Another trend is the renaming of “DEI” to “Employee Engagement”, “Culture”, Talent Acquisition” and “Belonging”.
- The number of companies with a diverse supplier program has decreased from 25% to 22%.
- Only 130 of the Large-Cap 3000 companies state that they support, or partner with, a civil rights organization.
- Only 93 of the Large-Cap 3000 companies publicly recognized, or made statements, regarding environmental and/ or climate justice in relation to their business practices.
- 524 of the Large-Cap 3000 companies have between 1 and 25 environmental violations since 2020.
- Only four companies, Chevron Corp., Lowe’s Companies Inc., The Home Depot Inc., and United Parcel Services Inc., have more than 100 environmental violations each since 2020.
- Only one company, McDonald’s, received the lowest possible score for having disproportionate effects on BIPOC communities.
- Of the Large-Cap 3000 companies, 145 companies have a total score that is less than zero, meaning that they do more harm to communities of color than they make up for with positive policies and practices. The majority of the low scorers are in the Industrials sector.
