Avangrid Ranks First Among Utilities on 2024 JUST 100

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02/05/2024 - 09:05 AM

Only list to recognize America’s corporate leaders on business issues prioritized by the public

Avangrid ranks 12 overall, earning top marks on ethical leadership, climate change, customer treatment and more

ORANGE, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company and member of the Iberdrola Group, today was recognized for the fourth consecutive year on the annual JUST 100—a list of America’s best corporate citizens published by JUST Capital and its media partner CNBC. This year Avangrid earned the top rank among utilities, up from second in 2023, and improved its overall ranking to 12, up from 45 in 2023, for its commitment to serving its workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders.

To receive the number one ranking in the utility industry, Avangrid earned leading scores on key issues, such as human rights, community development, ethical leadership, customer treatment, transparent communication, beneficial products, climate change, workforce advancement, and sustainable materials.

“It is a huge honor to earn the leading rank among utilities in this year’s JUST 100,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO. “Every day, our team comes to work ready to serve our customers, communities and stakeholders in an ethical and just way. This recognition is a testament to that dedication across our organization—from human resources and procurement to customer service and communications. The entire Avangrid team puts our core values into practice daily.”

The JUST 100 Rankings are the only measure of how the nation’s largest corporations are performing on the business issues that matter most to Americans. The issues – which include paying a fair, living wage, creating jobs in the U.S., supporting workforce retention and training, providing benefits and work-life balance, protecting customer privacy, minimizing pollution, and more – are defined annually by an extensive nationwide polling process done on a fully representative basis. The top 100 companies – the JUST 100 – are determined by scoring performance across the full range of criteria and comparing companies head-to-head.

JUST Capital is an independent nonprofit that demonstrates how just business – defined by the priorities of the public – is better business. JUST Rankings reveal which companies are doing the best job of creating value for their stakeholders, and consistently show that the companies that score best also outperform their peers financially.

Compared to their Russell 1000 peers, companies in the JUST 100 on average:

Pay 11.8 percentage points more of their workers a family sustaining living wage (78.3%).
Provide 7.2 more hours of career development training per employee.
Offer 2 more weeks of paid parental leave for both primary caregivers and secondary caregivers.
Intake 99% less water per revenue dollar.
Emitted 42% less metric tons of CO2 per revenue dollar.
Used 29.6 percentage points more renewable energy as a proportion of their total energy use.
Have a 4% higher profit margin, 2.9% higher return on equity, and 1.2% higher dividend yield.

“American capitalism has to work for more Americans. For this to happen, the private sector, and especially big corporations, must take the lead in creating value for all their stakeholders,” said JUST Capital CEO Martin Whittaker. “That’s exactly what the JUST 100 are doing. They show that just business is better business.”

For the annual Rankings, JUST Capital collects and analyzes corporate data to evaluate the 1,000 largest public U.S. companies across 20 Issues identified through comprehensive, ongoing public opinion research on Americans’ attitudes toward responsible corporate behavior. JUST Capital has engaged more than 170,000 participants, on a fully representative basis, since 2015.

CNBC will delve into the data, highlighting company-specific results and showcasing key stakeholder performance stories about this year’s JUST 100 leaders across the network’s broadcast and digital platforms at cnbc.com/just100. An exploration of the JUST 100 companies can be found at justcapital.com/rankings.

About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be the leading sustainable energy company in the United States. Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $41 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities across the United States. Avangrid employs more than 7,500 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 as one of the JUST 100 companies – a ranking of America’s best corporate citizens. In 2024, Avangrid ranked first among utilities and 12 overall. The company supports the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2023 for the fifth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit www.avangrid.com.

About JUST Capital: The mission of JUST Capital, an independent nonprofit, is to demonstrate how just business – defined by the priorities of the public – is better business. Our goal is to help companies create value for all their stakeholders – their workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders – by focusing on the issues that matter most to Americans. To date, we’ve polled more than 170,000 Americans on the issues they believe companies should prioritize when it comes to just business behavior, and those insights guide our work. We believe that business and markets can and must be a force for the greater good and that by shifting the resources of the $21.6 trillion private sector, we can drive competition to build a better future for all. Our research, rankings, indexes, initiatives, and new offerings like the JUST Jobs Scorecard help track, analyze, incentivize, and scale corporate stakeholder performance. JUST Capital publishes the annual list of America’s Most JUST Companies, the JUST 100, in partnership with CNBC. To learn more, visit: www.JUSTCapital.com.

About Our Methodology: Since 2015, JUST Capital has surveyed more than 170,000 Americans on what Issues they believe U.S. companies should prioritize when it comes to just business behavior. Those Issues become the foundation by which we track, analyze, and incentivize corporate behavior change, including the Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. JUST evaluated 937 companies across 5 stakeholders, 20 Issues, and 236 raw data points to produce the 2024 Rankings, featuring the JUST 100 and Industry Leader lists.