Last week Corporate Responsibility Magazine announced its 16th annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List and CVS Health cracked the top 30, representing one of only three retailers that made the list this year. According to CR Magazine the 100 Best List documents 303 data points of disclosure and performance measures - taken from information in seven categories:
- Environment
- Climate Change
- Employee Relations
- Human Rights
- Governance
- Finance
- Philanthropy
- Community Support
So what made CVS Health's corporate responsibility stand out amongst a sea of retailers? In the article, What Makes a Leader, Bill Hatton shared some thoughts on the decision to include CVS. Hatton zeroed in on CVS Health CEO, Larry Merlo who won a 2014 CEO of the Year award largely in part to the decision to pull tobacco from more than 7,800 CVS/pharmacy locations across the United States. While the move meant losing between one and two percent of total sales, the CEO and the CVS Health organization as a whole determined that the decision was consistent with their business strategy of creating a company based on improving the lives of their customers. Hatton ends the article by saying,
"As with the decisions with other CEOs of the Year, the tobacco decision proved to be a case study in how to roll out a tough choice. The key was they looked for all the possible ways their decision could alienate people, and did their best to address each one – and recognized that they weren’t going to be able to make everyone happy.
