Above all, online care about what companies do to protect the environment.
What exactly is a sustainable company in the eyes of the people surveyed? Measured in terms of sustainable business practices, most of the people surveyed attach great importance to the environment and energy issues. The first four places are all taken by environmental issues: from increasing energy efficiency (82 percent) and avoiding and recycling waste (79 percent) through to reducing own pollutant emissions such as CO2 (78 percent) or promoting renewable energies and environmentally-friendly products in their portfolio (both 77 percent). The first measures for employees do not come in until fifth place, such as the exceeding of industry social standards or raising employee awareness of sustainability issues (both 72 percent). Two thirds of the people surveyed (67 percent) think it is important for bonus payments to management to also be measured in terms of ethical and ecological criteria and that companies demand environmental and social standards from their suppliers. More than half (57 percent) deem it to be important that companies invest part of their profits in social projects or environmental protection. Scandals can ruin a company: More than one in two people surveyed (55 percent) avoids products from companies implicated in an environmental or social scandal. Among those with a higher level of education, it is as much as 61 percent; among the over-50s, the percentage of those willing to boycott rises to almost two thirds (64 percent).
