American Water Named One of America's Most JUST Companies by JUST Capital and CNBC
Reflects company's continued commitment to employees, customers, communities and shareholders
American Water (NYSE:AWK), the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the U.S., announced today that it has been named one of America's Most JUST Companies by JUST Capital and CNBC. American Water is the highest-ranked water utility and ranked 68th overall, well within the top 10% of all Russell 1000 companies that were considered. The JUST 100 is the only ranking that recognizes American corporate leadership on business issues prioritized by the public.
"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."
Compared to 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.
- Emitted 42% less metric tons of CO2 per revenue dollar.
- Have a 4% higher profit margin, 2.9% higher return on equity, and 1.2% higher dividend yield.
"American Water is honored to be recognized by JUST Capital as one of America's Most JUST Companies," said John Griffith, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Water. "Our inclusion in the JUST 100 confirms our belief that prioritizing all stakeholders leads to long-term growth and success."
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.
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 American Water
American Water (NYSE:AWK) is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States. With a history dating back to 1886, We Keep Life Flowing® by providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people with regulated operations in 14 states and on 18 military installations. American Water's 6,500 talented professionals leverage their significant expertise and the company's national size and scale to achieve excellent outcomes for the benefit of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.
For more information, visit amwater.com and join American Water on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram.
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 CNBC
CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage and business content consumed by more than half a billion people per month across all platforms. The network's 15 live hours a day of news programming in North America (weekdays from 5:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
About 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.
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