Community leaders recently celebrated the completion of Arkansas Children’s Northwest at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Springdale.
Fortune released their fourth annual Change The World list of companies using the profit motive to help the planet and tackle social problems. As Fortune put it, “The list, importantly, isn’t about the charity companies give—and, no, we’re not weighing corporations on some omniscient scale of good and bad. (We couldn’t make that assessment if we tried.) Fortune’s Change the World list, rather, is about solving problems through the only sustainable and scalable problem solving machine we know of: business.”
The Change the World list recognizes companies that have had a positive social impact through activities that are part of their core business strategy. Fortune writers and editors evaluate and rank the companies by four factors: Measurable social impact, Business results, Degree of innovation, and Corporate Integration.
Two Northwest Arkansas companies are ranked on the 2018 list. The new list includes Bentonville-based Walmart and Springdale’s Tyson Foods.
Walmart was ranked No. 16; Tyson Foods was No. 44. Just 57 companies worldwide were selected including 31 based in the U.S. Both Tyson Foods and Walmart were selected for their environmental impact.
The selection of Walmart came because the company is aggressively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and working with suppliers to reduce emission by 1 billion tons by 2030. Walmart announced what it called Project Gigaton last year, but the company has a collection of other sustainability-focused initiatives. Walmart also drew the attention of Fortune for cutting grocery business waste and it’s new initiative to pay college tuition for it’s employees.
Tyson Foods drew praise from Fortune for “investing in disruptive but sustainable food ideas,” noting the company’s investment in Beyond Meat. Tyson Foods owns a portion of California’s Beyond Meat, a company founded in 2009 that created a plant-based meat substitute.
Tyson is the world’s largest producer of no-antibiotics-ever chicken and that’s noted by Fortune, too.
