Ethical Tech companies
By Pulkit Sharma

The research-based Ethisphere Institute is a leading international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability. The Institute’s associated membership groups, the Ethisphere Council and Business Ethics Leadership Alliance, are forums for business ethics that includes over 200 leading corporations, universities and institutions.

In a report, Ethisphere has listed the world’s most ethical companies and backed up their assertions with hard stock market evidence that being ethical is good business as well.  This list covers the entire gamut from apparels, aerospace, banking, telecom to even automobiles. Most ethical companies had a better bottom line than their (less ethical?) competitors.

But if you were ethical in 2010 it does not mean you will be good this year as well. This year, there are 110 World’s Most Ethical Companies. Of these companies, 36 are new to the list in 2011 and 26 companies dropped off from the 2010 list. These “drop offs” generally occurred because of litigation and ethics violations, as well as increased competition from within their industry.

According to Ethisphere, ethical computer software companies are Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Symantec and Teradata.

In Computer Hardware, the only company that made the ethical cut was Hitachi Data Systems

Among online auctions, only eBay was found worthy enough to make it to this Most Ethical Companies list.