Geneva-based Covalence today released its third annual ethical reputation ranking, giving the best ranked companies as well as those companies which have made the most progress in 2007.

Unilever received the highest EthicalQuote Score, followed by Toyota and HSBC.

Rio Tinto, Dell and Marks & Spencer enter top 10 EthicalQuote score across sectors replacing BP, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Covalence’s ethical quotation system is a reputation index based on quantifying qualitative data, which are classified according to 45 criteria such as labour standards, waste management, product social utility or Human rights policy. It is a barometer of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field.

According to Covalence, the environmental impact of production, eco innovative product, waste management and anticorruption policy all gained importance in 2007, while social impact, social sponsorship, labour standards and human rights policy lost importance..

The system integrates thousands of documents found among media, enterprise, NGO and other sources, for producing the EthicalQuote curves.

Covalence says it closely monitors 10 sectors including 200 companies that are classified as the largest market capitalizations in the Dow Jones World Index.

Within the banking sector, Royal Bank of Canada placed eight out of 10 best EthicalQuote scores.

Covalence is a limited company that was founded in Geneva in 2001 by six persons coming from social sciences and finance.