One of the more uplifting concepts in the last decade or so has been the emergence of pro-Sustainability activist corporations, a welcome break from the traditional ‘minimal rules, narrow interest’ mindset of the corporate lobbying industry. UK thinktank InfluenceMap has attempted to plot these efforts in the diagram above.

It’s worth noting the layout of the quarters. Top left is the traditional anti-regulation mob (Koch et al), bottom left could be categorised as ‘stick our heads in the sand’, and the good guys drift towards the top right. So there’s something of a U-shape in the line of increasing virtue, rather than the usual bottom left to top right diagonal.

I like publications like this, not just because they lay out the detail, but the pressure they bring on brands to improve. After all, it was a Greenpeace Sustainability ranking of electronics companies a decade ago that spurred Apple into action – and they’ve since gone from bottom of that list to InfluenceMap’s A-list. Businesses are competitive by nature and they never like to be shown up by their rivals.