The world's most ethical companies in 2017 have been reveal by Ethisphere. The thinktank, which aims to measure and standardise ethical business practice, has identified the 124 companies spanning five continents, 19 countries and 52 industry sectors.

Since 2007 Ethisphere has been honouring the companies which  recognise their role in society to influence and drive positive change in the business community and societies around the world.

Among the 2017 list of companies, 13 have been identified as among the most ethical for the past 11 years while eight companies have appeared on the list for the first time. The list also includes a  and  a Mexico-based company for the first time.

These companies, Ethisphere said, considered the impact of their actions on their employees, investors, customers and other key stakeholders and leverage values and a culture of integrity as the underpinnings to the decisions they make each day.

Ethisphere said out of the 124 57% used a survey primarily developed to measure employee perceptions of ethical culture and/or the compliance program. However, a larger number of the companies (77%) included a handful of questions specific to perceptions of an organisational ethical culture as part of a broader human resources or engagement survey.

The insights from a good survey can be tremendous, Ethisphere said, and should be shared broadly. The vast majority 92% of the companies report their findings – whatever mechanism they use to collect it – to the board.

Ethisphere's research also found that these 124 companies tend to outperform others in respect of having a good balance of men and women on their boards. The research found that not only did the publicly-traded companies in the 124 companies outperform the S&P 500 in respect of gender diversity on boards, but on average their board of directors is comprised of 24%t women, five percentage points higher than the average company on the 2016 Fortune 1000 list.

Timothy Erblich, Ethisphere chief executive, said: "Over the last eleven years we have seen an impressive shift in societal expectations, aggressive emergence of new laws and regulation and geopolitical swings that can further disrupt the balance. We have also seen how companies honoured as the World’s Most Ethical respond to these challenges. They invest in their local communities around the world, embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion and focus on long term-ism as a sustainable business advantage. In short, these companies are transformative, not just out of need, but because they recognise that integrity is the key to their advancement."

In a separate survey, the Reputation Institute has unveiled the companies that the British public believe are the most reputable in its UK RepTrak® 150 ranking. Dyson, Aston Martin and Lego top the list. The global RepTrak 100 ranking was released at the end of February.