Ethisphere Institute, the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, named Principal Financial Group® as a 2016 World’s Most Ethical Company®.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Ethisphere and the World’s Most Ethical Companies designation, which recognizes those companies who align principle with action, work tirelessly to make trust part of their corporate DNA, and in doing so, shape future industry standards by introducing tomorrow’s best practices today.

“Just over 100 publicly traded companies received Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies designation in 2016,” said Dan Houston, president and chief executive officer at The Principal®. “This recognition is a true honor, and a testament to our people, and the work they do every day to earn and maintain customer trust.”

"Companies rely on Ethisphere to continually raise and measure the standards of corporate behavior. Those that demonstrate leadership in areas like citizenship, integrity and transparency create more value for their investors, communities, customers and employees, thus solidifying a sustainable business advantage," explained Ethisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Erblich. "Congratulations to everyone at The Principal for being recognized as a World's Most Ethical Company."

Methodology & Scoring
The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient™ (EQ) framework developed over years of research and vetted and refined by the expert advice from Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel. The EQ offers a quantitative way to assess a company’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics.

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%) and provided to all companies who participate in the process.

Honorees
The full list of the 2016 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at http://worldsmostethicalcompanies.ethisphere.com/honorees/.

About the Principal Financial Group
The Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®)1 is a global investment management leader offering retirement services, insurance solutions and asset management. The Principal offers businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services, including retirement, asset management and insurance through its diverse family of financial services companies. Founded in 1879 and a member of the FORTUNE 500®, the Principal Financial Group has $527.4 billion in assets under management2 and serves some 19.1 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit www.principal.com.

About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with the publication of Ethisphere magazine. More information about Ethisphere can be found at: http://ethisphere.com.

1 “The Principal Financial Group” and “The Principal” are registered service marks of Principal Financial Services, Inc., a member of the Principal Financial Group.
2 As of Dec. 31, 2015.