Corporate Responsibility Magazine Reveals its 13th Annual "100 Best Corporate Citizens List"
(3BL Media) Edison, NJ - April 18, 2012 - Corporate Responsibility Magazine unveiled the 13th annual “100 Best Corporate Citizens List” Tuesday in a ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange, with standout performers from sectors including pharmaceuticals and high-tech to big retail and extractive industries.
The “100 Best List” documents more than 320 data points of disclosure—harvested from publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy. The meteoric rise in the market for transparency was amply chronicled by companies’ individual and aggregate performance.
The top 10 ranked as follows: Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co., International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corp. Johnson Controls Inc., Accenture plc, Spectra Energy Corp., Campbell Soup Co., Nike Inc., and Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. The full list is available at www.thecro.com.
Importantly, deviation from the mean among the 100 continued to narrow. With the score differential between number one and number 100 decreasing for the fifth consecutive year, transparency is clearly becoming the new table stakes in the profile of corporate responsibility.
According to Elliot Clark, CEO of SharedXpertise Media, which publishes CR Magazine and produces the Commit!Forum, “This is the 13th annual CR Magazine‘100 Best Corporate Citizens List,’ and we are gratified to see improved consistency among the transparency leaders in the Russell 1000. This demonstrates the continuing commitment on the part of these companies to better accountability and citizenship practices. Our methodology, which is completely disclosed in all of our documents, aggressively ranks the citizenship performance of these top companies. We are proud of the work the team at CR Magazine is doing to promote corporate citizenship as a profession and a corporate practice.”
“The announcement of the 13th Annual Best Corporate Citizens List kicks off our annual Commit!Campaign,” said Richard Crespin, President of SharedXpertise. “Through this list and throughout the year, we highlight excellence in corporate responsibility and share successful practices, culminating in the Commit!Forum on October 2-3 in New York City. By making these data and case studies available, companies can learn from these corporate citizens and continue improving the role of business in society.”
“The shrinking differential between number one and number one hundred is exciting,” said Dirk Olin, Editor-in-Chief of CR Magazine. “What’s doubly exciting is that this new standard of disclosure has achieved acceptance not because some regulator imposed it but because the business case for it has become manifest.”
About Corporate Responsibility Magazine, CRO Association and CRO Summits
20,000-subscriber Corporate Responsibility Magazine (www.thecro.com) is publisher of the 13th annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List, among America’s three most-important business rankings according to PR Week. Over 200 large capitalization corporations and institutions are members of the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (www.croassociation.org), representing 1,200+ individuals dedicated to increasing professionalization of corporate responsibility standards and practices. CROA has a formal partnership with NYSE Euronext. Corporate Responsibility Officer Summits (www.crosummit.com) are recognized worldwide as the leading events for corporate responsibility practitioners. CR Magazine, CROA and CRO Summits are managed by SharedXpertise Media LLC, with offices in Edison NJ, Cambridge UK, Brussels BE, and Singapore.
Corporate Responsibility Magazine
Brittany Korb
202-261-2894
