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Press Release from The CRO: CRO Magazine Introduces "CRO's 10 Best Corporate Citizens by Industry 2007"

CRO Magazine Introduces "CRO's 10 Best Corporate Citizens by Industry 2007," and Monsanto, Marathon Oil, Bank of America, Walt Disney and Entergy Take No. 1 Positions in their Respective Industries

GE Corporate Responsibility Officials Respond to Stakeholder Criticisms, Revealing Planned New Facets of the Company's 2008 Citizenship Report

In a CEOpinion, Travelocity CEO Michelle Peluso Writes About Closing A Call Center, and the Corporate Responsibility Principles That Should Be Part of Any Outsourcing Effort

NEW YORK, New York, October 15, 2007 — Monsanto, Marathon Oil, Bank of America, Walt Disney and Entergy headed their sectors as CRO Magazine introduced "CRO's 10 Best Corporate Citizens by Industry 2007'" in the publication's just-released September-October issue.

In this Part 1 of CRO (Corporate Responsibility Officer) Magazine's "CRO's 10 Best," the bimonthly publication contracted with IW Financial, a Portland, Maine-based research firm specializing in environmental, social and governance issues, to analyze the citizenship efforts of large-cap, publicly traded companies in the Chemical, Energy, Financial, Media and Utilities industries. As will be done for additional industries in Part 2 of "CRO's 10 Best" in the magazine's upcoming November-December issue, CRO and IW Financial assess these corporations' environmental, social, governance and financial performance, and measure their track records against industry peers.

CRO and IW Financial evaluated the most influential U.S. public companies, drawn predominantly from the Russell 1000 Index, through the lens of eight categories: Environment, Climate Change, Human Rights, Employee Relations, Corporate Governance, Lobbying, Philanthropy and Financial. The category rankings were then averaged to determine the "CRO's 10 Best" companies for each industry.

"Using these eight categories of corporate citizenship allowed us to do a truly comparative rating of the whole company, finding the best overall package according to the criteria, and not blacklisting a company because it has one weak spot in its citizenship profile," explained Mark Bateman, Director of Research at IW Financial. "It also means that a company that is the 11th best in every category would probably do very well compared to its peers." 

As the industry lists in the pages of CRO Magazine show, corporations navigated various routes to secure a place in "CRO's 10 Best." Walt Disney, for example, benefited from its top mark in Climate Change among "CRO's 10 Best Media" companies because of factors including its submission of data to the Carbon Disclosure Project, a nonprofit that facilitates dialogue between shareholders and corporations on climate-change issues.

And, in "CRO's 10 Best Financial," Bank of America distinguished itself as the largest total giver in Philanthropy, while the banks subsidized childcare benefits helped push it to third in Employee Relations among financial companies.

"We saw this exercise as a valuable way to decipher companies' performance on things like governance and sustainability issues, especially when looking at how they did when measured against the companies that they duke it out with in the marketplace," said CRO Editor-In-Chief Dennis Schaal. "So, for example, Google scored No. 2 in our 'CRO's 10 Best Media' list. And, Google, which has a reputation for keeping things very close to the vest, scored the lowest among companies in "CRO's 10 Best Media" on Corporate Governance issues, but bested companies like The New York Times, Yahoo and DirectTV Group in the Human Rights and Employee Relations categories."

"CRO's 10 Best Corporate Citizens by Industry 2007" expands upon CRO's annual "100 Best Corporate Citizens," which will appear in CRO's January-February 2008 issue.

"The two reasons behind 'CRO's 10 Best,' in addition to the '100 Best Corporate Citizens,' are, first, that comparing peer companies makes for a better gauge of performance," said Jay Whitehead, Publisher of CRO Magazine. "And second, the '100 Best' list methodology sometimes excludes industries such as energy and utilities for the sake of brevity, which we think often obscures the work of some important companies."

Among other highlights of the magazine's September-October issue:

• General Electric senior corporate responsibility officials Brackett Denniston (general counsel) and Robert Corcoran (vice president of Corporate Citizenship) break new ground in the Cover Story, "Generating Momentum: GE's Green is Green Strategy Paying Dividends," in responding to stakeholders' criticisms about the company's sustainability efforts and reporting. In planning for GE's 2008 Citizenship Report, the officials said they intend to provide more metrics related to GE's environmental performance as well as "materiality" — defining what is material to each business unit and how stakeholders are impacted.
  
  In the Cover Story, written by CRO's Schaal, the GE tandem also expand on a revelation in the company's 2007 citizenship report that its due diligence on its own citizenship efforts led to the discovery that a business unit was manufacturing a sensor that a customer was placing in cluster bombs. That violated a prior pledge that "GE is not involved in any way in land mine or cluster bomb production…"
  
• In writing her CEOpinion, guest columnist Michelle Peluso, Travelocity's president and CEO, recalls the corporate responsibility principles she applied and actions she took once discovering, soon after assuming her post in late 2003, that Travelocity would have to close a company call center and outsource its operations. Peluso advises companies facing similar situations that they need to define their responsibilities to affected employees and then surpass those obligations. Also, Peluso writes, companies should ensure that there is a cultural fit with their outsourcing partner, i.e. their new virtual team.
  
• In his Brand Aid guest column, "This Ordeal's More Than a Toy Story," Richard Levick, president and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, argues that the automotive, insurance and pharmaceutical industries could well learn some public relations lessons from Mattel's toy-recall dust-up. "The lessons to be learned from such past experience, and from the current crisis, are all about, first, ensuring safety and, second, credibly communicating that you have done so," Levick writes. "And you must do so for multiple audiences, including retailers and regulators, as well as consumers and parents."
  
• The September-October issue of CRO Magazine also includes a CEOpinion column by Seventh Generation President and CEO Jeffrey Hollender on sustainability trends, and a feature story, "Chock Full of Opportunity," by freelance writer Leah Dobkin on how McDonald's, Starbucks and Sam's Club are taking the Fair Trade movement mainstream. The magazine also includes numerous other articles on corporate responsibility trends; governance, risk & compliance; socially responsible investing and more.

About The CRO
The CRO is the only membership media platform for Corporate Responsibility practitioners, and the professional service providers and non-profit influencers that serve them. The CRO publishes the 20,000-subscriber 'CRO' Magazine and TheCRO.com, bi-weekly e-newsletters, and produces the twice-annual CRO Conferences, webinars and video events. With more than 120 members including leading companies Sara Lee, Amtrak, IBM, Citigroup, Chubb Insurance, Mattel, Intel, Dell, Pepsi, Home Depot, Starbucks, Avon, Gap, State Street, Xerox, leading providers such as Deloitte, Baker & McKenzie, SAP, Hogan & Hartson, Grant Thornton, Golin Harris, Ketchum, Cone, LRN, Integrity Interactive, and nonprofits including Stanford University, Boston College, UCLA, and Harvard. Corporate membership information can be found at TheCRO.com, or by calling 646-213-0067 ext 107. Subscription and Advertising correspondence should be directed to: CRO, 103 Eisenhower Parkway, 2nd Floor, Roseland, N.J., 07068, (646) 213-0067 ext. 107, subscription@thecro.com or advertising@thecro.com.

About IW Financial
IW Financial is a leading provider of objective research and technology solutions that help financial professionals evaluate the environmental, social, and governance performance of companies. IW Financial's solutions help organizations identify risks, enhance productivity, provide higher levels of service, increase revenues, and retain productive advisors. IW Financial's clients include investment firms, banks, endowments, religious organizations, universities, and advisors. Portfolio managers, research analysts, marketing and customer service professionals, compliance professionals, and investment committees at these organizations rely on IW Financial for in-depth and actionable information.

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Dan Porter
VP of Marketing
IW Financial
207-773-2333