Seagate Among '100 Best Corporate Citizens' According to CRO Magazine
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif., March 11 - Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX) has been named to CRO Magazine's Ninth Annual top "100 Best Corporate Citizen" list, in recognition of the company's performance across a wide range of corporate citizenship and social responsibility issues.
"We are proud to receive this recognition from an organization such as CRO (Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine), who for nine years has researched and acknowledged the companies that lead in corporate social responsibility across a variety of key criteria," said Dave Wickersham, president of Seagate. "While our efforts are ongoing, this recognition underscores the hard work Seagate has been doing to advance and sustain its position in all areas of corporate citizenship."
CRO Methodology
With transparency being such an important component of corporate responsibility, IW Financial relies on publicly-available data from company financial disclosures, sustainability/environment/citizenship reports, websites, EPA databases, and a number of other sources as part of its standardized research processes.
CRO also culled the initial rankings and excluded eight companies that numerically qualified as one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens because of alleged transgressions that ranged from suppression of information about product risks to accounting scandals.
"Some companies have good environmental policies," says Mark Bateman, IW Financial's director of Research. "Some companies have great employee relations. Some companies have exemplary human rights records. CRO's 100 Best Corporate Citizens list answers the question: Which companies do best across a wide variety of citizenship issues? Companies can't make it onto the list if they do poorly in too many categories."
The 2008 list marks the 100 Best Corporate Citizens' ninth year in publication. Business Ethics magazine, which CRO acquired in 2006, published the list for the first seven years and CRO continued the tradition in 2007 and 2008. The list's methodology for 2008 includes two significant changes. First, CRO changed rating agencies, switching from KLD Analytics to IW Financial. The change was driven by IW Financial's dedication to basing rankings solely on publicly-available data, as compared with KLD's interview-and- questionnaire-based methodology. Second, the 2008 rankings are limited to the Russell 1000-companies that represent the largest impact on B2B and consumer markets. In previous years, the rankings also included the Domini 400 companies, which resulted in a perceived bias in favor of smaller companies.
The 100 Best companies will be honored in a special reception at the conclusion of the Spring CRO Conference March 27, 2008 at the Union League Club in NYC. For more information on the CRO Conferences, please go to http://www.thecro.com/conferences.
For more details about CRO's 100 best corporate citizens 2008, the methodology and CRO magazine, visit http://www.thecro.com/.
About The CRO
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 200,000+ subscriber TheCRO.com, bi-weekly e-newsletters, webinars, and produces the four-time-annual CRO Conferences. With over 100 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, Edelman, Manning Selvage & Lee, Grant Thornton, Golin Harris, Ketchum, Cone, LRN, Integrity Interactive, and non-profits including Stanford University, Boston College, UCLA, and Harvard. Corporate membership information can be found at TheCRO.com, or by calling 732-476-6160.
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. More information at IWFinancial.com.
About Seagate
Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disc drives, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate's business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, with the goal of being the low cost producer in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at http://www.seagate.com/.
Source: Seagate Technology
CONTACT: Brian Ziel, +1-831-439-5429, brian.ziel@seagate.com
Web site: http://www.seagate.com/
