Emphasising the “Good” in Goodyear

The most recent list of the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” to appear in the US magazine ‘Corporate Responsibility Officer’ (CRO) features at least one very familiar name. Goodyear Tire & Rubber made its debut appearance in this who’s who of good business, being counted as number 72 of the 100 best US headquartered public companies.

This is the ninth year in which the Best Corporate Citizens list has been published, and in compiling its “100 Best,” CRO, in partnership with research and consulting firm IW Financial, ranked the corporate responsibility efforts of companies in eight categories: climate change, employee relations, environment, financial, governance, human rights, lobbying and philanthropy. CRO determined the final ranking as a weighted average of the eight categories. Goodyear was the only tyre company honoured with a berth in the top 100.

“We’re certainly pleased to be included with a number of corporations whose excellent reputations are well known and regarded highly by the international business community,” said Pat Gorbach, Goodyear’s director of corporate compliance and ethics. “Transparency is an important component of corporate responsibility, and Goodyear welcomes the opportunity for anyone to review the data documenting improvements in our governance, compliance and sustainability performance.”

IW Financial relies on publicly available data from company financial disclosures, corporate responsibility reports, websites, EPA databases, and a number of other sources as part of its standardised research processes. All companies being evaluated are listed on the Russell 1000 index – which includes companies that represent the largest impact on B2B and consumer markets.

“Some companies have good environmental policies,” said 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?”

Business Ethics magazine first published the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” in 2000. CRO has continued the tradition after acquiring the publication in 2006. CRO will honour the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” in a special reception on March 27, 2008 at the Union League Club in New York, following the conclusion of its spring conference.