Leaders in Corporate Responsibility Honored at COMMIT!Forum for Transparency Efforts and Sustainability Practices  EDISON, N.J., Oct. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporate Responsibility Magazine announced the second annual Top 10 Best Corporate Citizens rankings by industry at its annual Awards Dinner last night in New York City. Rankings were announced in the following sectors: consumer items; consumer staples; energy; financial, insurance & real estate; healthcare; information technology; materials; media & entertainment; services and utilities. This is the second year that CR Magazine has recognized companies by industry, applying the methodology from its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List to vertical segments to allow for an apples-to-apples comparison. The announcements were made at the 2012 CR Magazine Awards Dinner, the culmination of the 2012 COMMIT!Forum at Cipriani Wall Street. "We are pleased to honor these leading companies with an industry-specific accolade, as they represent an aspirational model that their peers can work toward within their own organizations," said Dirk Olin, the magazine's Editor-in-Chief. "Our annual 100 Best list honors transparency across all industry sectors and this delineation gives our readers a deeper understanding of which companies have gone above and beyond in their consistent commitment to gold standard environmental, economic, and social values and practices." By industry, the top three Best Corporate Citizens are:

•     Consumer Items - Nike Inc., Mattel Inc., Gap Inc.
•     Consumer Staples - Campbell Soup Co., Sara Lee Corp., Coca-Cola Co.
•     Energy - Chevron Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. , Hess Corporation
•     Financial/Insurance/Real Estate - JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., State Street Corp.
•     Healthcare - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson
•     Information Technology - International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corporation, Texas Instruments Inc.
•     Materials - Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc., International Paper Co., Mosaic Company
•     Media & Entertainment - McGraw-Hill Cos., Inc., Starbucks Corp., Walt Disney Co.
•     Services - Accenture plc, ManpowerGroup, Waste Management, Inc.
•     Utilities - Spectra Energy, Northeast Utilities, Duke Energy

The full Top 10 Best Corporate Citizens by Industry full list can be found on the CR Magazine site here: http://www.thecro.com/files/Sectors.pdf  "The COMMIT!Forum brings together some of the world's leading thinkers and doers that are shaping our world by transforming workforces, supply chains, infrastructures, education, and energy policies. Many of the companies from our '100 Best Corporate Citizens List' have salient opinions on how to facilitate these changes for the greater good.  It is impactful to see that they are all able to be successful and profitable while still making good business practices a priority," said Richard Crespin, Executive Director of the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association and Chairman of the COMMIT!Forum.  "Additionally, close to half of the Top 10 category leaders are different from last year and most were last year's runners-up. We believe that the spirit of healthy competition can only benefit everyone involved to do better and be better in their transparency and sustainability efforts." CR Magazine is America's leading voice on corporate responsibility, providing case studies, analyzing best practices, and tracking trends in the five primary segments of CR: energy and the environment, risk management, governance and compliance, employee relations, and human rights. For information on the 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking and methodology visit http://www.thecro.com/content/apples-apples  For additional information about the annual COMMIT!Forum visit www.commitforum.com. About CR Magazine CR Magazine is the voice of the corporate responsibility profession covering case studies, best practices, and trends in the five primary segments of the CR profession: a) governance, risk, compliance, b) environmental sustainability c) corporate social responsibility, d) philanthropy, and e) workforce/diversity. www.thecro.com About the COMMIT!Forum The COMMIT!Forum, calls people to commit to changing the world. How? By inspiring, educating, and engaging them in ways that prepare them to make the commitments necessary to change themselves and their organizations. The path to COMMIT, which began on April 17th at the New York Stock Exchange with the announcement of CR Magazine's 13th Annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens, culminates October 2-3 in New York City at the Forum and continues well beyond through commitments people make there.  http://www.commitforum.com/