IBM was ranked Top Corporate Citizen of the year by Business Ethics magazine's "Corporate Social Responsibility Report."
The publication's annual listing of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens, which was released April 24, is based on a quantitative measure of 650 public companies' corporate service to seven stakeholder groups, including employees, customers, the community, stockholders, the environment, and overseas stakeholders.
"Making it on to the Business Ethics list 100 means that a company is serving a variety of stakeholders very well," said Marjorie Kelly, editor and publisher of Business Ethics. "Rising to the very top is no small feat. IBM deserves to be proud that it's become number one not once but twice."
Of the seven stakeholder groups, IBM received the highest score in the ranking for its policies and programs for minorities and women. The ranking singled out IBM for its extraordinary employee and supplier practices, manager incentives for hiring and promoting women and minorities, diversity council work, child care assistance and loans and technical assistance to minority suppliers.
Through IBM's work in K-12 education reform, a component of its $127 million global corporate philanthropy program, IBM has the unique distinction of having received documented success by expert third parties for its Reinventing Education program.
The $75 million one-of-a-kind education program has raised student achievement and is serving approximately 65,000 teachers and 6 million children around the world.