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Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine today announced the inaugural Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting List at the www.thecro.com.

"The Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting List proves that transparency pays. Companies that are the most transparent about their corporate responsibility practices outperformed the S&P 500 in 3-year return by over 7 percentage points. While some of this performance may be attributed to the overall strength of the government marketplace, the best government contractors outperformed the rest of the contractors on our List in 3-year returns by more than 4.5 percentage points," said CR Magazine editor-in-chief, Dirk Olin. "While there is not a clear correlation today between where the Federal Government spends its dollars and how transparent a company is, we hope that with the introduction of this List, government will take a look at a comprehensive set of factors when making buying decisions."

The List is based on the methodology of CR Magazine's 11-year-old 100 Best Corporate Citizens List, known as the world's top corporate responsibility ranking and recognized by PR Week as one of America's top three most-important business rankings. The methodology consists of 324 data points of publicly-available information in seven categories including: Environment, Climate Change, Human Rights, Philanthropy, Employee Relations, Financial Performance, and Governance. The List reviews large-cap Russell 1000 companies that are also among the largest 100 contractors according to USAspending.gov. These publicly-available data are reviewed by leading ESG investor data firm, IW Financial. The List's open and transparent methodology is governed by a Methodology Committee of the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA).

"The American public demands increasing transparency and accountability from their government and the companies with which it does business. President Obama has responded with an historic commitment to bring more transparency and integrity to the way his Administration conducts itself and how it interacts with its business partners," said Richard Crespin, executive director of CROA. "We hope that by publishing this list we will help drive even more transparency and responsibility in companies that do business with the government."

"The government spent over $535 billion dollars in 2009 on contracts with outside organizations. It is important that government leverages this buying power to increase transparency and accountability in its partners," said Joiwind Ronen, Director of the newly formed Corporate Excellence for Government Roundtable of the CROA. This Roundtable of leaders from across industry, government and academia will help govern the methodology of this List going forward.

About CR Magazine www.thecro.com CR Magazine is the voice of the corporate responsibility profession covering case studies, best practices, and trends in the 5 primary segments of the CR profession: a) Governance, Risk, Compliance, b) environmental sustainability c) Corporate Social Responsibility, d) philanthropy, and e) workforce/diversity.

About The Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA) www.CROAssociation.org The CROA and its members transform ideas into action, advancing corporate responsibility, the profession, and their careers. The CROA is the single largest independent community founded on the concept that to excel in corporate responsibility, organizations need to embrace all CR disciplines: sustainability, governance, social responsibility, and philanthropy.

About the Corporate Excellence for Government Roundtable www.CROAssociation.org The Corporate Excellence for Government Roundtable is a new initiative of CROA formed to convene leaders in government, industry, and academia committed to improving transparency and responsibility among government contractors. The Roundtable works to foster and evolve corporate responsibility measurement and disclosure in the government contractor community.