Environmental Leader

Intel placed No. 1 in CRO’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens 2008 (PDF), the ranking of top corporate citizens among U.S.-headquartered public companies.

The list ranks the corporate responsibility efforts of large-cap companies from the Russell 1000 index in eight categories: climate change, employee relations, environment, financial, governance, human rights, lobbying and philanthropy.

In its rise to the top, Intel ranked in the top 100 (out of 1000 companies considered) in five of the eight categories, scoring its best mark in Environment (which measures environmental disclosures, policies and performance) and in the top 200 in another category, Philanthropy.

Rounding out the top 10 were Eaton Corp. (No. 2), Nike Inc. (No. 3), Deere & Co. (No. 4), Genentech Inc. (No. 5), Corning Inc. (No. 6), Humana Inc. (No. 7), Bank of America Corp. (No. 8), ITT Corp. (No. 9) and PG&E Corp. (No. 10).

Eight companies, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Hewlett-Packard, Mattel, Merck, and Travelers Companies, were excluded from the list because of “scandals.”

Here’s the top 20:
1 Intel Corp.
2 Eaton Corp
3 Nike Inc.
4 Deere & Co.
5 Genentech Inc.
6 Corning Inc.
7 Humana Inc.
8 Bank of America Corp.
9 ITT Corp.
10 PG& E Corp.
11 Dominion Resources Inc.
12 State Street Corp.
13 Dow Chemical Co.
14 Cisco Systems Inc.
15 Wisconsin Energy Corp.
16 Progress Energy Inc.
17 Entergy Corp.
18 Norfolk Southern Corp.
19 Sun Microsystems Inc.
20 Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.