IBM ranked second on "100 best Corporate Citizens" List

For 2012, IBM advanced from No. 3 to No. 2 on Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list – a ranking compiled from the Russell 1,000 Index. IBM is the only company that has achieved a Top 5 ranking in each of the last four years. Companies were evaluated based on publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy.

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Whether you call it Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship or Socially Responsible Investing, IBM is proud to be recognized for our values-based approach to philanthropy. We back up our use of the phrase “from spare change to real change” with meaningful and effective contributions of our talent and technology to solving critical societal issues around the world.

IBMers are involved in countless ways in helping others overcome challenges related to job creation, education, environmental sustainability, health care, disaster response, and improving the quality of life in our cities. Our Corporate Service Corps – modeled on the Peace Corps – deploys our global top talent to work with local leaders in growth markets. Corporate Service Corps engagements provide a “triple benefit” to communities, participants and IBM. Growth market communities benefit from IBM expertise, participants develop valuable contacts and leadership skills, and IBM welcomes a new generation of global leaders who understand the dynamic of developing economies and serve as ambassadors for the IBM brand.

In the United States, IBM is collaborating with school systems and community colleges to create a new model for American education – one that connects learning directly to jobs.
In New York, our innovative grades nine through 14 Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) incorporates a targeted curriculum, workplace learning, and mentor guidance into a holistic approach to preparing students for industry and continuing education. P-TECH’s inaugural class – inspired by great teaching and the promise of a productive future – is surpassing every notion of what young people from disadvantaged backgrounds can achieve.

Eighty-nine percent of P-TECH students met standards for promotion after only 100 days. Ninety-six percent have attendance rates of 96 percent or higher. Sixty-six percent of students who entered P-TECH with below-average reading ability have improved their scores by at least one grade level – and some have improved by three grade levels or more. P-TECH’s phenomenal success has inspired the City of Chicago to use IBM’s P-TECH Playbook to help develop and open five similar schools this fall, while New York plans to open three more schools based on the P-TECH model.

The tendency may be to think that IBM’s corporate philanthropy programs are helping to improve lives both “locally and globally.” But at IBM, “global” is local. Through each of our programs, we share our values, technology and expertise with the global community of leaders, thinkers and citizens who strive to make our world a better, safer, healthier, more productive, more sustainable, and smarter place.

Stanley S. Litow is IBM’s Vice President for Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM International Foundation.

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