By Alexis Raymond

This week, Corporate Responsibility Magazine unveiled its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List during a ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange. We in Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were proud to see that Cisco is #43.

The rankings are based on performance in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy.

Cisco was ranked #1 in the corporate governance category, meaning that no other company on the list did a better job of following responsible and ethical business practices.

You are probably thinking, “That’s great, but what, exactly, does it mean for a corporation to be ethical?” At Cisco, we have a Code of Business Conduct (CBC) that boils it down pretty simply for our 70,000 employees:

• We respect each other and encourage personal and professional growth
• We use our resources — from computers to paper towels — frugally
• We don’t give or accept gifts that could create conflicts of interest
• We follow laws and regulations to the letter
• We report financial information accurately and on time

The CBC is obviously more detailed than this bulleted list, but the upshot is that it spans every area of how the company operates. The corporate culture at Cisco is built on trust, integrity, inclusion, empowerment, and open communication. All of which makes Cisco a great place to work — and explains why we were #5 in the “employee relations” category of the Best Corporate Citizens List.

Governance and ethics may sound like a dry topic. But it is vital to our CSR approach at Cisco, because any success that is not achieved ethically is no success at all.

Please read more about our governance and ethics practices on our website and download our 2011 CSR Report.

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