CLEVELAND, Ohio — Eaton has ranked first in its industry sector on Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) Magazine’s 10 Best Corporate Citizens List for 2007. Eaton received top honours among 54 companies in the Auto and Vehicles sector, which included aerospace, industrial and other transportation-related companies.

“Eaton is a values-based organization committed to doing business right,” said Alexander M. Cutler, Eaton chairman and CEO. “We are honoured to be recognized by CRO for our practices and programs. I want to recognize the global members of our team for their commitment and achievements.”

CRO contracted with research firm IW Financial to analyze the citizenship efforts of large-cap, publicly traded companies in various sectors. CRO and IW Financial evaluated the most influential US public companies, drawn predominantly from the Russell 1000 Index, and evaluated them in eight categories: environment, climate change, human rights, employee relations, corporate governance, lobbying, philanthropy and financial. The rankings were averaged to determine “CRO’s 10 Best” companies for each industry.

“Using these eight categories of corporate citizenship allowed us to do a truly comparative rating of the whole company, finding the best overall package according to the criteria,” explained Mark Bateman, director of research, IW Financial.

“We saw this exercise as a valuable way to decipher companies’ performance on things like governance and sustainability issues, especially when looking at how they did when measured against other companies in the marketplace,” said CRO editor-in-chief, Dennis Schaal.

Other companies recognized in the Auto and Vehicles sector included Cummins and Caterpillar. In addition to being recognized by CRO Magazine, Eaton was named by Foreign Investment in China magazine last month as one of the multinational corporations most committed to corporate social responsibility in China. Co-launched by the magazine and China Charity Federation, the award is the first to rank multinationals in China using corporate social responsibility as its primary criteria.

As part of this recognition, Eaton was noted for its active role in protecting the environment through its efforts to create “green dynamics” for sustainable development.