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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – RTI International has been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as a 2017 World’s Most Ethical Company®.
RTI International is the only company recognized in the scientific and technical services industry. A total of 124 companies in 52 industries and 19 countries were recognized for the award.
“For almost 60 years, RTI International has built a reputation for conducting rigorous, objective research and maintaining high ethical standards in our business practices,” said Wayne Holden, Ph.D., president and CEO at RTI International. “Upholding this hard-earned reputation is vital to our continued success and is a responsibility that all of us at RTI share. We are very proud to be recognized for this achievement.”
RTI expects ethical behavior on the part of its staff members and for almost two decades has maintained an Ethics and Compliance Program office that includes a chief ethics officer. The program provides staff members a Code of Ethics and Business Conduct, offers a confidential Business Ethics Helpline and a web resource on the company’s intranet. The Ethics and Compliance program is highly visible and continually works to incorporate best practices.
“RTI has always sought professional, competent people who will make good decisions in difficult situations,” said Mary Elizabeth Reiss, vice president, compliance and ethics officer at RTI. “How we do business and how we treat others defines RTI to the rest of the world. When we commit to working for RTI, we commit ourselves to maintaining RTI’s integrity.”
RTI also embraces the principles of environmental stewardship and sustainable operations, seeking opportunities to boost efficiency and reduce consumption of resources everywhere it works. RTI also supports local communities through its own Community Partnerships Program, United Way campaign, Red Cross blood drives, and other fundraising and volunteer initiatives.
This is the eleventh year that Ethisphere has honored those companies who recognize their role in society to influence and drive positive change, consider the impact of their actions on their employees, investors, customers and other key stakeholders and use their values and culture as an underpinning to the decisions they make every day
“Over the last eleven years we have seen the shift in societal expectations, constant redefinition of laws and regulations and the geo-political climate. We have also seen how companies honored as the World’s Most Ethical respond to these challenges. They invest in their local communities around the world, embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion, and focus on long term-ism as a sustainable business advantage,” explained Ethisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Erblich. "Congratulations to everyone at RTI International for being recognized as a World's Most Ethical Company."
The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient® (EQ) framework which offers a quantitative way to assess a company’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics.
Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35 percent), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20 percent), culture of ethics (20 percent), governance (15 percent) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10 percent) and provided to all companies who participate in the process.
