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CLEVELAND (Business Wire) -- Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) (Paris: CLF) announced
today it was named to the Maplecroft Climate Innovation Indexes (CII) as
a Maplecroft CII Benchmark and Maplecroft CII Leader.




In the Climate Innovation Index Benchmark, Cliffs ranked 23rd among the
350 U.S. companies evaluated for climate-related innovation and carbon
management programs. The Company also was rated 23rd in the CII Leader
category, a ranking of the top 100 performing companies from the
Maplecroft CII Benchmark.




Maplecroft, based in the United Kingdom, is a research and consulting
company that reports on sustainability-related risks. A total of 350
companies were rated against 100 performance-based criteria. These
criteria include the capacity to generate innovative new technologies or
initiatives that capitalize on climate-related market opportunities; the
management of climate change through policies, disclosure, targets,
verification and supply chain processes; the mitigation of carbon
emissions; adaptation by modeling future climate impacts and changing
company operations and strategy; and reductions in overall greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions.




"It is an honor for Cliffs to be recognized and ranked by Maplecroft in
the top 6% of companies evaluated for climate innovation and carbon
management programs," said Kelly Tompkins, executive vice president,
legal, government affairs and sustainability of Cliffs. "We receive this
recognition ever mindful of the Company's longstanding commitment to the
principles of sustainability, which have served us well for more than
163 years. As the Company continues its growth in the international
mining and natural resources industry, we remain committed to developing
sustainable solutions in the communities where we operate."




In its evaluation, Maplecroft cited Cliffs' commitment to improving its
footprint in the areas of energy use and GHG emissions. The Company has
developed a GHG strategic plan to further develop these commitments and
has assessment criteria and metrics evaluation for its suppliers that
include ISO 14001 certification, commitment to reduce environmental and
biodiversity impacts, tracking environmental impact of products and
measuring the effect on natural resources.




According to the Maplecroft report, companies that lead in
climate-related innovation also deliver higher financial performance
(measured as five-year return on equity, based on Bloomberg data).
Earlier this year, Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. was listed ninth in
Bloomberg Businessweek's inaugural '50 Top Performers' list, which ranks
U.S. corporations with the highest total returns for shareholders in the
Standard & Poor's 500 stock index over the past five years.




Companies included in the CIIs were rated during the period April 2010
to July 2010. The Maplecroft CIIs were launched in January 2010 on the
BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL(R) service.




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and fastest growing steel markets.




News releases and other information on the Company are available on the
Internet at:




>www.cliffsnaturalresources.com/Investors/Pages/default.aspx?b=1041&1=1