Who's top of Newsweek Green Ranking?
This week Newsweek released its assessment of the green policies and practices of top 500 US companies. It makes interesting reading, with some surprising results.
Unsurprisingly tech companies dominate the top with 1 HP, 2 Dell, 4 Intel, 5 IBM.
Of course we’ve criticised HP recently on delaying toxics phase out from its products, which is noted in the Newsweek ranking. Our very own Guide to Greener Electronics is due out next week so you can compare and contrast how these tech companies are doing against their non US competitors.
Two big tech companies who don’t come out so well are Google 79 and Apple 133. Both are secretive about relevant company data that competitors do publish. At least Apple took a step up in that sense by finally publishing its total emissions data yesterday.
There’s a few good quotes in the background story on the Newsweek site:
"One of the purposes of this is to improve the transparency of corporations…and encourage them to provide an even higher level of disclosure," says Thomas Kuh, KLD's managing director.
This is also one the aims of our Guide since August 2006. And of course something we are familiar with, the controversy:
Rankings inevitably provoke controversy—and we welcome that. Our hope is to open a conversation on measuring environmental performance—an essential first step toward improving it.
The best analysis I’ve read is over on greenbiz.com, I my opinion Joel is right that of course the ranking is imperfect (they always are) but rather than pick it apart:
I'd rather step back and admire this first effort, however imperfect, and salute the team for doing what hadn't previously been done, or done well: brought together a wealth of data on a broad spectrum of the world's biggest companies to provide a snapshot of the green business world.
And he speculates on what might be hopefully happening as a result:
I suspect that as you read this, scores of senior sustainability professionals are getting calls from their overlords in the C-suite, asking tough questions about why their companies fared more poorly than hoped, and demanding answers. And for that reason alone Newsweek's rankings are a beautiful thing.
Finally we wouldn’t be doing our job if we let those tech firms rest on their laurels at the top of the Newsweek ranking. When it comes to being strong climate advocates and providing real climate solutions, HP, IBM, Intel, Dell and others still have much work to do in our Cool IT Challenge.
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