Today, Newsweek launched a ranking of the greenest companies in America in its current issue and Hewlett-Packard took top honors. The Newsweek Green Rankings is the first-ever report based on companies’ actual environmental footprint, policies and practices. The twelve-page report in the September 28 issue, features a green ranking of America’s 500 largest publicly-traded companies as measured by revenue, market capitalization and number of employees. On Newsweek.com, users can search and sort the data in several ways, analyze the detailed methodology of the study and submit and review comments.
The Roberts Environmental Center of Claremont McKenna College (CMC) recently released a detailed analysis of the social responsibility reporting efforts of America’s top energy and utilities corporations. The two reports contain a compilation of Pacific Sustainability Index scores evaluating the environmental and social reporting of the 48 U.S. energy and utilities companies on the 2008 Fortune 1000 list.The reports score companies based on the reporting, intent, and performance of environmental and social sustainability efforts. The research, based entirely on material released on the firms’ Web sites, found that two of the smallest firms – Mirant (energy sector) and Pinnacle West Capital (utilities sector) – did the best jobs of describing details of their socially beneficial actions and environmental management. The lowest scores were also shared by small firms – Adams Resources and Energy, Inc., and Atmos Energy Corp. – but there was a good mix of firms of all sizes throughout the range of scoring. In neither sector is size a predictor of good reporting.
