What do tech companies know that you don't know about being green?
It strikes me as particularly intriguing that four out of the top five companies on a new "Greenest Big Companies" listed published in the latest Newsweek are also four of the biggest technology companies in the world. They are Hewlett-Packard (No. 1), Dell (No. 2), Intel (No. 4) and IBM (No. 5).
The third, Johnson & Johnson, is the venerable healthcare and pharmaceutical products company (or HABA producer, as we used to say when I was a supermarket cashier in high school).
What do these companies have on yours? Well, the ranking was pulled together by using data from several different organizations. They included Trucost, which works for non-profit organization NSF International on environmental measurement and reporting. More than 700 different metrics are used by Trucost to calculate corporate environmental impact. KLD Research & Analytics provided what Newsweek describes as a "Green Policies Score," which essentially involves a more qualitative analysis. Data was also pulled in from CorporateRegister.com. The Newsweek rankings are a weighted average of all these scores. Companies could get 45 percent each for Environmental Impact and Green Policies, that got 10 percent for their reputation survey standing.
OK, so I get the choice of HP. But 100 percent, guys? Is ANY company really 100 percent? I beg to differ, unless you're hoping that next year's "100" score will again raise the bar. Incidentally, dear readers, Dell is barely a point behind with a 98.87 Green Score, while Johnson & Johnson snagged a 98.56 weighed average Green Score.
Incidentally, the highest ranked consumer products company on the list is Nike, which 93.28. Wal-Mart, which is held up by oodles of people as a leader in corporate sustainability initiatives, wound up at No. 59. Is Green Score was 80.38.
Want to read more, you'll have to visit the Newsweek site, because I don't have all the data. Here's the link to the report.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com