Actually, it is Australian banks who do well – after NAB, ANZ is number 5, and Westpac is number 18, with Commonwealth Bank on number 76. Four other Australian companies rank in the top 500 – Woolworths (146), Telstra (207) Wesfarmers (300) and Rio Tinto (322).
ICT companies also do well. After IBM in second spot are Indian companies Tata (7) and Infosys (8), then Bell Canada (12), Fujitsu (13), HP (15) and SAP (20) all in the top 20. Companies you might think would do well are a little further down – Apple is on 117 and Google is on 134, both below Microsoft on 91. Apple, which loudly boasts of its green credentials but is also known for its secretiveness, is let down by a very low score for disclosure.
Newsweek’s article comments on the fact that while government efforts in sustainability have gone backwards in recent years (except in Australia, where the carbon price receives a favourable mention), private industry is becoming more sustainable.
“Top-ranked companies are approaching green projects with increasing tenacity, even in this weak economy. Corporate sustainability, it seems, is here for the long haul—it makes sense not just for the sake of the planet, but for business.
“For corporate executives, what matters is that waste cuts into profits, and that reducing wasted energy, for example, curbs greenhouse-gas emissions while bolstering the bottom line. We face a future in which resources that were once taken for granted—water, land, minerals, fossil fuels—will be limited and costly. Preparing now to succeed in—and even profit from—that difficult future could make all the difference.”
That is true, but there are signs, at least in Australia, that sustainability is wearing just a little thin in the corporate sector. NAB does very well overall, but it has recently outsourced many of its sustainability activities, and many other organisations have downgraded their internal sustainability function.
To produce the 2011 Green Rankings, Newsweek collaborated with leading environmental research providers, Trucost, and Sustainalytics to assess each company’s environmental footprint, management of that footprint, and transparency. Companies are ranked by their overall Green Score. This score is derived from three component scores: an Environmental Impact Score, an Environmental Management Score, and an Environmental Disclosure Score; weighted at 45 percent, 45 percent, and 10 percent, respectively. All scores are out of a possible 100.
