The worst and the of best corporate efforts on climate change

Climate Counts, a non-profit that scores the commitment to reversing climate change of 56 major corporations in well-known consumer sectors–from apparel to electronics to fast food–today released their second annual company scorecard (read the full report here and the summary here).

Climate Counts gives scores from 0 to 100, based on 22 criteria used to determine if companies have measured the carbon footprint, reduced their impact on global warming, supported progressive climate change legislation, and publicly disclosed their climate action.

According to the Climate Counts web page, "our goal is to motivate deeper awareness among consumers-not only that the issue of climate change demands their attention, but also that they have the power to support companies that take climate change seriously - and avoid those that don't."

The worst of the companies (scoring 5 or less): Amazon, 5; Burger King, 0; Darden (owner of Red Lobster, Olive Garden and other chains), 0; eBay, 5; Jones Apparel Group (Anna Klein, Nine West and many other brands), 0; VF Corporation (Lee and Wrangler jeans and others), 4; Viacom (4), Wendy's (0), Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and many more), 1.

The best of the companies (scoring 65 or more): Canon, 74; General Electric, 71; Hewlett-Packard, 68; IBM, 77; Motorola, 66; Nike, 82; Proctor & Gamble, 69; Sony, 68; Stonyfield Farm, 78; Toshiba, 70.

The good news is that the Climate Counts scoring approach attracts a lot of press attention, effectively rewarding those companies that make worthy efforts and chastising those who don't. Last year, for example, Climate Counts was among the organizations that helped bring attention to Apple's slow start when it comes to environmental commitment (the company scored a lowly 2 last year and only 11 this year).

According to Wood Turner, Director of Climate Counts, this kind of scrutiny, through Climate Counts or by other means, can encourage corporations to make real efforts. In an email to me, he told the story of how Levi's made the effort to climb from a score of 1 in 2007 to 22 in 2008:

We got their attention with a score of 1 pt (out of 100) on June 19 [2007] and got a call from them late that afternoon.  They were bewildered but motivated.  They acknowledged that they were behind on climate change and that the score had very much gotten their attention.  They said simply, "You got our attention. What can we do?"  And we were more than happy to take them through our 22-criteria scorecard and our key benchmarks. 

They quickly moved to begin reporting much more openly about their concrete activities and future plans, expanding their environmental reporting on their website including information about their efforts to measure their climate impact and set goals to reduce it.  These are clearly just first steps, but on the pathway toward deeper corporate climate responsibility, they are absolutely important ones because they indicate a willingness to face even greater scrutiny from an increasingly engaged consumer -- to us, that's one of the hallmarks of climate leadership.

You can read what others think of the Climate Counts report at the Wired blog and the Environmental Leader. I'm thinking the Climate Counts approach is no replacement for legislation and a regulated cap and trade system, but until we get some politicians with backbones, by finding a way to focus and aggregate the power of consumers, Climate Counts is making a start.

What do you think?

Comments

[Taffy]

I like it- this is really needed to push corporate responsibility and raise consciousness. I will be using the pocket guide available on the Climate Counts website.

Of course, is it too hopeful to hope for legislation to push companies in this direction? Maybe voting with our pocketbooks is the best method anyway!

[Jessica]

Well this will certainly affect my purchasing in the future. Although, I'm trying not to purchase any more than I have to anyway.
Thanks for the info!

[kentuckyann]

Thanks for posting this.

Though many people have criticized former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach's move to Big Box giant, Wal-Mart, (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/working-with-the-enemy.html)
the big corporations are not going away anytime soon and we need their cooperation and support if we want to see this world start to really morph into a sustainable home for the next generations.

Every angle we can sculpt this 'better world' from hopefully quickens the pace of this absolutely necessary change - legislation from the top down, grassroots and individual change from the bottom up, and from the sides, peers for business and other corporations...

Still, it would be really nice if corporations didn't have quite the huge influence over our lives and our government...so...
BUY LOCAL WHEN YOU CAN!!! :)

[Capitalist]

Corporations exist soley for shareholders. That is the base defintion. It is not the responsibility of corporations to do anything above the minimum thresholds set by law. If corps do opt to do more, it is to the detriment of profits, etc. This is why the "offshoring" movement is so strong and also why the US is in an irreversable manufacturing decline. Corps need to produce goods, with that production comes pollution and destruction of resources. It is just a fact.

The pollution and the jobs will just be shipped offshore.

It's surprising that the worlds largest polluters: Chinese smelters, Chinese coal fired power plants, Chinese refiners, Chinese manufacturers, etc. don't rank on that list.

Thus I would say the list is bunk.

[Al Bore]

Kentuckyann,

You state the following:

Still, it would be really nice if corporations didn't have quite the huge influence over our lives and our government...so...
BUY LOCAL WHEN YOU CAN!!! :)

Corporations only influence you if you let them. You are not "forced" to buy the goods they make. Turn off the TV, cancel the magazine subscriptions, avoid the mall, etc.

Corporations aren't the bad guys, ignorant consumers are.

[Diane Gandee Sorbi]

The scorecard is a useful guideline when you decide to purchase something, but the best thing to do is buy as little as possible, and as Kentuckyann stated, try to buy local. And just stop buying fast food altogether. It's bad for our health, bad for the planet's health, and encourages animal abuse by CAFOs. I also agree with Al. Corporations can market to us all they want, but we still have the power to not buy what they're selling.

[Western Family]

What a blacklist! Can you imagine the power of the consumer if everybody boycotted all the companies that ranked less than 50? And what about China? We have a household rule to not buy a single item made in China or the PRC until they clean up their act. We are saving so much money it's crazy.

And let me tell you it is a deliberate process, not an overnight change. Being a consumer is like having an addiction, and that's just what the marketers are hoping for.

[Susan Och]

This is of little or no consequence to me, as I have little or no discretionary income. We eat out maybe 8 times a year, at the very most, and we darn sure aren't going to waste those opportunities at a chain restaurant.

I do have the power of the pen, or keyboard, and I use it to shape my world every chance I get. Lately I'm supporting Amtrak, which is coming up on a crucial funding opportunity.

[Jen]

I have a hard time with this. Each company has a different set of problems. Conagra might be working to reduce carbon footprint but maybe their products are still made under questionable conditions so I would be hard pressed to buy from them just because they made improvements in a defined set of areas.

[arduous]

I think this is great! I think a lot of corporations DO want to be "greener" they just quite don't know what to do. The attention and scrutiny will help give them a push.

Maybe this is why Levis is one of the few clothing companies that offers a huge line of organic jeans. It's win win. :)

[Kent Ragen]

Companies are beholden to shareholders, shareholders care about revenue and profit, and revenue and profit come from a consuming public - which is why consumers hold the power in the green (r)evolution. Climate Counts does a great job of building awareness among consumers, now it's up to all of us to make better buying decisions...corporations will inevitably follow.
Kent
www.ecounit.com

[Zach]

@ Capitalist and all other ignorant people

since when does being good stewards of the environment equate to inefficiency and lost profits?

Think through the process of turning off a light, of conserving energy, and then magnify your cost savings ten-thousand-fold and you'll have some idea of the cost savings from industry and business.

I am an environmentalist because it is good for my bottom line. In the book "Hope's Horizon", it talks about the billions of dollars that companies saved in redesigning consumer appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. The savings come about because, when they would design their new product line, they took into account new restrictions on energy usage and simply worked that into the design.

Being an environmental consumer is the same as being a smart consumer, which is the same as being frugal and efficient. Rejection of any one of those precepts is simply bad business, both in personal finance and in corporate finance.

[Emily]

Their list of criteria is at http://www.climatecounts.org/scorecard_overview.php . Am I reading this right? Climate Counts measures *intentions* and not actual output? So a company that emits little carbon, but doesn't have a policy about carbon emissions reduction scores LOWER than a company that pollutes a lot but has a plan to reduce emissions? Hmmm...

[reusethematerialgirl]

Agreed that there is more we can do to sway corporations, but doubly agreed that ignorant consumers feed corporate fires. However, I am still a strong believer that there are many small things we can do individually that can make a difference. Here's an example of that, something that recently really jolted me:

We recently bought a lovely old house and are still settling in. Two weeks ago we cleaned the basement, which due to the high water table of the area in which we live, has a dirt floor. Once upon a time (though probably not for 10-plus years) there was a laundry area in the basement, and as we shoveled and raked and the floor we found countless DRYER SHEETS, still perfectly intact. Now, I've been buying biodegradable dryer sheets for some time, for no other reason than that I saw the product on a store shelf and thought, "Here's a little something I can do." But I had no further reasoning behind the purchase. Now, with the discovery of these ancient-but-still-whole "regular" dryer sheets all over our basement (and imagining the billions of dryer sheets not rotting away inside landfills), I realize that biodegradable sheets are a better choice, one I'll continue to make, even though it is a small, small action.

That being said, we also just purchased materials for and this weekend will put in place a clothes line, so we won't have to use the dryer much, if at all. And we won't need any kind of dryer sheet, thus we won't have to buy them. Yeah- more freedom from consumerism!!!