Published May 8, 2008 07:50 AM
Consumer group ranks companies on emissions efforts
Consumer companies are getting greener, but they are still quite carbon-intensive, according to a study to be released today.
Nonprofit group Climate Counts will release its second annual rankings of 56 consumer companies today on how they measure greenhouse gas emissions, their plans to reduce them and how fully they disclose their efforts.
"We aren't measuring emissions," said Chief Executive Gary Hirshberg. "We are measuring commitment."
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Most companies improved from last year, but the average score was 40 out of 100. "We've seen more progress in the green movement in the last 12 months than in my entire life before," Hirshberg said.
Amazon.com and Apple, which registered respective scores of 5 and 9, said their scores were not representative of their efforts.
Google moved toward its goal of carbon neutrality, gaining 38 point to reach 55. "Projects that had been years in the making came to fruition," said Bill Weihl, Google's green energy czar.
Climate Counts posts its scores on ClimateCounts.org and has distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of a pocket guide that lists the scores (Claudia H. Deutsch, New York Times , May 7).