Manchester, NH — Nike has taken the top score for the annual Climate Counts scorecard for the second year in a row, but there are some companies hot on Nike's heels and others that made large leaps in the past year.
Climate Counts' third annual scorecard covers 90 consumer companies on their efforts to measure and reduce their climate impact, support or oppose climate legislation and disclose their climate-related actions.
The non-profit points out that many of the corporations have strengthened their voluntary actions throughout the recent economic downturn and notes that high scores in the electronics and consumer shipping sectors came about due to competition among companies to have lower climate impacts.
For the first time, all 12 companies in the electronics sector of the scorecard and all four in the consumer shipping sector received scores of more than 50 points, out of a possible 100.
“Competition - the most fundamental tenet of a thriving global marketplace - will define the future of corporate climate action and sustainability,” said Climate Counts Executive Director Wood Turner in a statement. “Our scores show that companies are motivated to act when they may not measure up to other companies on their response to issues that matter to people.”
Corporations are rated as "striding" if they receive 50 or more points, "starting" if they receive 13-49 points and "struck" if they receive 12 or fewer points. In the latest scorecard, 45 are striding, 31 are starting and 14 are stuck. Only 17 companies saw their scores stay the same or go down compared to last year's scores.
The top 10 scores were taken by:
Nike, 83 points
Stonyfield Farm, 81
Unilever, 80
HP, 79
IBM, 76
General Electric, 74
Canon and Toshiba, tied at 71
UPS, 69
Deutsch Post/DHL WorldNet, L'Oreal and News Corp., tied at 68
Motorola, HSBC and CitiGroup, tied at 67
Some companies that made large leaps compared to last year include Ebay (48-point increase), US Airways (43-point increase), Apple (41-point increase) and Levis Strauss (36-point increase).
The bottom 10 scores went to:
SkyWest Air, 0
Regions, 1
Wendy's Arby's Group and SunTrust, tied at 2
Viacom and PNC Financial Services, tied at 3
AirTran, 5
VF Corporation, 6
Liz Claiborne and ExpressJet, tied at 7
Burger King, 10
Capital One and Carlson, tied at 12
Hyatt, 13
The scores are based on 22 criteria that look at four areas: measuring climate impact, reduction of impact, engagement on public policy related to climate change, and openness and transparency with consumers on corporate climate activities. The scorecard includes corporations in the apparel, internet/software, media, electronics, beverages/beer, food services, household products, banks, airlines, food product, hotels and consumer shipping sectors.