New Climate Counts Scores Reflect Growing Consumer Power
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 05. 7.08
This is the third guest post by Wood Turner, Project Director, Climate Counts. Last time Wood told us about how Going Green Is Strictly Business. Just Ask Wal-Mart. This time we see how the business of green is spreading.
Consumer climate action isn’t just about switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs or buying recycled. While people across the country are taking action to reduce their own carbon footprint, some consumers are using their power to push companies to take action themselves - and it’s paying off.
Today, Climate Counts is releasing its second annual Climate Counts Company Scorecard. We launched our first Scorecard last year with the hope that creating a simple, easy-to-understand ranking of companies would motivate both companies and consumers to step-up their efforts on climate change.
Now, with the release of their second scorecard, we can say that it appears to have worked. The new Scorecard shows a real shift towards greater climate commitment across most industry sectors — with 84% of scored companies improving their Climate Counts scores. Looking at the companies that showed the most improvement—Google, Levi Strauss and Anheuser-Busch—shows the diverse kinds of great American companies committed to paying attention to global climate change.
The average overall Climate Counts score jumped 22% to 39 (from 30). That number, 39 out of 100, also shows that there is still a lot of work to do. Please spend some time on our site exploring how companies stack up with each other on climate performance (Click here to check out our new scores.).
We’ve been excited by the response from consumers all over the world who have told us over and over again how ready they are to align themselves with companies that reflect their own concern for global warming. Consumers have told us – through their e-mails and calls to us and to the companies we’ve scored – that they are ready to vote with their dollars to stimulate meaningful corporate climate action.
We’ve always believed that a more informed, climate-conscious consumer can play the most important role in driving corporate action in a dynamic marketplace. Indeed, those voices play much louder in corporate boardrooms than you probably ever imagined. When everyday people raise an issue with companies in a clear way, those companies pay attention. We know because it’s reflected in our new scores.
Most companies have a long way to go, but it’s a promising start.
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Wood Turner
Climate Counts, Project Director
PO Box 4844
Manchester NH USA 03108-4844
(603)216-3788 o
(206)898-3028 c
wturner@climatecounts.org
“The Food Services sector has the lowest average (11.5 out of 100) of any of the eight sectors measured with smallest overall improvement.”
This is not surprising. It would be fascinating to correlate the rankings with net profit margins or pre-tax corporate income.