Top 500 Global Green Rankings Includes 19 Canadian Companies

Being a Canadian company that is mindful of its social and environmental impact, we pay particular attention to Canada CSR business reports and other related news. We have recently written about Maclean’s Top 50 Canadian CSR business list, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and the Corporate Knights 50 Best Corporate Citizens in Canada so we were looking for Canadian companies in Newsweek’s Global 2011 Green Rankings.

Newsweek recently released its latest Global Green Rankings which is a comprehensive report on the environmental performance of the world’s largest publicly traded companies.  Company size was evaluated according to revenue related to its most recent fiscal year, market capitalization, and number of employees.  The report began in 2009 and is the first of its kind conducted by a major media organization that measures and ranks companies on their “actual environmental footprint, management of that footprint, and sustainability communications”. Newsweek partners with Trucost and Sustainalytics, two leading environmental research organizations to compile the report which is based on a peer-reviewed research process, including both quantitative and qualitative data.

Newsweek 2011 Green Rankings image courtesy of thedailybeast.com

The 2011 Green Rankings were compiled in consultation with an advisory panel put together by Newsweek and included:  John Elkington, executive chairman of Volans and cofounder of SustainAbility; Marjorie Kelly, senior associate at the Tellus Institute and cofounder of Business Ethics; Tom Murray, managing director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s corporate-partnerships program; Michael Toffel, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and David Vidal, research director of global corporate citizenship at The Conference Board.

Companies were ranked according to the overall results of their Green Score based on three scoring components (each out of 100):

• an Environmental Impact Score (weighted at 45%) which is “a comprehensive, quantitative, and standardized measurement of the overall environmental impact of a company’s global operations. More than 700 metrics—including emissions of nine key greenhouse gases, water use, solid waste disposal, and emissions that contribute to acid rain and smog—are factored into the Environmental Impact Score”;
• an Environmental Management Score (weighted at 45%) which “is an assessment of how a company manages its environmental performance through policies, programs, targets, certifications, and the like. To account for a company’s overall environmental footprint, Sustainalytics’ focuses on three distinct spheres of influence: company operations, contractors and suppliers, and products and services”; and
• an Environmental Disclosure Score (weighted at 10%) “this score evaluates the breadth and quality of company environmental reporting of their material impacts, as determined by Trucost, as well as company involvement in key transparency initiatives such as the Global Reporting Initiative and Carbon Disclosure Project, as tracked by Sustainalytics.

I was curious to see how many Canadian companies had made the grade and found that 19 of the 500 spots were Canadian: (12) Bell Canada Enterprises, (84) TELUS Canada, (120) Power Financial Canada, (131) TD Bank Canada, (157) Rogers Communications, (194) Thomson Reuters, (195) Great-West Lifeco, (203) Canadian National Railway, (209) RBC Canada, (224) BMO Canada, (225) CIBC Canada, (305) Barrick Canada, (306) Suncor Canada, (314) Loblaw Canada, (336) ScotiaBank, (357) Research in Motion, (371) Magna, (390) Manulife, and (465) Power Corp. of Canada.

Hopefully Canada will become more progressive and the social and environmental achievements of our country and the CSR business values of its companies will result in improved presence on the global stage.
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.