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What's your company's greenhouse gas score?

FoodProcessing.com
07/18/2007

Unilever scored a 71, and small yogurt-maker Stonyfield Farm was close behind at 63. Sara Lee managed only a 2.

No, these rankings had nothing to do with size or sales; they were the "greenhouse scores" of 56 companies calculated and publicized by Climate Counts, a new nonprofit group that wants to raise awareness of efforts to reduce global warming.

Canon came in first overall with a score of 77, and Nike (73) was the only other company ahead of Unilever. No company scored a perfect 100, and several scored zeros (Amazon.com, CBS, Burger King, Wendy's, Darden Restaurants and Jones Apparel Group).

Socially conscious Stonyfield Farm put up $500,000 in seed money for the group, and its CEO Gary Hirshberg is chairman of the Climate Counts board.

The group's Carbon Disclosure Project gave companies points for measuring and reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, disclosure of those figures and their support of regulation to stop climate changes.

Climate Counts hopes consumers take note of the scores and figure them into decisions for buying consumer goods and company stock.

Unilever has been circulating a corporate “Sustainable Development Report,” which includes a section “Reducing our footprint and addressing the climate change challenge.”

Hirshberg was not bothered by his company's 63, nor the 50 of France's Groupe Danone, which owns Stonyfield. "We got low points on disclosure, and we haven't done enough with renewables," he told the New York Times. He added he has set up teams to work on those areas.