America's Greenest Companies: 2009

The Carbon Disclosure Project has been tracking the carbon footprint of S&P-500 members since 2003. This year, for the first time, its report ranks companies based on their plans and actions to reduce emissions. This year, 332 companies responded to the voluntary survey, vs. 321 a year ago 

For 2009, the project actually applied a performance metric, but since it is a pilot program, the project has opted not to release specific numbers. Instead, it has released the names of the 14 companies that posted the highest scores.

Questions asked of each company in the survey range from whether it has reduced emissions from last year to whether the company meets with policy makers to figure out how it could cut emissions. Specific questions in the survey were given a point value and added to come up with the list of 14 companies. (You can read more about the methodology by clicking here. The full report is here.)

Click on to see the list of companies (in alphabetical order). We've also included their total 2008 emissions where available.

Posted Oct. 13, 2009

Sector: Consumer Discretionary

Total Emissions: N/A

Sector: Industrials

Total Emissions: 1,679,000 metric tons

Sector: Information Technology

Total Emissions: 598,382 metric tons

Sector: Utilities

Total Emissions: 4,769,429 metric tons

Sector: Information Technology

Total Emissions: 406,252 metric tons

Sector: Materials

Total Emissions: 13,339,560 metric tons

Sector: Information Technology

Total Emissions: 371,620 metric tons

Sector: Utilities

Total Emissions: 9,664,883 metric tons

Sector: Information Technology

Total Emissions: 2,449,378 metric tons

Sector: Consumer Discretionary

Total Emissions: 637,274 metric tons

Sector: Utilities

Total Emissions: 3,038,868 metric tons

Sector: Materials

Total Emissions: 6,248,264 metric tons

Sector: Energy

Total Emissions: 2,152,970 metric tons

Sector: Industrials

Total Emissions: 2,081,907 metric tons