Climate Counts

Today marks the launch of Climate Counts, a new nonprofit initiative to rate major consumer brands on their climate commitments and performance.

The data released today rate 56 companies on a 100-point scale based on more than 20 criteria in four categories:

* How well does the company measure its climate footprint? (up to 22 points)
* How much has the company done to reduce its global warming pollution? (up to 56 points)
* Does the company explicitly support (or express intent to block) progressive climate legislation? (up to 10 points)
* How clearly and comprehensively does the company publicly disclose its climate protection efforts? (up to 12 points)

You can view and download the scorecard and its criteria here [PDF].

I like this idea. I think the scoring metrics make sense, and this labeling technique will put pressure on companies to become more transparent about their footprint and what they are doing about it.

But, I am going to give the companies time to respond before taking the actual results seriously. For example, Google doesn't score very high, and yet with their solar power project and other initiatives to use renewable power, they do seem to be taking global warming seriously and doing something about it. In a year or two, I bet they will have made that information public in the format that Climate Counts is looking for. At that point I will start taking the rankings into consideration when making purchases.

via GNET