SustainableBusiness.com today announced its 2007 Sustainable Business 20 (SB20) List: The World's Top Sustainable Stocks. The SB20 list, in its sixth year, consists of 20 public companies that are having an important impact on creating an environmentally sustainable society.
The list is presented in the Progressive Investor newsletter, published by SustainableBusiness.com, which tracks sustainable stocks.
"Our goal is to create a list that showcases public companies that, over the past year, have made substantial progress in either greening their internal operations or growing a business based on an important green technology, says Rona Fried, Ph.D., SustainableBusiness.com CEO and Editor of Progressive Investor.
To choose the 20 companies, SustainableBusiness.com partnered with KLD Research & Analytics, which provided a preliminary universe of 50 global companies with strong "green" initiatives and solid financials. KLD also served as a judge along with five leading green investment analysts to decide on the final list.
Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy
This year, energy efficiency took center stage. Efficiency offers the least expensive, best economic returns, and most dramatic ways to reduce greenhouse emissions, simply by reducing energy consumption in the first place.
Comverge energy-management technologies save enormous amounts of energy by cutting peak demand, while keeping the filthiest fossil fuel plants off-line. Philips has been snapping up market share in LED lighting, advocating for and preparing to stop producing inefficient incandescents. Fuel Tech's technology cleans up the dirtiest fossil fuel plants, and Novozymes, "green chemicals" are keys to industrial efficiency and cellulosic biofuels.
REC is the world's most vertically integrated solar company; First Solar is the first public company to produce high volume, low cost thin film solar. Vestas, the world's premier wind company, has maintained its leadership position despite heavy competition. Ormat is the world geothermal leader, and Schmack Biogas is the world's leading biogas plant manufacturer, turning organic wastes into electricity, heat or fuels.
Green Building
For Land Securities, the UK's largest property owner, all new buildings meet green building standards, while it works to incorporate gray water, rainwater harvesting, FSC-certified wood, and Fair Trade/ Organic foods company-wide.
Interface continues its climb up "Mount Sustainability," innovating in the materials and processes used to make carpet tiles. Furniture maker Herman Miller, another stalwart sustainability leader, is 63% on its way to achieving its goal of Zero Ecological Footprint by 2020.
Consumer Products
Canon is making its products smaller and lighter, and has an aggressive target of cutting C02 emissions by 50% by 2010. Nike is using green design principles to transform its products, root out waste and toxics, and plans to be carbon neutral by 2015.
Natural Foods/ Natural Products
Groupe Danone, the world's largest dairy company, is converting more to organic dairy, sustainable agriculture. Its groundbreaking joint venture, Grameen Danone Foods, will create hundreds of jobs by manufacturing nutritionally dense, basic foods -- run on solar and biogas -- to low income populations in Bangladesh. It's a model for 50 plants in India over the next 10 years.
The world's largest retailer of organic/ natural products, Whole Foods, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the leader in Fair Trade/ Organic coffee, have been on the SB20 since inception. They are exemplary models all around, and are largely responsible for the mainstreaming of natural foods/ sustainable coffee. Both companies are climate neutral.
Chipotle Mexican Grill, with over 600 restaurants, is making waves in the world of fast food by serving free range meats and integrating organic ingredients into its menus.
The SB20 List for 2007 - Alphabetical Order
Best Water Technology (Vienna: BWT.VI) (Austria)
Canon (Japan)
Comverge (USA)
Chipotle Mexican Grill (USA)
First Solar (USA)
Fuel Tech (USA)
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (USA)
Groupe Danone (DANO.PA) Netherlands
Herman Miller (USA)
Interface (USA)
Land Securities Britain
NIKE, Inc. (USA)
Novozymes (Copenhagen: NZYM.CO) Denmark
Ormat Technologies (USA)
Precious Woods Switzerland
Renewable Energy Corp - REC Norway
Royal Philips Electronics NV Netherlands
Schmack Biogas AG (Germany: SB1B.DE) Germany
Vestas (Copenhagen: VWS.CO) Denmark
Whole Foods Market (USA)
Honorable Mention:
Google, Inc.
1 comment:
Fantastic info...I have been very interested in geothermal energy as of late, especially after Gov. Schwarzenegger formed a bill into law that set a CO2 limit on coal plants as a future source of electricity in the West Coast market. This is a good (early) time for geothermal energy production.
Geothermal Energy Special Report
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