Tech companies top Newsweek green list

Tech companies dominated the top of Newsweek's "Green Rankings," with Hewlett Packard taking the number one spot.  The list ranked the 500 largest corporations in America based on their environmental impact, green policies and their social responsibility reputation.

Tech companies made up four out of the top five spots:  HP at No.1, Dell at No. 2, Intel at No. 4 and IBM at No. 5.  Google was farther down the list at No. 79 and Apple even lower at No. 133.  The criteria went beyond the environmental-friendliness of their products, factoring in things like the companies' greenhouse gas emissions, water use, waste disposal, environmental initiatives, pollution policies and even how they were viewed by consumers.  You can see specifics on the methodology here.

HP was named the greenest company mainly because of their commitment to reduce GHG emissions and to remove toxic materials from their products.  Greenpeace made a big splash a couple of months ago by calling the company out on their failure to keep their promise on eliminating hazardous materials, but I guess for this ranking, intentions counted as much as action.

HP has made some strong commitments to reducing GHG emissions though. They just announced that they would cut their emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2011.