If you care about global warming, you should know if the company that sold you that pair of pants has the same values.
That's the concept behind Climate Counts, a nonprofit started last year by Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hirshberg. The group, based in Manchester, N.H., scores companies based on their voluntary actions to reverse climate change.
Consumers can visit the website, climatecounts.org, to see how well the companies they purchase products from are doing. Sixty have been rated so far on a scale from zero (the worst) to 100. The list, which will be updated in April, has Canon at the top, with a score of 77. Six companies scored zero:
A group of trained specialists uses 22 criteria to rank the companies for the site. The key piece of information is the size of a company's carbon footprint and what it's doing to reduce it.
Climate Counts has two goals, according to project director Wood Turner. It gives consumers the power to send a message to a company by not doing business with it. And it gives companies the opportunity to change their ways based on consumer demand.
"Our company is as much a carrot as a stick," Turner says. "This is a real opportunity for business. We want to see companies improve. We hope to see that in April."
Many people still aren't part of the global warming discussion; buying locally grown food and taking public transportation isn't possible for everybody. But, says Turner, "Climate Counts brings more people into the conversation because everyone is a consumer."
[Harriet Blake]
GREEN TIPS: Send questions and ideas to hlblake@aol.com.
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