June 21, 2007
Consumers Get Climate Change Scorecard
By Tom Ryan
A new environmental coalition has come up with a scorecard to
help consumers take a brand’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions
into account when making purchasing decisions.
Climate Counts, a nonprofit aimed at curbing global warming, ranked 56 consumer companies by industry on a variety of benchmarks including tracking greenhouse gas emissions, steps to reduce emissions, support or opposition to environmental regulation, and disclosure of corporate activities around the climate change issue.
The stickler appears to be disclosure. Some gained points for bragging about company efforts while others were penalized for keeping activities hush-hush. Raising the public’s consciousness about the importance of climate change is part of the aim of the program.
“If the information is not in the consumers’ hands, they can’t make informed choices,” Wood Turner, the group’s executive director, told The New York Times.
Consumers can review scores at the climatecounts.org website, and even download a pocket-sized ratings guide. They will also be able to use wireless devices like cell phones to call up a company’s score while shopping. (The site launched Tuesday, but was still having operational issues at press time.)
No company achieved a perfect 100. Six companies scored zero (Amazon, Wendy’s, Darden Restaurants and Burger King), and only four – Canon, Nike, Unilever and I.B.M. – scored 70 or higher. Stonyfield Farm, which provided $500,000 in seed money for Climate Counts, managed only a 63.
Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of Stonyfield Farm and chairman of Climate Counts, told the Times his company lost points for inadequate disclosure and not enough progress on renewables.
In the food products group, Unilever and Stonyfield Farm were followed by Coca-Cola, 57; Groupe Danone, 50; Kraft, 43; Nestle, 42; General Mills, 37; PepsiCo, 26; Kellogg, 24; ConAgra Foods, 6; and Sara Lee, 2.
The study didn’t explore retailers, though that may eventually change since Climate Counts plans to come out with a new scorecard every year. The group will also raise grades of companies already on the list as they disclose any progress.
“This scorecard serves as carrot and stick, rewarding some companies and prodding others,” Mr. Hirshberg said. “We’re not telling consumers who to buy from. We’re just telling them to pay attention.”
Carbon Disclosure Project has ranked companies on their environmental track records for several years, although it’s aimed at the investment community. This appears to be the first ranking system for consumers.
“Most of the recent attention has been on what people and families can do to reduce their own climate footprint, such as buying compact fluorescent light bulbs or energy-efficient appliances,” said Mr. Turner in a statement. “But consumers have even more power. They can motivate companies to take meaningful action to fight global warming. We’ve created this tool to help people flex their consumer muscle.”
Discussion Questions: To what degree do you think a climate change grading system for brands could impact consumer purchasing decisions? What will it take for such a program to create a significant influence on consumer spending?
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I’m all for anything that will favorably effect our planet but I can’t see where it will have any noticeable effect on the average consumer’s buying decisions. I don’t see where very many people have the time or even the interest in pursuing something like this. And has been pointed out, consumers buy products, not company’s reputations. There may be a few exceptions, but I can’t think of many.
I see a small to moderate effect. As Ryan said, the converted will continue to behave as they have, but I also think the universe of the converted is slowly getting larger. And I don’t think shoppers will be consistent. Sometimes they’ll buy vegetarian non-fat healthy, sometimes they’ll buy rib steaks. Sometimes they’ll buy sustainable products, sometimes they won’t. Recently, I chatted with Ted Brown of Brown Consulting, Brunswick, Maine, who used to work for Hannaford and is now a consultant on sustainability to the food trade. As Ted put it, “Trends in Europe are making their way here. I expect one day we’ll see a coding system on packaging that tells shoppers whether the product has been manufactured using sustainable practices. Tesco is seriously pursuing this now.” He added that it’s very important for companies to blow their horns about the good things they do regarding sustainability. Increasingly, it will give them a competitive edge. I see this as important and worth doing, but I don’t see it as a tsunami.
Ultimately, major companies and their brands will be judged on their environmental awareness and their efforts to protect the environment to the point that it will be very significant to many of their customers. Those companies making necessary investments now will find their payback in the not so near future.
As a consumer, as a citizen of the world, as well as a businessperson I feel it is very important to try to understand the impact our daily decisions have on the environment and to do the right thing as best we can. I have also come to believe it is important to understand who, and what funding, politics and/or motives are behind any new non-profit. Most have legitimately noble goals but few can be considered impartial in the purest sense.
The environmental scorecard discussed in this article is, as mentioned, produced from a non profit chaired by the head of Stonyfield Farms and is shown on their website as a “Stonyfield Project.” Stonyfield is a great company and my family eats some of their wonderful thick organic yogurt literally every morning of our lives. I give them props for their efforts. But–will their competitors in the food business and other companies not think twice about sharing company details with this group? I suspect the corporate participation will, in fact, be rather limited and this should be viewed more as a PR activity than as a major consumer mover.
This early scorecarding attempt may be crude and limited, but I would suggest that the skeptics reevaluate their perspective on this concept over a broader horizon.
Of course only a minority of present consumers–the already converted–will use this information at first. But the same could have been said of refrigerator and air conditioner buyers when the Energy Efficiency Ratings were first applied there. Or gas mileage figures and crash-safety ratings for automobiles. Or nutrition labels with fat and sodium content on foods.
Those experiences strongly suggest that many people will learn to apply this kind of transparent information when they make consumption choices. Not all at once, but increasingly over time. To the extent that it is clear that making climate-responsible choices are also in shoppers’ self-interest, this adoption rate will accelerate.
A key challenge lies in the complexity of this type of rating system. What are consumers concerned about when they choose among products: The amount of packaging waste? Energy expended in manufacture? Environmental cost of mining/farming the raw materials? End-of-life cost of disposal? Energy used in transport? Overall corporate citizenship of the manufacturer? Finally, do we trust the rating system(s) and the people applying it/them to deliver reliable scale(s)?
Slapping a summary score on company behavior may stimulate some talk and even some action, but I’d rather have a score on my product choices. Given reliable information, and other things being more or less equal (including quality and price), I think many people will choose the item with a lower “Total Carbon Impact” rating. What’s your product’s TCI?
Carbon footprint labeling is coming.
I foresee a time when the consumer will be able to compare and make choices based on the carbon footprint of items.
Such as:
Widget A: $7.99 – Carbon Rating 73 – made in China – no recycled content
Widget B: $10.99 – similar quality & features to Widget A – Carbon Rating 27 – made in USA – recycled content….
I think that this designation will increase the importance of the environment as a decision purchase factor in general for the shopper. That will then become encoded to some degree in their decision hierarchy, producing some lift in sales for products that position themselves as environmentally friendly. So, the designation on a package might not have a DIRECT effect on what they take off the shelf for a specific purchase choice, but it will affect the shopper in general across many or all purchases.
Another interesting thing to note is that consumers don’t shop like they say they will. Many consumers claim to be environmentally conscious buyers, or healthy buyers, but follow them around the store, and their purchase behaviour shows otherwise. So, with the exception of the loyalists (who are already shopping this way), a program like this will only be minimally effective.
I like the idea of an on-package coding system, based on standards set up by an unbiased organization. As a consumer, there would be a lot more buy-in, and it would be a consistent reminder to consumers when they are shopping in stores.
As an environmentally conscious person, I applaud any efforts to move our world to a better place. The more consistent messages that get to consumers, the more converters there will be.
This is a great first effort. I applaud it and the courage of those who have taken the position to “do something.” It seems sad that so many humans have not paid attention to the environmental issues facing all life on earth. The potential massive negative effects we are having on our environment is frightening to say the least. While there are some who have reached out to take corrective action, many of us (including me) can do so much more. This is true both personally and professionally, won’t you agree?
From the perspective of retail, it seems that there will be very little effect for dramatic changes early on. Some manufacturers and some retailers are making positive strides but others are completely ignoring the issue. Why? The answer is evident. Retailers and manufacturers pay attention to what consumers pay attention to. Consumers don’t start paying attention until we feel something personally affects us or others we care about. A conundrum to be sure…. What shall we do?
How about this? Why don’t all of the responsible executives of this distinguished panel make the commitment to use our impressive influence to help communicate the issue? If we as individuals believe that our planet is facing difficult environmental issues then do we not share in the burden to help correct our wayward ways? At least this small effort lines us on the side of contributing both positive outcomes to our planet and potentially positive outcomes to retailers and manufacturers. I’m starting today by changing all the incandescent bulbs in my home to Compact Florescent bulbs. Join me won’t you?
I don’t think it will have any effect. Everyone cares about the environment to varying degrees, but not everyone feels the same about “the greenhouse effect.” I recycle everything, but some of the most liberal people I know do nothing. They want to blame corporations but don’t want to take responsibility themselves. It’s easy to point fingers, not so easy to spend time cleaning out glass bottles and breaking down cardboard boxes. I think Climate Counts will find the “die hards” who will pay attention and possibly even organize a few boycotts against the worse offenders. But I don’t believe it will be big enough to have much, if any impact. I agree with Dan Nelson that most consumers buy products, not companies.
It won’t have any effect. The only ones that will pay attention are the already converted. The rest will just keep loading their heavy carbon footprint goods into their Hummers.
While I applaud this 1st step, consumers do not buy companies or brands, they buy products. If there was a true rating system on products based on their environmental impact, then consumers would be more aware of each item decision and many would consider this product attribute in what they purchased.
Very much like the energy star rating given to electronic products, a similar type of on-pack “endorsement” to environmental value would be valued by environmentally aware shoppers, which is a growing segment and will continue to expand rapidly. Suppliers would then be encouraged to “win”/”earn” product endorsement rating and approval label status which would greatly impact how they build products going forward.
I don’t see how this would affect any consumer decision. Just how much greenhouse gas does Amazon.com produce selling books over the internet? Out of sight and out of mind. Maybe as soon as smoke starts coming out of my computer when I get on the Amazon web site will I pay attention. Getting on or off a list such as this normally involves volunteering information or donating funds, or not.
Wal-Mart could probably openly dump nuclear waste in our rivers and their parking lots would still be packed.
The effect on consumers will be small now, but will likely grow. Any rating system must be easy to use, meaningful to consumers and related to specific products rather than only a brand. The recent addition of health and energy symbols on some products are more meaningful to consumers because they are at the point of purchase.
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I’m all for anything that will favorably effect our planet but I can’t see where it will have any noticeable effect on the average consumer’s buying decisions. I don’t see where very many people have the time or even the interest in pursuing something like this. And has been pointed out, consumers buy products, not company’s reputations. There may be a few exceptions, but I can’t think of many.
I see a small to moderate effect. As Ryan said, the converted will continue to behave as they have, but I also think the universe of the converted is slowly getting larger. And I don’t think shoppers will be consistent. Sometimes they’ll buy vegetarian non-fat healthy, sometimes they’ll buy rib steaks. Sometimes they’ll buy sustainable products, sometimes they won’t. Recently, I chatted with Ted Brown of Brown Consulting, Brunswick, Maine, who used to work for Hannaford and is now a consultant on sustainability to the food trade. As Ted put it, “Trends in Europe are making their way here. I expect one day we’ll see a coding system on packaging that tells shoppers whether the product has been manufactured using sustainable practices. Tesco is seriously pursuing this now.” He added that it’s very important for companies to blow their horns about the good things they do regarding sustainability. Increasingly, it will give them a competitive edge. I see this as important and worth doing, but I don’t see it as a tsunami.
Ultimately, major companies and their brands will be judged on their environmental awareness and their efforts to protect the environment to the point that it will be very significant to many of their customers. Those companies making necessary investments now will find their payback in the not so near future.
As a consumer, as a citizen of the world, as well as a businessperson I feel it is very important to try to understand the impact our daily decisions have on the environment and to do the right thing as best we can. I have also come to believe it is important to understand who, and what funding, politics and/or motives are behind any new non-profit. Most have legitimately noble goals but few can be considered impartial in the purest sense.
The environmental scorecard discussed in this article is, as mentioned, produced from a non profit chaired by the head of Stonyfield Farms and is shown on their website as a “Stonyfield Project.” Stonyfield is a great company and my family eats some of their wonderful thick organic yogurt literally every morning of our lives. I give them props for their efforts. But–will their competitors in the food business and other companies not think twice about sharing company details with this group? I suspect the corporate participation will, in fact, be rather limited and this should be viewed more as a PR activity than as a major consumer mover.
This early scorecarding attempt may be crude and limited, but I would suggest that the skeptics reevaluate their perspective on this concept over a broader horizon.
Of course only a minority of present consumers–the already converted–will use this information at first. But the same could have been said of refrigerator and air conditioner buyers when the Energy Efficiency Ratings were first applied there. Or gas mileage figures and crash-safety ratings for automobiles. Or nutrition labels with fat and sodium content on foods.
Those experiences strongly suggest that many people will learn to apply this kind of transparent information when they make consumption choices. Not all at once, but increasingly over time. To the extent that it is clear that making climate-responsible choices are also in shoppers’ self-interest, this adoption rate will accelerate.
A key challenge lies in the complexity of this type of rating system. What are consumers concerned about when they choose among products: The amount of packaging waste? Energy expended in manufacture? Environmental cost of mining/farming the raw materials? End-of-life cost of disposal? Energy used in transport? Overall corporate citizenship of the manufacturer? Finally, do we trust the rating system(s) and the people applying it/them to deliver reliable scale(s)?
Slapping a summary score on company behavior may stimulate some talk and even some action, but I’d rather have a score on my product choices. Given reliable information, and other things being more or less equal (including quality and price), I think many people will choose the item with a lower “Total Carbon Impact” rating. What’s your product’s TCI?
Carbon footprint labeling is coming.
I foresee a time when the consumer will be able to compare and make choices based on the carbon footprint of items.
Such as:
Widget A: $7.99 – Carbon Rating 73 – made in China – no recycled content
Widget B: $10.99 – similar quality & features to Widget A – Carbon Rating 27 – made in USA – recycled content….
I think that this designation will increase the importance of the environment as a decision purchase factor in general for the shopper. That will then become encoded to some degree in their decision hierarchy, producing some lift in sales for products that position themselves as environmentally friendly. So, the designation on a package might not have a DIRECT effect on what they take off the shelf for a specific purchase choice, but it will affect the shopper in general across many or all purchases.
Another interesting thing to note is that consumers don’t shop like they say they will. Many consumers claim to be environmentally conscious buyers, or healthy buyers, but follow them around the store, and their purchase behaviour shows otherwise. So, with the exception of the loyalists (who are already shopping this way), a program like this will only be minimally effective.
I like the idea of an on-package coding system, based on standards set up by an unbiased organization. As a consumer, there would be a lot more buy-in, and it would be a consistent reminder to consumers when they are shopping in stores.
As an environmentally conscious person, I applaud any efforts to move our world to a better place. The more consistent messages that get to consumers, the more converters there will be.
This is a great first effort. I applaud it and the courage of those who have taken the position to “do something.” It seems sad that so many humans have not paid attention to the environmental issues facing all life on earth. The potential massive negative effects we are having on our environment is frightening to say the least. While there are some who have reached out to take corrective action, many of us (including me) can do so much more. This is true both personally and professionally, won’t you agree?
From the perspective of retail, it seems that there will be very little effect for dramatic changes early on. Some manufacturers and some retailers are making positive strides but others are completely ignoring the issue. Why? The answer is evident. Retailers and manufacturers pay attention to what consumers pay attention to. Consumers don’t start paying attention until we feel something personally affects us or others we care about. A conundrum to be sure…. What shall we do?
How about this? Why don’t all of the responsible executives of this distinguished panel make the commitment to use our impressive influence to help communicate the issue? If we as individuals believe that our planet is facing difficult environmental issues then do we not share in the burden to help correct our wayward ways? At least this small effort lines us on the side of contributing both positive outcomes to our planet and potentially positive outcomes to retailers and manufacturers. I’m starting today by changing all the incandescent bulbs in my home to Compact Florescent bulbs. Join me won’t you?
I don’t think it will have any effect. Everyone cares about the environment to varying degrees, but not everyone feels the same about “the greenhouse effect.” I recycle everything, but some of the most liberal people I know do nothing. They want to blame corporations but don’t want to take responsibility themselves. It’s easy to point fingers, not so easy to spend time cleaning out glass bottles and breaking down cardboard boxes. I think Climate Counts will find the “die hards” who will pay attention and possibly even organize a few boycotts against the worse offenders. But I don’t believe it will be big enough to have much, if any impact. I agree with Dan Nelson that most consumers buy products, not companies.
It won’t have any effect. The only ones that will pay attention are the already converted. The rest will just keep loading their heavy carbon footprint goods into their Hummers.
While I applaud this 1st step, consumers do not buy companies or brands, they buy products. If there was a true rating system on products based on their environmental impact, then consumers would be more aware of each item decision and many would consider this product attribute in what they purchased.
Very much like the energy star rating given to electronic products, a similar type of on-pack “endorsement” to environmental value would be valued by environmentally aware shoppers, which is a growing segment and will continue to expand rapidly. Suppliers would then be encouraged to “win”/”earn” product endorsement rating and approval label status which would greatly impact how they build products going forward.
I don’t see how this would affect any consumer decision. Just how much greenhouse gas does Amazon.com produce selling books over the internet? Out of sight and out of mind. Maybe as soon as smoke starts coming out of my computer when I get on the Amazon web site will I pay attention. Getting on or off a list such as this normally involves volunteering information or donating funds, or not.
Wal-Mart could probably openly dump nuclear waste in our rivers and their parking lots would still be packed.
The effect on consumers will be small now, but will likely grow. Any rating system must be easy to use, meaningful to consumers and related to specific products rather than only a brand. The recent addition of health and energy symbols on some products are more meaningful to consumers because they are at the point of purchase.