Hardly a day goes by without some U.S. company touting its green credentials, but don’t get too optimistic about corporate eco-friendliness. Consulting company Greener Media studied companies’ performance on 20 economic and environmental indicators, from alternative-fuel vehicles to telecommuting to pesticide use, and has published the results in a new 65-page report. Only eight of the 20 indicators showed progress last year: emissions disclosure, clean-tech investment and patents, energy efficiency, green office space, recycling, quality of management, and toxic emissions. Two issues, electronic waste and carbon intensity, actually got worse in 2007, while 10 stayed about the same. Says report executive editor and green-biz guru Joel Makower, “Companies, in aggregate, aren’t changing quickly or significantly enough to move the needle on climate change and other challenges.” To move that needle, they need to be needled. And thus we wheedle.
