Who's Green in IT? Greenpeace Has A List

Greenpeace has come out with its fourth biennial "Leaderboard" ranking 17 different IT firms according to their emissions reductions efforts. Cisco led, while Oracle trailed.For leaderboard ranking, companies were given 40 points for their "economy-wide technological solutions," 25 points for own anti-emissions initiatives, and 35 points for "active engagement in political advocacy and support for science-based climate and energy policies."

Cisco was way out front with 70 total points, followed by Ericsson with 57 and Fujitsu with 52. At the bottom were Panasonic and SAP with 21, and Oracle with 12.

Not a few of the 17 got zero points in the political advocacy sub-category, either because they didn't do anything, or Greenpeace did not like what they did. Those included IBM, Panasonic, SAP, Sharp, and Toshiba. Considering how unpopular Greenpeace is in some corners of the industry, with pundits calling them anti-growth and anti-capitalistic, the bottom-scorers may decide to wear those zeroes as a badge of honor.

Basically, its touching that Greenpeace sees the IT sector as something worth following. IT is a service industry that lives and dies with the success of the industries that buy from it. Actually, Greenpeace is in a similar position, living off the contributions that people can afford to make only in a successful economy.

Firms who worked hard toward a green agenda will appreciate the recognition. (Fujitsu sent out a press release.) The rest may remember Greenpeace's confrontational tactics with whalers, and cringe at the thought that they are on any list that Greenpeace makes.