Report Card: Which Tech Execs Are The Most (And Least) Environment-Friendly

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Report Card: Which Tech Execs Are The Most (And Least) Environment-Friendly

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Being perceived as environmentally friendly is obviously a big issue for tech leaders. Consider Google’s recent pronouncement that making one cheeseburger used up as much energy as 15,000 Google (NSDQ: GOOG) searches, or Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent, very-public purchase of a Ford Fusion Hybrid.

Now Greenpeace is offering its own ranking of tech CEOs. The grading takes into account emissions targets at their firms, alternative energy use, political advocacy, and the climate-change solutions their companies provide.

After the jump, how 12 top execs fared on Greenpeace’s scale of 100 points. As you’ll see, it’s not too impressed with the group. (It faults Microsoft, for instance, for setting “a relative emissions reductions goal” rather than an “absolute reduction target,” and says Sony (NYSE: SNE) needs to improve its alternative energy target.)

1. IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano (29)
1. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (29)
2. Dell CEO Michael Dell (21)
3. Cisco CEO John Chambers (19)
4. Intel CEO Paul Otellini (18)
4. Fujitsu CEO Kuniaki Nozoe (18)
6. Nokia CEO Olli Kallasvuo (16)
7. HP CEO Mark Hurd (13)
8. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (7)
8. Sony CEO Howard Stringer (7)
9. Sharp CEO Katsuhiko Machida (5)
10. Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida (2)

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Joseph Tartakoff

@josephtartakoff May 27, 2009 11:55 AM ET

Posted In: Research & Metrics, Metrics, Companies, Google, Microsoft, Sony

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Mark

Google disputes the charges that their searches contribute significantly to the CO2 emission. They might say it is not much comparing to "cheeseburger, but Google does not include in their calculations the millions of Watts necessary to store, transfer and display billions of their ads that go with the searches.

It is in their business model to sell ads, not searches, which are free. Google claims the ads are also âfree.â In reality though, they require a lot of energy, or at least more energy than if the search were ad-free, and therefore contribute to a bigger CO2 footprint. And, who pays for that? Not Google, no.

BTW I wrote (twice!) to Google and ask to explain how they see this issue, but never received any response.