IF YOU care about the environment, you may want to
show that in the way you spend your money. Maybe you shop at an organic
food store rather than a conventional supermarket. You probably look at
energy efficiency labels before buying a new laptop. And if you’re
really serious, you may even be concentrating your nest egg into
“green” investment funds.

All
of these decisions could help steer us towards a truly green economy –
but only if consumers and investors have a good idea of which companies
have genuinely minimised their impact on the environment. Do the
corporations that benefit from our environmentally conscious purchasing
and investment choices deserve their green halo?

To find out,
New Scientist
teamed up with two companies that have collected the most relevant
data. Earthsense, based in Syracuse, New York, has polled US consumers
on their perceptions of the “greenness” of various companies. Trucost,
headquartered in London, has compiled an unparalleled quantitative
assessment of companies’ global environmental impact (see interactive graphic, and “How we crunched the numbers”).

Bringing
these two sets of information together shows just how confused ordinary
people are about companies’ green credentials. Overall, there was no
correlation between the Earthsense and Trucost scores, suggesting that
US consumers have little idea about companies’ environmental
performance relative to each other. And looking within industrial
sectors, the only hint of accurate consumer awareness came for
technology companies (see “Geeks, gadgets and the environment”).

In some cases there were dramatic mismatches between
perceptions and reality. Take media firm Discovery Communications: its
environmental impact, per dollar earned, is almost indistinguishable
from TV and movie giant Viacom. Yet Discovery has a stellar green
reputation that Viacom does not enjoy – which could be due to
Discovery’s content, which includes Animal Planet TV and websites such
as TreeHugger.

Some
of the greatest confusion surrounds the food and beverage sector. Of
the 115 firms we analysed, producers of food and drinks stood out as
having the highest environmental impact – significantly different from
media firms, retailers, technology companies and manufacturers of
personal and household goods. Yet there were no significant differences
in consumer perceptions between the sectors. In general, US consumers
fail to recognise the high environmental costs associated with
agriculture and food processing.

When
it comes to perception, one company’s high score truly stands out:
Whole Foods Market, which operates more than 270 stores, mostly in the
US. As a purveyor of “natural and organic produce”, everything about
Whole Foods shouts green. In addition to its overall branding, the
company has taken steps to reinforce its environmental credentials,
including improving the efficiency of its refrigerators and reducing
packaging. But Trucost’s modelling rates Whole Foods no better than
conventional supermarkets such as Safeway.