Guess Who Tops Newsweek’s Greenest Company List?

For its upcoming issue, Newsweek has assigned a green ranking to the 500 biggest public companies in America and named Hewlett-Packard the greenest company of 2009.

This is the first time the magazine has undertaken a green rating project, and the results were based not only on the company’s environmental footprint but also on its policies. Here’s a breakdown of the top 10:

HP tops Newsweek's list of the 10 greenest companies. In 2008, the company recycled 265 million pounds of electronics. Photo: Flickr/kathleenleavitt

1. Hewlett-Packard Company
2. Dell Inc.
3. Johnson & Johnson
4. Intel Corporation
5. IBM
6. State Street Corporation
7. NIKE, Inc.
8. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
9. Applied Materials, Inc.
10. Starbucks Corporation

Several of these companies have made their mark when it comes to recycling and waste reduction. Last year, Nike introduced its Trash Talk shoe line made with recycled waste from factory floors. The company also offers a recycling program for old sneakers.

Dell partnered with Goodwill to collect and recycle electronics nationwide, while also monitoring the use of mercury in its newer models. Meanwhile, Starbucks has been exploring the recyclability of its cups, and launched a recycling program in New York earlier this month.

Newsweek devoted 12 pages to the results of its report, packed with interviews with CEOs and corporate sustainability officers. On the Newsweek Web site, you can also search companies by industry and size to compare green ratings.

“This is the first time a media organization has ranked companies in this way,” said Kathleen Deveny, global business editor of Newsweek. “Most green lists are anecdotal—ours is the result of a massive database research project conducted in collaboration with three of the leading players in environmental research: KLD, Trucost and Corporate Register.”