Industrial Distributors Lacking On Newsweek 2016 Green Rankings

Newsweek's 2016 U.S. 500 greenest companies, included only three individual industrial distributors — Grainger, Fastenal and Airgas — with the first not showing up until No. 227.

Mike Hockett

Jun 17, 2016

Earlier this month Newsweek released its annual Green Rankings, one of the more recognized rankings of corporate environmental performance.

The rankings are based on research from Corporate Knights and HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Investor Inc., using eight key performance indicators to assess and measure the environmental performance of publicly-traded companies. More info on the ranking criteria is here.

Newsweek's Green 2016 has two separate rankings — the U.S. 500 ranks the largest companies in the U.S. by market capitalization, and the Global 500 looks at the 500 largest publicly-traded companies globally by market capitalization on overall environmental performance.

On both lists, I found a somewhat surprising lack of industrial distributors. For the amount of effort I've seen distributors make over the past couple years to become greener and leaner in their facilities and operations — whether through news releases or in-person visits — I expected to see a few more industrial distributors on these two lists, and higher up on them.

Looking at the U.S. 500, no industrial distributor appears until No. 227 with Grainger, which had a Green Score of 33.7 percent. After that, another doesn't show up until until No. 468 with Fastenal at 10.8 percent.

See our September 2014 Distributor Profile of Grainger, which focuses on the company's LEED-certified facility in Minooka, IL.

Though not technically a distributor, Genuine Parts Company appears at No. 458 and 12.2 percent, which is notable since GPC is the the parent company of Motion Industries and EIS Inc. — Nos. 10 and 23 on Industrial Distribution's 2015 Big 50 List.

The only other industrial distributor on the U.S. 500 is Airgas, which checks in at No. 481 (8.6 percent).

Here's Newsweek's Top 10 Green U.S. companies:

Hasbro - 88.1 percent
Nike - 81.9
Hershey - 80.7
NVIDIA - 78.8
Biogen - 78.7
Ecolab - 78.4
Rockwell Automation - 76.4
MetLife - 76.4
Coca-Cola - 76.3
Oracle - 75.8

Beyond Rockwell Automation, here's where some other companies checked in that have interest to industrial distributors:

31. Eaton - 66.8 percent
34. Boeing - 66.4
37. Raytheon - 65.4
41. Johnson Controls - 64.8
43. PPG Industries - 64.3
56. Alcoa - 61.8
59. Ingersoll-Rand - 61.4
74. General Electric - 59.0
85. Cummins - 55.2
91. Home Depot - 54.0
101. Praxair - 52.7
119. 3M - 48.7
207. Illinois Tool Works - 35.9
232. Honeywell - 32.7
259. Emerson Electric - 29.1
341. Parker-Hannifin - 21.2
351. Dover Corp. - 20.4
357. National Oilwell Varco - 20.2
371. Danaher - 19.1
385. Snap-on - 18.3
387. Amazon - 18.3
453. Lowe's - 12.7

View the full U.S. 500 here.

No industrial distributors appeared on Newsweek's Global Green 500 list, which can be viewed here.

Here's where some notable industrial-related companies appeared:

9. Siemens
10. Schneider Electric
38. Atlas Copco
60. Eaton
65. Boeing
71. Raytheon
78. Johnson Controls
81. PPG Industries
127. General Electric
165. Home Depot
179. Praxair
211. Air Liquide
212. 3M
297. Illinois Tool Works
321. Honeywell
340. Emerson Electric
425. Danaher
429. Amazon
477. Lowe's