13 Indian firms among Newsweek’s global green; Wipro ranked 2

Washington : Thirteen Indian companies figure among Newsweek’s annual rankings of the world’s greenest companies, with information technology giants Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services taking the second and 11th spots.

The US news magazine’s fourth annual Green Rankings noted that while companies around the planet in emerging and developing economies are going green, the US is falling behind globally.

IBM, which ranks No.1 on the magazine’s US list, was the only American company to break into the global top 10, which was led by Banco Santander Brasil.

In picking up the most environmentally-friendly companies, the magazine said it partnered with Trucost and Sustainalytics, two leading research companies, to compare the world’s largest 500 companies according to their environmental footprint, management (policies, initiatives, controversies) and transparency.

Wipro, placed second with a Green Score of 85.4, plans to convert five of its campuses into “biodiversity zones” by 2015, and its flagship data centre in North Carolina was just awarded an LEED Gold certification, Newsweek noted.

The sustainability practices of TCS, ranked 11th with a Green Score of 80.4, “have focused largely on agricultural and community needs of the region.”

“Sixteen of its facilities do composting, some have bio-digesters turning waste into kitchen fuel and a programme called mKRISHI has enabled some 20,000 farmers in 400 Indian villages to get access to important information about climate, pesticides and fertiliser use,” Newsweek noted.

Rankings of Indian companies with their global rank in brackets: Wipro (2), Tata Consultancy Services (11), Infosys (19), Larsen & Toubro (96), Tata Motors (282), Reliance Industries (342), State Bank of India (344), HDFC Bank (346), ONGC (386), Tata Steel (419), ICICI Bank (476), NTPC (497) and Coal India (499).