Chicago, USA September 25-26 2007

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Dial-a-climate-score: Consumers can get corporate sustainability scores by phone

New Hampshire-based Climate Counts is offering consumers the option to call up a company’s climate change credentials while shopping. It’s mobile-phone tool, Climate Counts On-The-Go, allows individuals to text "cc" and a company name (to 30644 in the US and 80880 in the UK) to find out how a company measures up to others in its sector.

Climate Counts is participating in the upcoming Corporate Climate Response event on September 25 & 26 in Chicago. Twenty leading companies will also be sharing different aspects of their climate change strategy at this unprecedented gathering which will offer attendees practical advice on carbon mitigation and an update on upcoming State and Federal climate initiatives.

Among those presenting are representatives from Caterpillar, Ford, BP America, Time Inc, Abbott, Motorola, Walgreens, Anheuser-Busch, Wal-mart, Dow, McDonald’s, IBM, AIG, Excelon, Intel, Baxter Healthcare, GM and more.

‘If we are to truly address climate change and other environmental issues we must have everyone at the table,’ says Mayor Richard M. Daley. ‘This gathering of some of largest companies in the world is definitely a step in the right direction.’

Along with its phone tool, Climate Counts has come up with a scorecard that ranks consumer brands by industry in terms of their action on greenhouse gas emissions, their disclosures of those actions and their position on GHG regulation. Companies that have been ranked include Amazon.com, McDonald’s, IBM, Apple and Levi Strauss.

Wood Turner, Project Director, Climate Counts

What are your plans for getting consumers to use Climate Counts’ company scores in their buying decisions?

Well, we certainly hope that as consumers become more and more aware of the issue of climate change and the fact that every company they buy has an impact on global warming, they'll begin to look to make more climate-conscious choices. With the help of our allies in the business and nonprofit communities, we expect to broaden issue awareness among consumers and motivate them to use our scores to take action. Obviously, our website is an important tool for consumers to use, as is our new mobile-phone activism program, Climate Counts On-The-Go.

What is the difference between a ranking system like yours and carbon labelling or other eco-labels?

At Climate Counts, we think the greatest opportunity to motivate meaningful corporate climate action is at the highest parent-company level. Certainly, brand or product labelling is an important tool for consumers as they seek to understand the footprint of those brands and products.

However, when large global companies are associated with either taking the issue of climate change seriously or not as measured by the benchmarks in our scorecard, it sets an even higher standard. Ultimately, I think corporate rankings and product labelling related to climate change can complement each other in very relevant ways.

How have scored companies responded so far?

Over half of the companies we've scored so far responded to our outreach at the outset of our scoring process. I was thrilled by that response given the newness of our project.

Of course, since we released our first scores in mid-June, many of the companies we didn't hear from initially have reached out to us, most indicating a strong desire to begin measuring their climate impact, setting goals to reduce their climate impact, and then reporting to consumers and other stakeholders on their efforts to begin addressing the issue seriously -- all actions that will eventually improve their scores.