Ford tops green brands report

FORD has claimed the top spot in the annual Best Global Green Brands Report released this week, pushing out Toyota which has topped the list since the report began in 2011.

The Best Global Green Brands Report is an initiative by one of the world’s leading brand consultancy firms, Interbrand.

More than just ranking a company based on how environmentally conscious it is, the report compares how green the practices of a company really are with how green the public perceives that company to be. The result is a gap score.

Nissan, for example is in fourth place but it has a gap score of +6.6. A positive gap score means the company is actually greener than the public thinks and from a brand manager’s perspective this means the company needs find a better way to communicate to the public how green it is.

A negative score such as Danone’s -1.3 means the public perceives the company to be greener than it actually is.

To pick the best global green brands, Interbrand started with a list of 100 brands that make up its Best Global Brands Report. Then data on the sustainable or green practices of each brand is collected and analysed by Deloitte Consulting which gives the brand a performance score with a focus on collective action from all involved in the company.

Interbrand then conducts a survey of more than 10,000 consumers in the 10 largest global economies to find out how green they believe each company is. A perception score is then allocated to each company.

The overall score is calculated by combining the performance and perception scores and then converted into rankings compared to the other companies.

This year the first four places in the top 10 are car manufacturers, staring with Ford at number one with a gap score of +3.2, followed by Toyota (+0.3), then Honda (+1.8) and Nissan in fourth place (+6.6).

Further down the list is BMW in 13th place (+5.8), while Volkswagen fell from seventh spot in 2013 to 16th this year (+3.0). Mercedes-Benz is in 24th position (+10.0), Chevrolet is in the top 50 for the first time at No.32 (-2.9) and Hyundai has slipped from 34 to 40 (+7.2).

The report praises the automotive sector and says that the demand for electric vehicles has forced car-makers to expand their product ranges. But being green goes beyond just building cleaner cars.

The report concludes that: “With new environmental action committees in place, improved engagement around sustainability, better water/energy/emissions intensities enhanced green build policies and increased waste recycling Ford claims the No.1.” Ford currently has a hybrid version of the Fusion and C-Max, plus an all-electric Focus on sale in the US. Ford Australia said it is not planning to bring these models here in near future, but will instead concentrate on the EcoBoost line-up of fuel-efficient engines.

2014 Best Green Brands - Automotive

Ranking	Brand
1	Ford
2	Toyota
3	Honda
4	Nissan
5	BMW
6	Volkswagen
7	Mercedes-Benz
8	Chevrolet
9	Kia
10	Hyundai