USA
Other Cities
Other Cities
|
|
Greenopia provides consumers with high quality information to help them reduce their impact on the environment through their daily purchasing decisions. Greenopia publishes extensive green business directories, product directories, and brand directories, as well as offering a growing community, news articles, blogs, and tips to help everyone eat, shop, and live green.
Greenopia's directories guide consumers to the businesses and products to help lead a more sustainable lifestyle. All listings are independently researched, rated, and ranked using unique sets of life cycle based and category-specific criteria, ensuring that each business and product meets precise qualifications. We never accept payment for listings.
The Greenopia Leaf Award allows consumers to easily assess the overall greenness of a business or product. Four-Leaf Rated listings meet our most stringent criteria while One-Leaf Rated listings meet our minimum qualifying standards. The Greenopia Scorecard allows consumers to easily see the specific areas of greenness in the product’s or brand’s life cycle.
Greenopia's community provides a place for people to engage in sharing their favorite listings, meeting other people, sharing their eco-interests, blogging, discussing green topics, and much more. Our newsletters provide an opportunity to stay up to date with compelling articles, press releases, exclusive opportunities, and the newest, hottest, and greenest listings.
Exxon
| Category: Brand Ratings -> Oil Companies -> Exxon |
|
Exxon Revenue: $477.00 billion
Greenopia Environment Achievement:
|
|
The Commendable: Exxon publishes a pretty good sustainability report, although it is missing a few stats that we were tracking. For example, Exxon tells how much waste was generated, but not which types of waste or how much was recycled. That being said, their reporting is still better than many other oil companies out there. However, Exxon does also have some positives in its production. It uses a small amount of water relative to how much oil it produces and also generates a lower amount of waste per barrel of oil equivalent than most other companies. Exxon also had a very small number of spills when normalized against their production. This is good news especially given some of the Exxon’s history with spills. Exxon has begun to pursue some cleaner types of fuel and seems to be focusing on hydrogen fuel cells right now. But, Exxon’s CEO has also made comments in interviews which say that Exxon will not be pursuing technologies such as wind or solar. Exxon has been a long time opponent of the Kyoto Protocol and about human impacts on climate change, but seems to have toned it down a bit recently. That being said, Exxon still seems to dodge the issue of climate change in its reporting and remains noncommittal. The Questionable: Exxon’s biggest issue is really its emissions. In 2007 it emitted 141 million tons of greenhouse gases. This is much more than any other oil company. Granted, Exxon is the largest, but when you scale this number to their revenue and/or their production it is still on the high side. What is more alarming is that Exxon has not been making that much progress at reducing this number. Hopefully they will be able to get more efficient and decrease their overall emissions. The bigger problem with Exxon is its lack of diversity in its alternative fuel portfolio. Hydrogen is a start, but many other companies are looking at biofuels, wind, solar, and clean diesel. Thus Exxon is really lagging behind in this arena. And considering Exxon has the most resources, it could really devote a lot to renewables. Exxon also needs to be more forthcoming in its climate change stance. Exxon even goes as far as to argue in its environmental report that 90% of the emissions related to oil are from burning (i.e. usage). While that may be true, Exxon is the one profiting off energy consumption and there are more impacts to the environment than just emissions (water pollution/consumption, drilling, waste disposal, energy usage). Other oil companies have taken an active role and so should Exxon. Spills Happen: Still accused of not taking responsibility with its oil spills, Exxon got nailed for a spill in Brooklyn, New York a few years ago that was larger in total amount spilled than the Exxon Valdez. Why didn’t we read about it is papers? The spill had been taking place over decades from the 1800s to 1900s and Exxon supposedly did nothing to address it. This spill is estimated at a staggering 17 million gallons opposed to the Valdez’s 11 million. Second Opinion: Sierra Club had Exxon as one of its bottom two companies in its oil guide largely because of their stance on emissions, negligence in spills, and stance on climate change. Greenopia Verdict: Exxon may not be the dirtiest oil company anymore, but they need to take some accountability and use some of their profits and invest them in proven green alternatives. |
Explore Greenopia
| Greenopia Community... | View more members |
 Carole Journey: We are planning for read more » |
 cityrenewed Journey: When you see the trash and read more » |
 JamesCK Recommendations: Just be one w/ the earth.... read more » |
 Padgett About Me: read more » |
 GreenTV About Me: Freelance environmental media read more » |
Get the latest green product and merchant ratings from Greenopia. Our monthly newsletter keeps you informed.
GO »