May 6, 2009

Rating the Greenest Oil Companies

One might think that Mario Puzo’s dialogue for Godfather Michael Corleone was on the collective mind of Greenopia’s research staff when it chose to keep “environmental enemies” closer by ranking the world’s big oil companies. But while the operation’s research staff apparently feels that the oil companies are indeed enemies of the environment, they say their ranking of major oil companies was a service-minded approach addressing Greenopia consumers’ desire to know where to fuel up.

"Fossil fuels are pretty much at the top of any environmentalist’s blacklist,” said Doug Mazeffa, Greenopia director of research. “But until alternative fuel coalesces into large-scale market availability, cars are a vast and current fact of life, and they are powered by refined crude oil. Our Greenopia consumers had a strong desire to learn where they should be buying gasoline.”

Responding to growing readership demands for practical green choices, Greenopia extensively researched publicly available sources in an effort to rank the oil companies that operate major retail fueling stations across the United States. Greenopia utilized a twelve-part analysis method, including greenhouse gas emissions and oil spill efficiency, to rank the top 10.

The overall No. 1 greenest oil company, according to Greenopia, is BP. The British oil giant is leading the way by aggressively and effectively investing oil profits into alternative fuel research. The company also earned high marks for the transparency, breadth and accuracy of its environmental reporting.

Sunoco and Shell ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Hess was fourth; Marathon fifth; and the world’s largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, ranked sixth, scoring in the top three in production and oil spill efficiency but suffering poor marks for alternative fuel research and its stance on climate change. Conoco-Phillips, Chevron, Valero and Citgo rounded out the top 10.