Big Pharma gets green kudos for carbon-tracking

Bravo, Big Pharma. The drugs sector outpaced other industries in sustainability, largely for its measurement and disclosure of carbon emissions, according to a new environmental scorecard. Next, drugmakers need to focus on cutting its emissions and fighting for climate legislation, says Climate Counts.

According to the environmental advocacy group, pharma outscored our own industry--media--by a long shot. On a one-to-100 scale, with higher scores indicating greater commitment to the environment, top drugmaker AstraZeneca tallied a 76, with Johnson & Johnson on its heels at 75. Twelve more pharma companies scored 50 or higher. By contrast, top-scoring media firm General Electric (which owns NBC, plus a whole lot more) boasted a 71, and second-placer News Corp. got a 63. In third place, Disney came in with a measly 25.

Indeed, only two companies on Climate Counts' pharma list--Wyeth and Amgen--scored less than 40, at 36 and 20 respectively. Top scorers AstraZeneca and Amgen had their weak spots, too; AZ got a zero out of 10 in the "policy" category, while J&J earned 12 out of 22 for measuring its own carbon footprint.

- see the Climate Counts scorecard for pharma 
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