Applied Materials Makes List of America’s Greenest Companies - Again!

NEWSWEEK has published its second “Green Ranking” of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. and Applied Materials is in the #8 spot. Last year we were thrilled to find ourselves at #9 in the inaugural list. See the 2010 list at NEWSWEEK and its partners, MSCI ESG Research (a leading source of environmental, social, and governance ratings), Trucost (which specializes in quantitative measurements of environmental performance) and CorporateRegister.com (the world’s largest online directory of social responsibility, sustainability, and environmental reports) strengthened the ranking methodology considerably this year. A company’s overall green score is the sum of scores on environmental impact, environmental policies and a component based upon reputation. This year over 700 environmental metrics were reportedly considered. For a fuller description of the methodology visit the Newsweek web site.

We are naturally pleased to be in the top 10 of this ranking again, but there is always room for improvement as far as sustainability is concerned. In the profile posted by Newsweek, it was noted: “This supplier of manufacturing systems and services to the global semiconductor industry made great strides in reducing CO2 emissions and water use last year, cutting each by 21 percent and 18 percent, respectively, compared to 2006 levels. Both those reductions exceeded Applied Materials' greening goals, but Applied also acknowledges 2009 was an ‘unusual’ year and says it is reviewing internal data to try to maintain and improve on those numbers.” The process of setting new company-wide goals entails a close of review of past performance, benchmarking and analysis of potential future projects and we are hard at work on that presently. The challenge for Applied Materials and all of the companies on Newsweek’s list is to continue growing our companies, creating jobs and value for shareholders, while reducing or minimizing environmental impacts at the same time.