Nike ranked seventh in Newsweek's environmental ranking of America's 500 largest corporations. Among other vendors in the sporting goods space, only Garmin, which ranked 374; VF Corp., 393, made the list. Foot Locker was the only athletics retailer to make the list, coming in at 175.
Nike was the top consumer brand on the list. The remaining top ten in order were Johnson Controls, Avon Products, Procter & Gamble, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Clorox, Whirlpool, Ford, Kimberly-Clark and Black & Decker.
The top ten retailers were Kohl's, at 18, followed by Staples, Gap, J.C. Penney, Macy's, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Whole Foods Market, Limited Brands, and Target.
Newsweek collaborated with three research partners to compile the rankings: KLD Research & Analytics, which tracks environmental, social and governance data on companies worldwide and served as lead partner; Trucost, which specializes in quantitative environmental performance measurement; and CorporateRegister.com, the world's largest online directory of social responsibility, sustainability and environmental reporting. The goal was to assess each company's actual resource use and emissions and its policies and strategies, along with its reputation among its peers. The 500 companies included in the ranking are the largest U.S. companies as measured by revenue, market capitalization and number of employees.
