While some preach, others practice

While some preach, others practice- and when the talkers watch, the doers act! It is in fact this small section that brings about revolutions, and pioneers change. When many green advocates debate and conduct discourses about the pros and cons of going ‘green’ here are a few who made a leap further and put the plans on paper into action.

The Top Five Green Businesses, according to the Fortune magazine - that have gone way ahead of what is legally required of them to stay in the green list.

Honda
This Japanese giant with a turn over of $84.2 billion has been rated as the ‘greenest’ business by the Fortune magazine. Also rated as the most fuel efficient automobile company in the United States, Honda has paved the way to a new generation of eco-friendly cars with its Honda FCX (Fuel Cell Experimental) and Civic GX.

Honda brought to market a new genre of fuel efficient hydrogen fuel cell automobiles- FCX and made sure that they did not just leave it at that. They introduced a home solution for refuelling the vehicles right at home, which would also meet most of the energy needs of the home. These Home Energy Stations (HES) are designed specially to convert ‘natural gas’ to electricity and heat for home use and produce hydrogen for refuelling the vehicles. This highly efficient fuel solution is found to be capable of reducing the costs of electricity, gas and automobile fuel by more than 50%!

Honda’s Civic GX also figures among the greenest vehicles. The Civic GX is called the world’s cleanest internal combustion vehicle, as the tail pipe emissions are 90% cleaner than that of the usual gasoline-powered cars.

The company also aims at reducing the CO2 emission from its factories and vehicles by 5% before 2004, and has a long term goal of becoming the world’s cleanest, most efficient car manufacturers.

Continental Airlines
With the rising concern about the refined-kerosene guzzling aircrafts spewing carbon into the atmosphere, many airlines are hopping into the green bandwagon just to keep their business running. When some are trying to compensate just by trading offsets for the carbon emitted by their flights Continental airlines stands apart in their earnest effort to ensure that pollution is regulated at all levels- and just not what the law stipulates. They have pumped in more than $16billion for replacing their entire fleet with new fuel efficient aircrafts, over the past ten years.

In addition to these, the company’s has ensured that all aspects from tracking of carbon emissions and green terminals to waste management are monitored and managed on a daily basis to bring down any possible kind of pollution.

Suncor
This Canadian oil company has carved a place of its own in its initiative to manage the green house gases and in developing carbon-capture techniques. The company has always been focused on sustainability issues, and has gone to great lengths in implementing water management and bio diversity protection measures.

Tesco
Not far behind the auto, aircraft and oil giants are UK s favourite retailers- Tesco. With wind powered stores, bio-diesel delivery trucks and advanced recycling the company is now nearing its targeted line of cutting down its energy consumption to half, by 2010. In addition Tesco is also taking steps to reduce noise-pollution by using trains with lower noise-pollution levels, and are cutting down carbon emission at all levels of manufacturing, supply and sales. Moreover, as an encouragement to get the customers thinking along greener lines, Tesco is awarding redeemable points to customers who bring their own reusable shopping bags.

Alcan
This Canada based Aluminium has entered the list owing to its clean and efficient manufacturing techniques. The company has succeeded in slashing the carbon emission from its aluminium smelting plant by 25% since 1990, while subsequently increasing production by 40%. The company is also applauded for its constant efforts to incorporate newer engineering techniques that increases energy efficiency and lowers green house emissions.

More information: www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/