Telefónica is in 73rd place, to be precise, with a total of 57.9 points, followed by Repsol with 57.8 points. The third Spanish-owned company in the table is Iberdrola, which was awarded 82nd place with a score of 56.6.
The largest publicly-traded companies globally by market capitalisation were taken into account to prepare the index and were classified according to their Green Score, which is obtained from three components: environmental impact (45%), environmental management (45%) and environmental reporting (10%), with a top score of 100%. The final score is made up of different variables such as energy, carbon, water, waste, reputation, remuneration and whether there is a sustainability committee.
In this way, Telefónica has been recognised for its efforts and commitment to managing the environmental risks and opportunities from its operations efficiently and to offering green ICT services that promote environmental sustainability for people, businesses and cities.
The other Spanish companies included in the 2014 Newsweek Green Rankings were Inditex, given 91st place; Banco Santander, classed 101st; Endesa, ranked 122nd; Caixabank, in 129th place; and BBVA, placed 197th; while the three leading companies in the index are Vivendi, Allergan and Adobe.
SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY
Telefónica has set itself a target of reducing direct and indirect CO2 emissions by 30% by the year 2020, compared to the 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2010, measured by equivalent customer access. It also aims to reduce electricity consumption by 30% in kWh/equivalent customer access and by 10% in MWh/employee by 2015.
In 2013 the company undertook 16 energy efficiency projects, enabling it to save around 9.1 GWh and EUR 4.7 million in its annual electricity account. Thus far, thanks to this type of initiative, it has achieved energy savings of nearly EUR 60 million.
In parallel, Telefónica offers several green ICT services (including fleet management, smart meters, energy-efficient building management, virtual hosting and cloud computing, smart city comprehensive management platform and solutions) to enable sectors such as the transport, construction, industry and services sectors to become more efficient.
