Toyota is the "Best Global Green Brand" according to a new ranking released this week, followed by 3M and Siemens.
In its first global report focusing exclusively on green, brand consultancy firm Interbrand says it evaluated public perception of environmental sustainability, as well as demonstrated performance.
According to the report, Toyota is a leading example of making the environment a core management priority, while also engaging in a meaningful way with audiences around the world.
It is a testiment to Toyota’s branding ability – although it’s certainly led with its ground-breaking Prius, many of its other cars, including large SUVs, are not green.
Other key findings from the study include:
- The automotive industry and electronics category lead not only in their ability to implement sustainable practices across their organization, but also in their ability to communicate their efforts effectively to the public.
- A number of brands show large gaps between performance and perception. L’Oréal, Nokia, and HSBC all scored significantly higher in performance than perception, suggesting that while they are doing great things internally in terms of environmental sustainability, they are still not yet communicating their efforts as clearly as they could.
- McDonald’s, GE, and Coca-Cola, on the other hand, all scored significantly higher in perception than performance. This suggests that these highly visible brands enjoy the positive impact of being a well known, powerful brand, with green perception matching general perception overall.
"As corporate citizenship increasingly becomes the norm, green initiatives may be among the most visible and easiest to claim and yet, can be the most challenging to deliver performance against," said Jez Frampton, Global CEO at Interbrand. "We believe the strongest green brands lie at the intersection of performance and perception: their ability to build stronger connections with consumers as a result of actionable and credible environmental practices."
In completing the study, Interbrand conducted an evaluation of each brand’s consumer perceptions. Consumers in the 10 largest markets: US, Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Brazil, Spain, and India were asked how green impacts their purchase decisions and their overall understanding and awareness of the brand’s green activities as a whole.
The rankings developed by Interbrand are based, in part, on quantitative performance scores derived from an analysis of publicly available information. Deloitte was engaged to develop an environmental sustainability performance methodology based on publicly available data as an input to Interbrand’s overall scoring methodology.
Check out the full report:
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