June 28, 2006—Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts recently released the “Toxic 100,” an updated list of the top corporate air polluters among corporations that appear in the Fortune 500, Forbes 500, and Standard & Poor’s 500 lists of the country’s largest firms.
The Toxic 100 index is based on air releases of hundreds of chemicals from industrial facilities across the US. The rankings take into account not only the quantity of releases, but the relative toxicity of chemicals, nearby populations, and factors such as prevailing winds and height of smokestacks.
The Toxic 100’s Top 10 companies are: EI Du Pont de Nemours & Co., US Steel, ConocoPhillips, General Electric (GE), Eastman Kodak, Exxon-Mobil, Ford Motor Co., Tyson Foods, Alcoa, and Archer Daniels Midland.
A new feature of the Web-based list is that readers can see the details behind each company, such as individual facilities owned by the corporation, specific chemicals they emit, their toxicities, and their contributions to the company’s overall Toxic Score.
The data on chemical releases come from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), with additional data and adjustments to get a picture of overall corporate performance.
