Posted 10/15/09 at 08:48:06 AM by Paul Lilly

Dell in the past 12 months has been making a concerted effort to reduce its carbon footprint and go green, but according to Newsweek, Hewlett-Packard is the greenest Fortune 500 company around. That's an interesting position to put the OEM in, considering Greenpeace ranked HP No. 14.

So why the disparity? Well, according to Gizmodo, Newsweek takes a holistic view when ranking companies, which includes greenhouse emissions, water consumption, and supply chain management. Greenpeace, on the other hand, is about the benchmarks, such as how much toxic chemicals are being used.

One specific area in which the two rankings disagree is with HP's use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardant (BFR). Greenpeace was critical of their use, while Newsweek praised the company for its diminished usage.

As for Dell? The OEM still ranked high in Newsweek's report, taking the No. 2 spot. The rest of the top 5 included, in order, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, and IBM.

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