World’s Greenest Companies

Industry Sector: Telecommunications
Canada

NEWSWEEK Green Score: 76.5%

Environmental Impact: 73.5%
Environmental Management: 81.4%
Transparency & Disclosure: 68.1%

Bell is Canada’s largest communications company, and the only one to be awarded ISO 14001 for its environmental management system. Bell hopes to reduce (PDF) greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by the end of 2020, and has reduced its emissions by 22 percent since 2003. Bell attempted to reduce emissions from traveling by providing alternatives to employee travel, such as teleconferencing and videoconferencing. In 2010, such initiatives reduced travel costs by 16 percent. The company also tried to get its customers involved by encouraging them to switch electronic billing. More than 20 percent of all bills are now electronic, which saves roughly 33,000 trees. In 2010, 89 percent of all the waste Bell collected was recycled or used as a fossil-fuel substitute.