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With all the greenwash these days, how would you go about picking the ten greenest corporations? Fortune‘s team of reporters started by soliciting 100 “nominations from environmentalists and consultants who have worked in the trenches of corporate America,” according to the magazine. Sounds like a given. But other magazines actually run lists of best companies based on self-reported data and advertising dollars.

Most notoriously, Working Mother has named Union Pacific five times one of the best places for women to work, even though it pays for employees’ Viagra and Rogaine but not contraceptives. The UP flack’s spin is, “We are thrilled that Working Mother has recognized our efforts to create a culture that helps employees balance work and families.” Working Mother also includes firms facing class-action suits for sex harassment. And it has named Allstate, American Express, and General Mills among the 8 best firms for women of color. But at each, 30% of new hourly hires are women of color, but 0% of newly hired executives are.

Distinguishing hype from hope in green business was a focus of Mother Jones’ November issue. We reported BP’s blundered but well-publicized attempt to go “Beyond Petroleum” and the near-religious conversion of a carpet industry captain.

Now for the names. Drum roll please. Fortune‘s “Ten Green Giants” are Honda, Continental Airlines, Tesco, PG&E, S.C. Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re, Hewlett-Packard, Alcan, and Suncor. Any objections?

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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