Greenpeace has released its 18th annual ranking of major electronics firms’ environmental performance. Indian conglomerate Wipro has gone straight in at number one, beating the other big names hands down, largely, according to Greenpeace, down to their leadership in climate change and investment in renewable energy. Wipro had previously headed the ‘Indian league’ but had not been included in the international brands until this year.

I love this competitive approach to chivvying industries forwards. Certainly when Apple came bottom five years ago, it prodded Steve Jobs – not a man normally influenced by outside pressures – into pulling its green socks up, and you can see that it has moved up through the pack.

However when you look at the 2011 results, there hasn’t been a huge amount of movement in those big brands in the last 12 months. I suspect that Greenpeace has deliberately introduced Wipro into the league to raise the bar, show the rest what is possible and shake things up a bit.

This is a crafty tactic and there are some lessons here for all sustainability change agents:

• Competition works and is a powerful motivator – look what they’re doing! why aren’t we doing that? etc;
• However, the fizz can go out of any programme if everyone decides they have ‘done enough’ and sits back;
• You need to keep raising the bar to keep your programmes fizzing;
• Injecting fresh elements into programmes can stop them stagnating.

Images © Greenpeace 2011, 2012