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— Cheryl Long

[Source: “Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 23, No. 6, 2004.]

Green Performance: Top Six Automakers Shift up, Down

Honda stands out as the automaker most consistently committed to improving the environmental performance of its vehicles. General Motors, however, is on a reverse course — becoming the worst major automaker in terms of pollution and fuel economy. A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) details such environmental highlights and lowlights from the fleets of the largest automakers in the U.S. market — DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. The study aims to help the public sift through these companies, which account for nine out of 10 vehicles sold in the United States, and discover “which one is truly the greenest when the rubber meets the road.”

The report analyzes government data on model year 2003 (MY03) vehicles (the most recent year for which all information was available) to rank each automaker’s overall performance in two categories: smog-forming pollution and emissions that exacerbate global warming. Overall, the industry continues to improve on the former, while stalling on the latter.

Honda’s continued progress in reducing emissions, particularly among its trucks, extended its lead in the UCS rankings. More than half its vehicles now meet federal emission standards that won’t be in place until 2007.

Nissan rose to second place with the industry’s best improvement in global-warming emissions and by certifying all of its vehicles to California’s strict smog pollution standards.

Toyota remains an industry leader with better than average pollution and emissions, but slipped to third because it did not keep pace with Nissan’s enhancements.

Ford’s improvements in smog-forming pollution were second only to Honda. But UCS described the fourth-place automaker’s environmental efforts as confusing and self-contradictory — Ford’s fleet has the industry’s worst global-warming emissions, and the company abandoned its commitment to improve its sport utility vehicles’ fuel economy 25 percent by 2005.

DaimlerChrysler’s fleet maintains pollution and emission levels worse than the industry average, but climbed in the rankings due to a modest improvement in the fuel economy of its trucks.

GM has fallen in each successive UCS report, from fourth place overall for 1998 vehicles to last place for MY03. Unlike other manufacturers, the environmental performance of GM’s vehicles regressed — its MY03 fleet produces more pollution and emissions than those from 2001.

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