Football club Manchester United and British American Tobacco are among the 22 companies sharing the top spot in the UK Environment Agency’s energy efficiency league table.

The league table is the first ranking of the UK’s 2000 or so largest energy users under the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy efficiency scheme.

Companies and organisations including supermarkets, retailers, hotel and restaurant chains, hospitals, councils and government departments have to sign up the scheme if they use over 6000 MWh of electricity a year. The league table then ranks them according to what they have done to measure energy use, such as installing smart meters and complying with Carbon Trust or equivalent accreditation schemes.

This year’s ranking will form a baseline for rankings in future years, which will also show CO₂ emissions, annual emissions reductions and progress on energy efficiency.

Overall, the table shows that 60% of organisations signed up to the CRC are taking action, leaving 40% that have apparently failed to take any steps to improve their energy efficiency.

Joining Manchester United and British American Tobacco in the top spot are the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ofgem, Centre Parcs, four hospitals (Barnsley, Colchester, North West London and the Queen Elizabeth) and Keele University.

ScottishPower is the highest placed energy company, followed by E.ON UK and RWE npower, with British Gas and SSE lagging further down the table.

Meanwhile, Asda leads the supermarket sector, followed by the Co-op, Morrisons and Tesco. Marks and Spencer, with its high-profile Plan A, made it to 82 in the ranking but was behind John Lewis and the Home Retail Group, which includes Argos and Homebase.

Languishing at the bottom of the league table are Xerox, Virgin Atlantic, Zurich Financial Services, Goldman Sachs, the hotel chain Welcome Break, VUE Cinemas, Rolls Royce, Rio Tinto, Pfizer, Chevron, HMRC, the Home Office and 700-plus other organisations.

But Xerox’s sixth Global Citizenship Report, which the company published at the end of last month, indicates that the whole operation reduced its energy consumption by 2% in 2010 compared to the previous year and brought its water consumption down by 7%.

Many companies argue that the CRC ranking does not paint a true picture of actions being taken and that the metrics used to calculate the rankings are flawed.

For further information:
crc.environment-agency.gov.uk/pplt/web/plt/public/2010-11/CRCPerformanceLeagueTable20102011
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/
www.xerox.com/corporate-citizenship/2011/downloads.html

Related stories:
BASF tops carbon disclosure ranking of world’s largest companies (2-Nov)
UK companies “nowhere near” target to cut emissions 80% by 2050 (16-Sept)
Most UK companies meet first CRC reporting deadline (16-Aug)
CBI calls again for mandatory carbon reporting for businesses (6-Jul)