Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along with privately held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The concept of the Fortune 500 was created by Edgar P. Smith, a Fortune editor, and the first list was published in 1955. The Fortune 500 is more commonly used than its subset Fortune 100 or superset Fortune 1000. History The Fortune 500, created by Edgar P. Smith, was first published in 1955. The original top ten companies were General Motors, Jersey Standard, U.S. Steel, General Electric, Esmark, Chrysler, Armour, Gulf Oil, Mobil, and DuPont. Impact on Climate Change In recent years, there has been a growing focus on the environmental impact of large corporations, including those listed in the Fortune 500. As part of this increasing awareness, the first-ever report on Fortune 500 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was published on January 26, 2022. The report, released by Recapture, a climate tech company in the carbon removal space, aimed to analyze and quantify the carbon footprints of Fortune 500 companies, providing valuable insights into their contributions to global emissions. According to the report, Fortune 500 companies were estimated to be responsible for approximately 27% of global emissions. While actual reported emissions from these companies equaled about 8.04 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2018 and 7.56 billion tonnes in 2019, the true footprint, as estimated by Recapture, was roughly 13.34 billion tonnes of CO2e in 2018 and 13.15 billion tonnes of CO2e in 2019. The report also highlighted the prevalence of inconsistent reporting and undercounting of emissions, particularly in regards to Scope 3 emissions—the emissions resulting from customers' use of a company's products or services. The findings of this report sparked discussions on the need for improved and standardized measurement and reporting practices to address the environmental impact of Fortune 500 companies. SEC Climate Disclosure Rule for Public Companies In 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rule changes to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures for investors.