Newsweek magazine released its annual Green Rankings this week, listing the 500 biggest public companies in the United States and the 500 biggest companies in the world according to their environmental practices. The magazine's ranking aims to rate the companies' actual environmental footprint using 700 parameters, which make up 45% of their grade management practices, such as policies, programs, initiatives, controversies etc., which make up 45% of the grade and their transparency and disclosure protocols, which make up 10% of their grade. The report, issued for the fourth consecutive year, was compiled in cooperation with two of the US' leading environmental-research firms, Trucost and Sustainalytics. Topping the global list was Brazil's Santander Bank. Coming in second was Indian information technology services company Wipro Brazilian financial services company Bradesco ranked third the US-based IBM ranked fourth and rounding up the top five was the National Australia Bank. The five least eco-friendly companies on the list were American global food processing and commodities trading corporation Archer-Daniels-Midland, which ranked at the 496 slot followed by India's NTPC Utilities (497), the US-based Monsanto agricultural biotechnology corporation (498), and Indian energy company Coal India (499). Singapore's Wilmar agribusiness group was named the least green company worldwide, coming in at the 500 slot. No Israeli company was ranked on the list. In the United States, IBM was ranked the greenest company, followed by Hewlett-Packard, telecommunications company Sprint Nextel, Dell and IT services CA Technologies rounding up the top five. The least green companies in the US in 2012 were agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto (496), the T. Rowe Price Group financial services company (497), agricultural fertilizers company CF Industries Holdings (498) and energy company Alpha Natural Resources, which ranked 499. Newsweek named BlackRock – a US-based multinational investment management corporation – as the least green company in the US in 2012, as it closed the list at the 500 slot. "Business has never had a bigger role to play in protecting the planet," Gwen Ruta, director of the US-based Environmental Defense Fund’s corporate partnerships program, told the magazine. "We’ve got big challenges to solve, and we need the ingenuity of the private sector to help us solve them." Sharon Gilad contributed to this report Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter