The 50 Best Green Companies profiled in the first Sunday Times Green List provide a blueprint for British business on how to minimise its environmental impact.

The top 50 organisations are not the greenest businesses in Britain, otherwise the petroleum corporations, construction companies and electricity generators that all feature would be excluded. They are, however, all companies that are radically improving their environmental performance under the guidance of a committed management and supported by an enthusiastic and engaged workforce.

The inaugural list of Best Green Companies brings together nine big, 21 mid-sized and 20 small companies with high (12 companies), medium (22) and low (16) environmental impacts — all of them keen on a greener way of working.

This survey is unique, different to all the other existing competitions in seeking out best environmental practice. It assesses not only corporate policies and practices and improvements in environmental performance — in an employer survey carrying 70% of the competition marks — but also measures the involvement of employees in delivering this.

The responses of employees to 52 statements exploring their attitude to green issues in the workplace account for 30% of the final rankings.

All the companies in this supplement are carrying their workers with them on the journey to creating a greener workplace. The winning organisation, J C Atkinson and Son, is an outstanding example. A small business, employing just 70 people, it makes 60,000 coffins a year, supplying 10% of the UK market. Since 2000, it has been accredited by the Forestry Stewardship Council for sourcing wood from sustainable forests and, for every solid wood coffin sold, it makes a donation to the Woodland Trust. But the firm hasn’t stopped there.

The J C Atkinson factory, built in 2005, supplies its own electricity and heat using a biomass generator that is fuelled by sawdust and wood offcuts. Surplus energy is sold on to the national grid. Rainwater is collected from the roof of the factory in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and used for flushing toilets and cleaning company vehicles, all of which run on liquefied petroleum gas. The workforce has embraced the green culture wholeheartedly.

Finishing top overall, J C Atkinson ranks second in the employer survey and is placed 10th in the parallel survey of employee opinion.

It comes top for supporting local suppliers with a 90% green score, top for not using air-conditioning to keep the workplace cool in summer (97%), second for bosses leading by example environmentally (93%) and third for using the most environmentally-friendly rather than the cheapest options (87%).

“Staff in these companies have got the idea that the environment is an issue and they want to take action,” says Will Ullstein, director of innovation at Munro Global, the market research company that conducted the surveys for The Sunday Times.

“The green message is getting across and people have brought into the idea.”

The league table of the 50 Best Green Companies is a blend of five separate competitions that categorise businesses by size and environmental impact: