Big Profits, Big Pollution: Study Finds Top-Earning Companies Release the Most Toxic Waste

By Mahelet G. Fikru and Jennifer Brodmann

How much pollution a facility engaged in production or resource extraction emits isn’t just based on its location, its industry or the type of work it does. That’s what our team of environmental and financial economists found when we examined how corporate characteristics shape pollution emissions.

Pollution emissions rates also vary with specific characteristics of the company that owns the facility — such as how many patents it holds, how profitable it is and how many employees it has, according to an analysis we have conducted of corporate pollution data.

We found that industrial and mining facilities owned by profitable companies with relatively few patents and fewer employees tend to release higher proportions of their toxic waste into the environment — into the air, into water or onto soil.

By contrast, industrial sites owned by unprofitable companies with higher levels of innovation and more personnel tend to handle higher proportions of their toxic waste in more environmentally responsible ways, such as processing it into nontoxic forms or recycling it or burning it to generate energy.