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Sustainability is an Economic Imperative: The 2012 CK Prahalad Award Winners (Video)

January 05, 2013 Add Comment Edit

See how the 2012 winners of CK Prahalad award are weaving sustainability into their business models and flourishing in the process. Companies like Unilever and Sustainable Apparel Coalition are leading the way and showing that the business case for sustainability is undeniable. As explained in this video sustainability is an imperative for all companies. The questions that must be asked is how can you have a business model that continues to take away from future generations? Any company that does not pay attention to its environmental interface is doing so at its own peril. The companies in this video prove that commitments to sustainability initiatives pay off while the failure to engage sustainability poses a very serious risk.

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Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics 2012

November 23, 2012 Add Comment Edit

Each year Greenpeace publishes its guide to greener electronics just before the Thanksgiving holidays and the shopping event of the year known as Black Friday. This year is the 18th edition of Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics, it profiles a number of new developments.

The Guide evaluates leading consumer electronics companies based on their commitment and progress in three environmental criteria: Energy and Climate, Greener Products, and Sustainable Operations. Click here to download the Ranking Criteria Explained (pdf).
The Greenpeace Electronics Guide scores companies on overall policies and practices – not on specific products – to provide consumers with a snapshot of the sustainability of the biggest names in the industry. Consumers want greener electronics and some of the leading technology providers have responded.

Acer rises in the rankings, thanks in part to ambitious greenhouse gas reduction commitments, both in its own operations and in its supply chain. A number of companies, including HP, Apple and Dell, have improved their performance in identifying and reducing conflict minerals within their supply chain. This edition of the Guide also integrates the evaluation of two Indian companies, HCL Infosystem and Wipro which earns the top spot in the rankings, primarily due to its climate leadership. The company excels in both renewable energy uptake for its operations and more broadly with an excellent greenhouse gas mitigation strategy. Its lobbying for renewable energy policy in India exhibits the type of corporate advocacy leadership needed to drive policy change.

While the industry is moving in the right direction, crucial and growing problems remain. The proliferation of electronic devices are a major source of waste and one of the most serious problems we face as a global society. Greenpeace has identified three serious shortcomings in the global electronics industry.

1) While take-back programs are growing the speed of collection is not keeping pace with the rate of consumption.
2) There are huge amounts of dirty energy embedded in the manufacturing and supply chains, much of it coming from East Asia.
3) Companies must also make an effort to meaningfully engage in the political process to create the ambitious action.

Click here to download the Full Scorecard (pdf) which provides detailed reviews of company performances.

Greenpeace offers the following proviso:

Remember! The most sustainable devices are the ones you don’t actually buy! Work to extend the life of your existing electronic gadgets, buy used products, and only purchase what you truly need.

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The Most Sustainable Companies in the World

November 21, 2012 Add Comment Edit

We are seeing an ever growing number of companies address the issue of sustainability with sincerity and depth that go far beyond the public relations ploys of yesteryear. This preoccupation with efficiency is an important bottom line issue. As water, land, minerals, and fossil fuels get more scarce and costly, sustainability is an unavoidable imperitive. Here are some examples of companies that are leading the way towards this resource constrained future.

Rankings of Sustainable Companies

Top 50 Companies in the 2012 Sustainability Leadership Report
Newsweek's Green Rankings Winners Reputation and Reality (2012)
Newsweek's Greenest Companies in the US (2012)
Newsweek's Greenest Companies in the World (2012)
Newsweek's Greenest Retailers in the US (2012)
Newsweek's Greenest Tech Companies in the US (2012)
Top Green Energy Management Software Companies
Winners of the 2011 International Green Awards
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Global 100's Most Sustainability Corporations in North America
Carbon Rankings from the Environmental Investment Organization
Top Ten Companies in the 2012 Carbon Disclosure Project Report
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America's Greenest Brands
Winners of the 2011 Green Chemistry Awards
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Corporate Green Ranking: Top Spots and Most Improved
The World's Greenest Companies (2011)
America's Greenest Companies (2011)
Canada's Greenest Companies (2011)
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America's Most Sustainable Businesses (2009)
Canada's Most Sustainable Businesses (2009)
Greener Japanese Companies
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Bschool.com's "10 Great Companies Who Were Green Before It Was Cool"
EPA’s Top 20 On-Site Power Generation List
EPA's Top Green Powered Organizations (Q1 2012)

Individual Sustainable Companies

Zotos Earns a Place on the EPA’s Top 20 On-Site Power Generation List
Puma Wins the Guardians' Sustainable Business Award
PUMA's Sustainable Packaging Innovation
PUMA's Comprehensive Sustainable Strategy
HP's Sustainable Innovation Serves the Planet
Xerox's Green Innovation
TerraCycle Reach a Major Milestone in Non-Recyclable Materials
Xcel Energy's Planned Emissions Reductions
PepsiCo's Sustainability Efforts
Canadian Tire's Sustainability Leadership

The 8 C's of Sustainability Branding by Marc Stoiber

October 24, 2012 2 Comments Edit

In 2010, Marc Stoiber, creative director, writer, innovator and green brand specialist wrote a piece called the 5C’s of Sustainability Branding. In 2012 he has added some new C's. Here is his original 5C’s, followed by his new C's for 2012.

The 5C’s of Sustainability

1. Consumer-Facing - Not sure what to do first? Look at what the consumer is looking at. There are plenty of ways to improve corporate sustainability, but consumer-facing changes will have the most immediate impact on your brand’s public perception. Think of Method’s Omop, with its compostable / recyclable bamboo and paper packaging – it stands out like a beacon at shelf, where consumers can really notice the difference.

2. Competitive - To compete, brands must innovate. And in the 21st Century, the best innovations will have strong sustainability credentials. Concepts like GE’s Ecomagination are just the thin edge of the wedge. With price and quality being equal, the competitive advantage will go to brands that differentiate themselves with sustainability features.

3. Core – Tying sustainability to a brand’s core business is another way to ensure it resonates with consumers. If your brand sells hamburgers, effective brand sustainability strategy would focus on hamburgers (organic beef or recycled wrappers, for example). Car brands must focus on making more fuel-efficient, cleaner cars – not saving the rainforest. If you do something that is unrelated to your core business, you risk alienating or confusing your consumers at best – and having them holler ‘greenwash’ at worst. Brands like Clorox Greenworks hit this one on the mark.

4. Conversational - Sustainability branding is more effective as a two-way conversation, rather than a one-way announcement. Honesty and transparency go a long way with consumers. Disclosing what you’re doing well, and what you could be doing better, will instil trust…and trust breeds loyalty. Inviting consumers to participate in a conversation about your process will further strengthen the brand-consumer relationship. Think of Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles – an online tool that helps consumers understand Patagonia’s strides in making their shirts and pants more sustainably…and see the environmental shortcomings of Patagonia’s products as well.

5. Credible - Sustainability strengthens brands. But greenwashing, even if unintended, can do a brand serious harm. The good news is that this is avoidable. The key is in sequence. As long as your sustainability efforts are in place, functioning and measurable before being announced, they will be viewed as credible. And proven, objective credibility – when paired with innovation that excites and communication that clarifies and engages – is the key to sustainable brand success.

New C’s For 2012

6. Collaborative – The London Olympics were a symbol of the new coming-together of sustainable brands. Not only did it provide a fantastic showcase that took green from being fringe to matter-of-fact, but it also allowed green suppliers of all stripes to share notes and strike partnerships. More and more, brands with sustainability credentials are banding together to create standards, buying strength and consumer confidence.

7. Certified – Sure, there were certification programs in 2010. But today, more companies are going further, forming creative partnerships with NGO’s. So instead of merely getting a certification label, you’re getting a partnership that can spur innovation.

8. Quiet – OK, it isn’t a C. But it sounds like one. And it’s one of the most striking features of green brands I’m seeing today. To wit: companies are treating sustainability as the right thing to do across operations, supply chain and governance, not a remarkable (and often short-lived) product feature. So we’re seeing more sustainability built in, and less sustainability talk. This may also be symptomatic of the increased vigilance brands are experiencing from citizen journalists armed with thousands of twitter followers.

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Green Consumer Trends Drive Profits (Video)

September 15, 2012 Add Comment Edit

Green Consumers Can Save the World (Video)

September 15, 2012 Add Comment Edit

The sound quality in this video is very poor, however, it nonetheless makes the point that going all the way back to the late 80s, pundits saw green consumerism as part of the picture to reduce our impacts on the Earth.
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Green Consumers Really Can Save the World (Video)

September 15, 2012 Add Comment Edit

In this video Annie Leonard is trying to help change the world by encouraging people to take action as citizens, not just as consumers. She posits that green consuming is necessary, but must be a starting, not an ending, point. Shopping can help to protect the planet but part of that effort involves putting down their credit cards and exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.

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Bridging the Gap: A Financial Approach to Sustainability (White Paper)

July 18, 2012 Add Comment Edit

"Do good and you will do well!" pundits and companies often assert. While the tagline sounds great, the reality is that many companies struggle to connect sustainability with core business goals such as increasing sales, reducing costs, or reducing risks. As a result, sustainability departments are often seen as tangential to the core business, and annual CSR reports are mostly filled with anecdotal feel good stories. More often than not, environmental impacts, costs, and risks are mostly hidden and do not show up in companies' main accounting systems. As long as a CFO or Procurement Officer does not have visibility on such costs and risks in financial terms, the environment will at best remain a Chief Sustainability Officer issue.

The good news is that change is underway, mostly driven by buyers recognizing their own costs and risks from environmental impacts and asking their suppliers to be a part of reduction efforts, as seen in recent efforts by large retailers and organizations like the US Department of Defense.

Download the new white paper from Enviance to learn how a Fortune 100 company is responding to buyer pressure and effectively connecting sustainability and profitability, with a rigorous accounting of sustainability impacts, costs, and risks. You will also learn about the 4 KEY STEPS to make sustainability departments integrated partsof core business operations.

To download the white paper click here.

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Top Climate Innovators

April 24, 2012 Add Comment Edit

GE, Alcoa, Johnson Controls, Ford, Intel and Hess are leaders in the innovation of clean-tech solutions and products, mitigation of climate change-related risks and management of carbon emissions, according to a rating by risk analysis company Maplecroft.

The Maplecroft Climate Innovation Indexes (CIIs) studied 360 large, multinational U.S. companies and how they adapt to climate-change issues. Maplecroft rated each company on over 100 criteria, including: innovation in technologies and working practices to combat the onset of climate change, management of physical climate-related issues and adaption to climate-related risks.

Participating companies are provided with their scorecard to facilitate reporting and future engagement in the annual review of the indexes. Companies are also provided with their full completed questionnaire on request to cii@maplecroft.com.

Participating companies are provided with their scorecard to facilitate reporting and future engagement in the annual review of the indexes. Companies are also provided with their full completed questionnaire on request to cii@maplecroft.com.

Here are some of the leading scores and the companies to which they correspond:

71.921: General Electric Co
71.432: Alcoa Inc
70.533 Johnson Controls Inc
69.544: Ford Motor Co
66.955: Intel Corp
64.986: Hess Corp
64.427: Air Products & Chemicals Inc
61.588: Praxair Inc
61.379: United Technologies Corp
60.9310: Autodesk Inc
59.1411: Covanta Holding Corp
58.8012: PG&E Corp
58.6413: Goldman Sachs Group Inc/The
58.5414: Life Technologies Corp
57.6415: Lexmark International Inc
57.2416: Weyerhaeuser Co
56.7017: Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc

To download overall index rankings and scores click here. Scorecards providing a detailed breakdown of overall scores for every company, plus insight into strengths and challenges are available for purchase either as a sector bundle or for the entire CII Benchmark. To access the CII Report – ‘Results, trends and leaders in the evolving landscape of Climate Innovation’ – full report, results and analysis, April 2012 contact Maplecroft at info@maplecroft.com.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Market Forces and the UK's Green Deal

March 05, 2012 Add Comment Edit

In 2012 the UK is launching the green deal, which will unleash the competitive forces in the energy efficiency market. The green deal will be the biggest home energy improvement programme of modern times. Due in part to the green deal the energy efficiency market in the UK could reach £800m by 2020.

Under the scheme nationwide brands, small local businesses and community organisations will compete to deliver the best offers. Competing not just on price but on quality and service. Insulation is one area where the green deal will generate new demand and increase jobs to an estimated 65,000 by 2015.

The green deal allows energy companies to offer improvements at no upfront cost and recoup payments through energy bills, but has to date been primarily targeted at the domestic sector, businesses will also need to be incorporated into the plan to maximize energy savings and minimize emissions reductions.

Non-domestic buildings account for 18 per cent of all UK CO2 emissions, about half of which comes from organisations not covered by existing emission reduction policies such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and the EU’s emissions trading scheme.

Bill Easton director of Ernst & Young’s power and utilities team, told BusinessGreen, “The ideal scenario is getting to a world where both those businesses choosing to participate and the energy companies doing this want to do it, like the NCAP safety ratings for cars,” he said. “If we had something similar around energy efficiency ratings, landlords and tenants could see some benefits for the brand.”

For the green deal to realise its full potential, Easton said, “We need some strong lead from government: a threat of something mandatory if there’s slow take-up.” However, a Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) spokesman ruled out mandatory requirements for ths scheme, saying the Green Deal would be “a market-led initiative that avoids overly bureaucratic Government intervention.”

Given the fact that 65 percent of UK businesses rent space, there needs to be a change to building regulations so that the leasing of properties is covered under the plan. It would also be benefitial to have targeted marketing promoting the benefits of the scheme.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Video: Sustainability...Your Competitive Advantage

November 12, 2011 1 Comment Edit

Caterpillar Sustainable Development Manager John Disharoon presented "Sustainability...Your Competitive Advantage" daily from the stage in Generations Park at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2011.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.