SB Articles Archive

Sustainable Gown Wins Academy Awards Appearance

Bart King — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:26:13 +0000

The red carpet at the Academy Awards will be a little greener this year. The Red Carpet Green Dress competition announced a winner, and the actress who will wear the gown made entirely of sustainable materials.

Actress Missi Pyle, from the Oscar-nominated film "The Artist," will wear a design by Valentina Delfino. Delfino – born in Venezuela and based in Miami – was among hundreds from around the world who submitted designs to the competition, which began last November.

Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of Director James Cameron, started the Red Carpet Green Dress contest in 2009, after wearing countless dresses to premieres of her husband’s film Avatar. She says the experience helped her understand the environmental footprint fashion can have on the planet.

Delfino’s winning design will contain cruelty-free silk chiffon – created through a process that permits the full life cycle of the silkworm pupae. The silk chiffon will be dyed with a natural mineral dye, which is both environmentally friendly and OSHA approved, and it will be lined with recycled polyester.

Red Carpet Green Dress has received support from notable partners around the world. Consultant group Cradle to Cradle and the Natural Resources Defense Council worked to ensure the final design is sustainably created, and Pyle will wear shoes designed by Christian Louboutin and accessories from Stella McCartney.

Proceeds from the competition will benefit MUSE School CA and Global MUSE a non-profit organization that strives to “empower children to realize the full potential of their lives through academic excellence, personal responsibility, compassionate relations, global consciousness and environmental awareness.”

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

Article Image Caption:

Actress Missi Pyle, from the Oscar-nominated film "The Artist," will wear this year's Red Carpet Green Dress designed by Valentina Delfino

February 23, 2012

Tesco Raises Funds for RSPB, Opens Competition for ‘Rainforest Reporter’

Bart King — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:35:52 +0000

UK retailer Tesco has formed a partnership with Europe’s largest wildlife conservation charity – the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) - that aims to protect rainforests around the world.

In addition to raising funds, the “Together For Trees” campaign includes a competition to identify a “Rainforest Reporter,” who will travel to one of the projects in the RSPB’s rainforest program and experience first-hand the efforts to slow deforestation.

Together For Trees aims to raise over £1million for the RSPB in its first year. Every time a Tesco customer brings in a re-usable shopping bag, he or she will be able to donate the vouchers or points Tesco awards through its green Clubcard membership. Additionally, customers have the option to donate cash, and Tesco will contribute £75,000 from the sale of its new Together For Trees reusable bags.

Funds raised by the partnership will support conservation work such as the replanting of native trees in areas damaged by illegal logging, providing equipment for researchers and conservationists, and helping local, forest-dependent people to improve their livelihoods in a sustainable way.

“Our customers will trust this scheme because it brings together the UK’s most popular retailer with the UK’s most popular conservation organization,” said David North, Tesco UK Corporate Affairs Director.

The money raised by Together For Trees will be spent on the RSPB’s rainforest projects across the world, including Harapan Rainforest in Indonesia, Gola Rainforest in West Africa and Centre Hills National Park in Montserrat, a UK Overseas Territory in the West Indies. Rainforests such as these are home to more than two thirds of the planet’s land-based creatures, three quarters of all endangered bird species and have more than one billion of the world’s poorest people depending on them to survive.

In the search for the Rainforest Reporter, Together for Trees has partnered with Amazon explorer and European Adventurer of the Year, Ed Stafford. (Stafford participated in a live web chat Thursday morning, hosted by The Guardian.) People can apply to be the Rainforest Reporter on the Together for Trees website.

Tesco has set a goal to become a zero carbon business by 2050. In 2011, the Carbon Disclosure Project named Tesco the top retailer in the world for its efforts in tackling climate change. However, last month, Tesco abandoned its industry leading effort to place carbon labels on all of its products

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 23, 2012

Scaling Sustainable Consumption

David Schatsky — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:53:39 +0000

To achieve sustainable consumption at the scale necessary to avert staggering economic consequences, companies, industry sectors and the public and NGO sectors need to come together to change how business is done. This is the central theme of a new report issued by the World Economic Forum, the elite network of global CEOs and other stars and global influentials.

The report, “More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency,” is animated by impatience for progress toward sustainable business. These days, calls for sustainable business practices among the business community are motivated as much by opportunities as threats. But this report places more weight on the threat side of the equation. As a call to action it cites an analysis by Oxford Economics supposing a “peak metals” scenario that puts $2 trillion of output at risk by2030; and another that foresees costs of $1.8 trillion across the major global economies associated with agreed and necessary restraints on carbon.

Featuring an analysis centered on the consumer goods sector, the report lists the CEOs of some of the world’s best known companies as contributors, including Alcoa, Best Buy, BT Group, DuPont, Kraft Foods, Nestlé’ , Marks & Spencer, S.C. Johnson & Son, Unilever and Walmart. Reflecting a belief that future of sustainable consumption depends in large part on influencing consumer behavior, a number of leading marketing, advertising and public relations firms-- Edelman, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, WPP, Aegis Media-- also contributed to the report.

A world in which escalating consumption is sustainable, according to the report, is one in which business and economic growth are decoupled from resource intensity and environmental impact. This “decoupling” has been a pillar of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan; the document may indicate that a growing number of companies are starting to think in these terms.

The report suggests that it will take progress along three dimensions to move us to world in which sustainable consumption is achieved at a large enough scale: demand, supply, and “the rules of the game,” or government action and the regulatory framework.

Sustainable Consumption Must Become the “Default Choice”

The report asserts that sustainable consumption has to become “the simplest and cheapest choice for consumers.” Making sustainable consumption “the default choice” requires not only dramatically improved resource efficiency in manufacturing and distribution but also effective marketing and communication to make sustainable consumption more “personal and relevant” to consumers and reflective of their values. The report also suggests there is a role for technology to play to drive engagement (perhaps through “gamification”) and transparency (as exemplified by Good Guide).

It follows from this that launching “green” product lines is not the way forward. “Green” products are a niche play, not a full-scale play, for sustainable consumption. Making sustainable choice "the default choice" means companies’ core product lines need to be sustainable.

The Supply Side Requires an “Ecosystem of Collaboration and Scale”

The report asserts that the challenges of creating sustainable consumption at an economy-wide scale are beyond the capabilities of any one company. The report calls for the creation of an “ecosystem of collaboration and scale around key activities that are beyond the remit or reach of any one organization.” An organization acting alone that optimized its own use of resources could end up shifting environmental burdens onto its value chain. “A concerted, scalable plan of action across key areas of supply will enable multiple suppliers, manufacturers and retailers to aggregate their sustainability efforts,” avoiding that problem. Industry groups need to tackle challenges collaboratively to avoid burden shifting and to find broad solutions. The implication: if you're not supporting, participating with or at least following a collaborative sustainability group such as The Sustainability Collaborative, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition or some other group appropriate to your industry, you're holding your company and the industry back.

Improve the Rules of the Game

Collectively, companies have a huge environmental impact and represent a great opportunity for improvement. But achieving the fullest potential of sustainable consumption will require engagement with and support from the public sector. To make this point, the report states that the top 50 consumer goods and retail companies have a carbon footprint across scope 1, 2 and 3 equivalent to the combined footprint of Germany and France. The report calls for governments to commit to legal and traceable supply chains and substantial and rapid increases in the production and uptake of sustainable, renewable sources of energy and materials. It says that business leaders can help shape the policy landscape in the greening of public procurement, reform of subsidies that are harmful to the economy and environment and improving regional trade agreements among other areas. The implication: companies need to be engaged and informed about the link between public policy and long-term sustainability. Your company is not a sustainability leader unless you are engaged in the public policy dimensions of sustainability.

Green Research Insight

If you're not supporting, participating with or at least following a collaborative sustainability group such as The Sustainability Collaborative, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition or some other group appropriate to your industry, you're holding your company and the industry back.”

You can find the full paper here

Other Studies Featured This Month

The Cost and Benefits of Dealing with Conflict Minerals

This month we completed a study on the impact that a piece of the Dodd-Frank law is likely to have on companies. The Dodd-Frank law, passed in 2010, is intended to improve accountability and transparency in the US financial system. Unusually for a law with this focus, it contains provisions intended to cut off funds currently flowing to armed groups operating in and around the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. These provisions, contained in Section 1502 of the law, require companies to undertake supply chain due diligence on minerals sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or adjoining countries and to publically report on measures undertaken to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The law terms these minerals "conflict minerals."

Global Witness, an NGO that works to end global conflicts fueled by trade in natural resources, sponsored the study but left us alone to conduct it independently and to draw our own conclusions. We focused on how much compliance would cost different types of companies, and what benefits, if any, companies might be able to obtain from going through the compliance process.

The study found that the largest companies (with annual revenues over $50 billion) are facing one-time costs ranging from $500,000 to $2 million; companies with well developed responsible sourcing systems may need to spend only half as much. Many smaller companies should be able to meet their obligations for less than the cost of a full-time employee in the first year, with costs declining over time. It also found that companies have an opportunity to reap a wide range of business benefits associated with Section 1502 compliance. Executives we interviewed cited better risk management, improved supply chain performance, new innovation opportunities and the ability to prepare to meet a new generation of expectations for greater supply chain transparency and accountability as potential benefits of the new compliance regime. The study advises companies to look for opportunities to seize these benefits as they review and update their supply chain processes and practices.

See the full report here.

Leading Companies Define their Top 10 Sustainability Challenges

“What are your greatest business sustainability challenges looking ahead to the coming year?” This is the question that the Network for Business Sustainability, a Canadian research group, put to its leadership council in its September 2011 meeting. The council members worked to identify global priorities from the Canadian perspective by identifying their own priorities; aggregating and grouping issues into categories; and ranking challenges by importance. Here, then, is the prioritized list that came out of that meeting. It should be of value both to researchers selecting focus areas as well as businesses seeking to benchmark their own priorities against broader industry sentiment. Though this list was created from a Canadian perspective, I think you will agree that the challenges listed here are broadly applicable to companies throughout the developed world.

How can we redefine the traditional business case to include sustainability?
How can sustainability drive innovation (and vice-versa) within companies?
How can we mobilize citizens to take more sustainable actions?
How can businesses build sustainability into corporate budgeting and planning?
How can we continue to green the firm in tough economic times?
How can business measure progress on social and environmental issues?
How can we quantify the productivity of environmental goods and services?
How can businesses attract and retain employees through sustainability?
What are the best (and worst) practices in sustainability reporting?
How can businesses effectively engage with NGOs on social and environmental issues?

Check our the full report here.

February 22, 2012

USDA Certification Raises Bar for Biobased

Jacquie Ottman — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:52:03 +0000

With carbon footprint and energy independence on everyone’s minds, many marketers are looking to capitalize upon their product’s biobased content. But not all biobased claims are alike. The scientific rigor of an ASTM standard combined with the credibility of the USDA raises the bar for the industry and makes the USDA Certified Biobased label a new source of competitive advantage within the consumer and government procurement markets for brand owners who make the effort to get their biobased products certified. By Jacquie Ottman and Mark Eisen

What is “Biobased”?

There is no Webster’s definition of biobased. So, marketers have tended to define it loosely or link it to perceptions of biobased as anything biological, living, natural, renewable or even biodegradable. Some do not reveal the amount of, or basis for, claiming biobased content, making comparisons difficult. This can even represent greenwash when biobased content levels are insignificant. Many questionable biobased claims have emerged, including several official-looking logos with no third party backing. With over 25,000 biobased products on the market, clearly there’s a need to clear up the confusion.

Chart: J. Ottman Consulting, Inc.

Enter the USDA Certified Biobased Label

The USDA Certified Biobased label introduced one year ago this month now helps to level the market for biobased claims by providing a clear definition and an internationally recognized test standard backed up by the credibility of the USDA. The label already has already certified 500 products, with applications in the pipeline for at least 400 more. (See our previous post for more detail.)

Not just any biologically derived product or package can qualify for the label. Certified products must meet three key criteria: they meet the definition of biobased as written into the 2008 Farm Bill, they contain minimum levels of biobased content set forth by the USDA and verified by the ASTM D6866 test standard (minimums are determined on a category by category basis and are pegged to performance and other criteria), and they represent alternatives to petroleum-based materials introduced after 1972. So, products that were on the market before 1972 made from natural fibers or forestry resources such as cotton tee shirts, office paper, or a 2 x 4 made of pine would not qualify. And neither would products whose biobased content did not meet minimum levels. (See http://biopreferred.gov for more details.)

Translating Biobased Content Into Marketing Benefits

The label, with its sun, sea and crops motif was designed to help communicate that biobased products can be derived from the sea or forests — not just grown from plants. For transparency, it requires that the exact percentage of biobased content be listed on the label for the product and/or package. Thus, marketers are provided with a level playing field and consumers have an easy way to identify legitimate biobased products, as well as to compare and trust in their stated content levels.

Marketers can use the label to support a range of benefits including energy independence, alternatives to petroleum, carbon cycle management, enhanced farm and rural economies, and green jobs. Related and specific product environmental benefits as applicable, including renewable, biodegradable, natural, or compostable, must be supported and substantiated with scientific evidence.

Credibility is key. Proprietary formulas safeguarded. The price is right.

The USDA Biobased certification process is administered by Iowa State University, an independent third party. Only accredited independent laboratories conduct testing. Since the certification only measures carbon content, no proprietary formulas have to be disclosed. Unlike most other certifications, there is no upfront fee, licensing or royalties, so even the smallest businesses can take advantage of the program. Only a $500 lab test is required – a small price to pay for a potentially big competitive advantage.

Seventh Generation leads the pack.

Seventh Generation has already certified over 35 of their household and personal care products; their motivations: to promote transparency, to avoid greenwash, to allow consumers to make side by side comparisons, and to change the way the industry talks about “natural”. In the words of Julia Walker, Associate Scientist of Seventh Generation, “Our consumers want to know where their products originate without being “greenwashed.” The USDA Certified Biobased label enables us to disclose the percent renewable carbon in our products, telling consumers how much carbon comes from plants versus petroleum. The credibility of the method will give consumers the confidence they deserve to make conscious choices about their purchases and the products they bring into their homes.”

Jacquelyn Ottman and Mark Eisen are colleagues at New York City-based J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. They advised USDA BioPreferred on the launch of the USDA Certified Biobased label during 2011 and are now working with labelers on capturing the value of their participation in the program. Ms. Ottman is the author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler, 2011). Mr. Eisen is the former environmental marketing director at The Home Depot. They are co-authors of, “The Rise of the Biobased Economy — Why Brand Owners Need a Strategy in 2012”

February 20, 2012

Asset Recovery Goes Dumpster Diving

Brooke B Farrell — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:53:46 +0000

If your company no longer needs a building, or a vehicle, or heavy equipment, you wouldn’t think of walking away from the value embedded in those assets. You’d want to sell the asset and get the highest return possible. But what about your waste streams and byproducts?

Your procurement department paid for the materials coming into your operations. Why wouldn’t you want to recover the residual value on the back end? If you think it’s not much money, think again. General Motors announced last year that they are now recovering $1 Billion per year in value from commodity recyclables and materials formerly known as waste. Yes, that’s Billion with a B.

For large, enterprise organizations that generate significant volumes of materials on an ongoing basis (think manufacturing, distribution) and for those that aggregate materials (think post-consumer take-backs, reverse logistics, municipalities), the first question is – do you rely on an outside waste services firm to sell your valuable commodity materials? More and more companies like GM are managing the sale of their valuable commodities directly, cutting out any brokerage fees and middlemen. They might start out with the most valuable materials – often metals - then pull in chemicals, plastics, cardboard or other ongoing streams that have residual value.

If you think about it, your people know exactly what the market is for the raw materials and recycled materials they are buying. Once they are given the task of managing the other end of the cycle, they become even smarter about market conditions – giving your company a competitive edge on both ends of the market.

For some companies, once they realize how much they are making from their manufacturing waste, it opens up new ways of thinking about post-consumer take-back and reverse-logistics programs. Suddenly they want to take back their product, and their competitors’ product too.

So, that sounds easy enough. But in practice, it can be a challenge to get started.

Without much historical data, it’s hard to pinpoint the size of the opportunity for your company. And, there aren’t many best practices or systems yet established for how to manage and market your own byproducts. Even the leading companies doing it today know there is room for improvement.

One consumer packaged goods company managing the sale of $40 million in materials annually told us that they felt sure they were leaving as much as 20% and sometimes more on the table. But they did not have a competitive, transparent bidding system that would ensure they were getting fair market value.

Another major manufacturer indicated that their materials sales process was so time consuming and laborious that they were executing the process much less frequently than they should, often missing the upside on market swings.

RecycleMatch’s subscription based software platform has solved these issues by taking the best practices and tools already used in the Asset Recovery space and augmenting them to meet the unique needs related to ongoing streams of commodity recyclables, byproducts or ‘waste’.

What are the major differences?

Byproducts tend to be ongoing streams of materials instead of one time events. As a result, a competitive sales price might be negotiated on an index basis, or may require a buyer maintaining equipment or trucks at your facility. That’s an ongoing relationship, not an eBay transaction.

Unlike used equipment sales, the sale of byproducts can tell a lot about your business. Some companies are very secretive about their byproducts, because they provide insights about their manufacturing processes or R&D. Branded materials often require special levels of destruction, and companies make great efforts to ensure their off-spec goods do not end up in the wrong hands.

Any company that subscribes to RecycleMatch knows that they maintain 100% control over each transaction while eliminating all brokerage fees. They can set up transactions including Online Auctions, Sealed Bid Sales, RFPs, as well as Landfill Diversion Listings, and Reverse Auctions. They ramp up maximum competition or solicit input on zero waste challenges by making the transactions open to the public. Alternatively, they can establish very private, invitation-only sales limited to their own approved bidders, and may selectively research RecycleMatch’s database of over 8,000 mills, recyclers and other environmental solutions.

With tools like these, your asset recovery people can turn dumpster diving into a highly profitable exercise. If GM can pull a Billion dollars a year worth of byproduct sales out of their dumpsters, maybe it’s time you radically reevaluated your company’s approach to managing byproducts.

February 21, 2012

European Companies Partner on High Performance Eco-Yarn

Bart King — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:53:31 +0000

What do you get when you combine a chemical specialist with a textile producer, a sportswear manufacturer and a bunch of plastic bottles? A new line of yarn that boasts a small environmental footprint and high performance for sports apparel.

Several Swiss companies partnered with Italian fabric maker Pontetorto and Korean outerwear manufacturer Youngone to introduce the new r-Starlight yarn at the International sports Trade Show (ISPO) in Munich, Germany.

The eco-sustainable yarn starts with post-consumer recycled PET bottles, which are then sorted, washed and shredded into chips. The chips are then de-polymerized and polymerized again into granular form. The polymer granules obtained are then used for the production of fibers or as the raw material for the spinning process.

The three Swiss companies involved include Noyfil, a subsidiary of Radici Group that produced the yarn; HeiQ Materials, a chemical company specializing in the development of high-performance textile finishes; and Swiss sportswear manufacturer R’adys.

The partners say they intend to launch a new branded line of sportswear employing the r-Starlight product line, which includes a variety of counts, cross-section shapes, lusters and colors.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 21, 2012

Smart Appliances Are Less Than Five Years Away

Bart King — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:48:18 +0000

The market for smart appliances has yet to take off, but it’s just a matter of time, according to a new forecast by ABI Research, which says shipments will exceed 24 million units by 2017.

Companies like LG Electronics and Samsung have already introduced comprehensive lines of refrigerators, washing machines and stoves capable of communicating with home energy management systems (HEMS) and receiving dynamic pricing signals from electric grid operators about the availability of cheap power.

However, these devices have yet to appear in major retail outlets, carry ultra-premium price tags, and are primarily being used in small pilot projects.

It’s likely to take a couple more years for high prices to erode and for utility companies to offer dynamic pricing structures that will titillate consumer demand. The number of households with utility-provided HEMS is expected to increase from an estimated 2.5 million households in 2011 to 36 million households in 2017, an increase that will open the market for smart appliances.

The number of major appliance manufacturers that have used recent trade shows as launch pads for new products is a sign that the market may soon see substantial growth. Whirlpool, BSH, Miele, and Electrolux are among the other leading players that have unveiled one or more smart products.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

Article Image Caption:

Smart appliances from GE via buildaroo.com

February 21, 2012

Rethinking Waste One Bag at a Time: Tackling Waste with the Right Partners

Cheryl Hagedorn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:09:22 +0000

The college football season brings with it more than gridiron glory and classic rivalries. The average football game produces 50 to 100 tons of waste¹. To help college and university football programs tackle this problem, The Glad Products Company is collaborating with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), a non-profit whose mission is to “empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation” by providing resources and knowledge to members. By Cheryl Hagedorn & Seann Sweeney

With AASHE as an ally, Glad launched their One Bag campaign to colleges and universities. The One Bag campaign encourages and facilitates events, venues and consumers to host One Bag events, where only one bag of waste is sent to landfill and the remainder being diverted to recycling and compost. It was critical to educate AASHE members about the One Bag campaign launch so Glad became the official waste diversion sponsor of the 2011 AASHE Conference. The combined team worked with the David. L. Lawrence Convention Center in every available avenue to waste less including removing “waste drivers” from the event’s menu (nixing wrapped candy and chips from lunch boxes), using compostable or reusable silverware, donating leftover boxed lunches to a local non-profit and displaying informational signage by waste receptacles. The result was that the conference achieved a 97.63% diversion rate!

Other pieces of the AASHE-GLAD collaboration are a series of One Bag grants to AASHE members to start new sustainability programs. The colleges and universities awarded the grants have big plans to help their campuses waste less. A few examples of campus One Bag projects include developing new waste diversion initiatives for the athletics stadium, expanding recycling programs at tailgating to include composting, funding student volunteers to drive awareness/education, and programs that launch recycling at tailgating for the first time.

To showcase what can be achieved by implementing strategic waste reduction efforts, GLAD partnered with the University of Southern California (USC) and its fans to implement waste reduction and diversion practices during pre-game tailgates at the October 29, 2011 USC home game against the Stanford Cardinal. With over 93,500 in attendance it was quite an undertaking.

GLAD taught USC tailgaters steps to go One Bag by thinking about what they were bringing to the game, recycling and, for the first time at USC, composting. With the help of 50 volunteers and staff, USC tailgaters were engaged on waste reduction and rewarded with various USC prizes for their efforts. Waste was reduced by 3 tons from the year prior including nearly 1.5 tons of recycling and composting diverted from the landfill.

Moreover, through a GLAD grant, USC will implement some of the sustainability efforts contained in a Glad-sponsored EnviroRider™ -- an environmentally-conscious production handbook for venues -- in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during upcoming seasons.

“We realize the importance of reducing our waste and appreciate the fact that GLAD is affording us the opportunity to begin to make the necessary changes at USC home football games,” said Pat Haden, USC Athletic Director. “Through the One Bag event and the EnviroRider™ that we will execute in the Coliseum, we will be able to educate our fans and begin to plan for and control our waste impact – from stadium procurement to recycling and compost bins.”

Sustainability efforts are more impactful with the right partners. Joining forces with AASHE, USC and numerous other colleges and universities provides GLAD the opportunity to help reduce waste in a big way, and helps consumers learn how to take small steps to waste less as well.

[1] Paul, Steinbach. "Ohio State Joins the 'Zero Waste' Stadium Recycling Movement." Athletic Business. July 2011.

Web. 10 Aug. 2011. <http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=3762>.

February 20, 2012

KPMG Says Environmental Costs Average 40 Percent of Corporate Earnings

Bart King — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:18:02 +0000

If companies had to pay for the full environmental costs of their production, they would lose 41 cents on average for every US dollar in earnings, according to a new study published by KPMG.

The research finds that the external environmental costs of 11 key industry sectors jumped 50 percent from $566 to $846 billion in 8 years (2002 to 2010), averaging a doubling of these costs every 14 years. Currently, these costs are rarely shown on financial statements, because companies generally do not have to pay for them directly.

The KPMG study, Expect the Unexpected: Building Business Value in a Changing World, identifies 10 “megaforces” that will significantly affect corporate growth globally over the next two decades. It explores issues such as climate change, energy and fuel volatility, water availability and cost and resource availability, as well as population growth spawning new urban centers. The analysis examines how these global forces may impact business and industry, and calculates the environmental costs to business.

Michael Andrew, Chairman of KPMG International, said: “We are living in a resource-constrained world. The rapid growth of developing markets, climate change, and issues of energy and water security are among the forces that will exert tremendous pressure on both business and society.”

“We know that governments alone cannot address these challenges. Business must take a leadership role in the development of solutions that will help to create a more sustainable future. By leveraging its ability to enhance processes, create efficiencies, manage risk, and drive innovation, business will contribute to society and long-term economic growth.”

The report was released last week during KPMG’s business leader summit in New York City in cooperation with the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Yvo de Boer, KPMG’s Special Global Adviser on Climate Change and Sustainability, said global sustainability megaforces will significantly increase the complexity of the business environment. “Without action and strategic planning, risks will multiply and opportunities will be lost. Corporations are recognizing that there is value and opportunity in responsibility beyond the next quarter’s results; that what is good for people and the planet can also be good for the long term bottom line and shareholder value,” De Boer said.

In related news, Puma released a detailed report on its groundbreaking effort to attach a monetary figure to its environmental impacts, and Al Gore released a white paper urging businesses to move away from the short-term thinking encourage by quarterly reports.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 20, 2012

Puma Debriefs Methodology of Environmental Accounting

Bart King — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:33:17 +0000

Sports brand Puma published a detailed report describing the methodology behind its groundbreaking Environmental Profit and Loss Account (E P&L) completed last year.

The E P&L is a groundbreaking effort to monetize the value of ecosystem services used across a company’s entire supply chain. Puma found that cost to be EUR 145 million for the year 2010. Of that amount, only EUR 8 million resulted from Puma’s direct operations, while the remaining EUR 137 million was attributed to supply chain activities.

The report also includes a regional breakdown of Puma’s E P&L results and a comprehensive illustration of the drivers of Puma’s environmental impacts and how they were measured, as well as an overview of the benefits of the E P&L as a tool for strategy, management and communication.

Puma says future developments for the E P&L initiative include expanding the accounting methodology to include the full cradle-to-grave-product lifecycle. The current scope of the project is a ‘cradle-to-gate’ analysis. For products like footwear, which has relatively limited impacts associated with its use phase, this truncation may be a reasonable estimation, Puma says. But for apparel, which may demand frequent washing and perhaps also ironing, significant impacts are not covered under the current scope.

Puma plans to publish its next E P&L statement at the beginning of 2013 and is currently developing solutions to reduce environmental impacts occurring further down in the supply chain, where it has far less influence because individual suppliers may be shared by many companies. For that reason, Puma has called on other companies and policymakers to follow its lead.

“Placing a monetary value on our impacts - on natural services - has helped to illustrate the potentially negative impact depleted ecosystems can have on a business’ future performance,” writes Jochen Zeitz, Executive Chairman of Puma and Chief Sustainability Officer of parent company PPR. “It is common practice in the corporate world that this ‘inherent’ value of nature is not defined and integrated into a company’s accounting. Some corporations believe that businesses solely rely on financials and are driven by their ‘bottom lines.’ However, even those concerned only about bottom lines - and not the fate of nature - must now begin to realize that the sustainability of business itself depends on the long-term availability of natural capital.”

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 20, 2012

Reducing Waste Is Asset Management

Linda Lannon — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:00:29 +0000

Many businesses today are looking at ways to increase efficiency along with environmental and social responsibility. Often, these efforts are focused on product manufacturing, seeking out third party certifications or developing cradle to cradle programs to address all phases of the product life cycle. What’s not always examined is the waste created in the business of doing business.

Employers are in a unique position to make a significant impact in the volume of waste created by the people under their direct influence: their employees. It’s not a new concept. Certain business waste reduction efforts have been quite successful. Take paper for example. Employer established paper recycling programs and paperless offices have netted significant bottom line savings, both financial and environmental. But what about less visible sources of waste?

Consider paper towels. The average person uses approximately 3,000 paper towels outside the home every year. Since Americans spend 8-10 of their waking hours at work, five days a week, most paper towel usage occurs in the workplace. Paper towels can comprise 20% or more of a business’s unrecyclable waste stream, creating avoidable annual costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars in paper towel supplies, janitorial expenses, waste removal and landfill fees. It’s easy to see how waste management is, in fact, asset management, and in running an efficient, sustainable business, every asset matters.

A reusable option like PeopleTowels, designed for portability, can ultimately save not only a significant amount of natural resources, but also improve a business’s bottom line, all through simple waste avoidance. The average company of 10,000 employees consumes about 24 million paper towels annually. This translates to an environmental cost of roughly 2,760 trees, 230,000 lbs. of landfill waste, 2.3m gallons of water and 575,000 lbs. of CO2 emissions. Now layer on the expense of paper towels, janitorial services, and landfill disposal fees. It simply doesn’t add up.

Is it feasible for a business to tackle the issue of paper towels waste with their employees? We say yes. It’s become second nature to reach for a reusable coffee mug at the office, to recycle or avoid printer paper all together. Look to the Japanese, one of the world’s most efficient and sustainable business cultures, for inspiration. In Japan carrying and using reusable towels, while not offering paper towels in public restrooms, is the norm, a practice that has been in effect for decades. Yes, electric hand dryers are an option, but they are often passed over in favor of paper towels due to concern about germs and the noise factor, and they require electricity and maintenance. If Japanese employees can accept responsibility for managing their personal waste footprint, and function quite well without paper towels in their public restrooms, why can’t we?

Business leaders have a unique opportunity to promote behavior change by creating a culture of “shared responsibility.” The work place is not just a place we go to work, but an extension of our daily lives and our larger connection to the world. Many of us spend more waking hours at work than at home. Our friends are also our colleagues. We share a common space, and, frequently, common goals and values. It is because of this shared experience that businesses, while addressing the systemic issues of their carbon footprint, also have an opportunity chance to guide and educate their employees on environmental issues such as waste reduction, lessons that will transcend the workplace resulting in positive, sustainable lifestyle changes in society at large. Reducing paper towel usage through a reusable alternative is a triple bottom line play for businesses: good for people, the planet and profits.

February 20, 2012

Gore Says Quarterly Reporting Undermines Sustainable Capitalism

Bart King — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:13:41 +0000

Al Gore has released a white paper through his sustainable investment firm suggesting companies should move away from quarterly earnings reports in order to focus on more long-term, sustainable thinking in the boardroom.

Gore produced the paper, called “Sustainable Capitalism,” with David Blood, his founding partner at Generation Investment Management. The paper recommends five key actions for immediate adoption to accelerate the mainstreaming of sustainable capitalism by 2020.

1. Identify and incorporate risks from stranded assets

2. Mandate integrated reporting

3. End the default practice of issuing quarterly earnings guidance

4. Align compensation structures with long-term sustainable performance

5. Encourage long-term investing with loyalty-driven securities

Public companies in the U.S. are required by law to provide quarterly reports. However, the white paper argues that quarterly reporting leads executives to focus too much on short-term measures “at the expense of the longer term, more meaningful measure of sustainable value creation."

The Guardian in its coverage of the report notes that Unilever (which has an international reputation for sustainable practices) did away with quarterly reports in 2009, and other corporate leaders have spoken about the adverse impacts of quarterly reporting requirements.

The white paper also puts forth five broader ideas the authors believe merit further support and attention:

Reinforce sustainability as a fiduciary issue
Create advisory services for sustainable asset management
Expand the range and depth of sustainable investment products
Reconsider the appropriate definition for growth beyond GDP
Integrate sustainability into business education at all levels

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 17, 2012

DPD Goes Carbon Neutral at No Cost to Customers

Bart King — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:22:00 +0000

DPD’s carbon footprint has been calculated regularly since 2006, and the company says it’s been working to reduce its per-parcel carbon footprint through a range of initiatives.

Beginning in July DPD, will begin offsetting all emissions that it is unable to avoid with the assistance of French offset partner CDC Climat. The company expects to offset approximately 500,000 tons of carbon emissions each year for its five major markets of France, Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands and BeLux.

Pierre Ducret, CEO of CDC Climat said DPD’s announcement “represents a genuine commitment to not only reduce carbon emissions in such an emission-heavy industry, but also to anticipate and enter the new low carbon economy.”

Initiatives currently helping to reduce DPD’s carbon output include:

Eco-driving training for delivery drivers and the UK ‘Drive Smart’ campaign that raises awareness of Eco-driving
Introducing the UK’s largest fleet of double-deck trailers which can hold a third more volume than a single deck vehicle
Reducing energy consumption by measures such as sensor activated lightning and power awareness campaigns in UK.
DPD Netherlands is introducing new Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vans to its fleet in the Netherlands.
DPD in Germany has introduced delivery bikes that can carry up to 50 parcels to residential areas of the Hamburg.
in Germany has introduced Vito E-CELL Mercedes Benz electric vans for parcel delivery.

DPD ships about 2.5 million international parcels a day with a workforce of 24,000 and 18,000 vehicles. DPD’s major shareholder is GeoPost Group, a subsidiary of French Groupe La Poste.

DPD competitor UPS introduced a flat-rate carbon offset option for customers in 2009.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 17, 2012

Blue Marble Joins EcoBonus Customer Reward Program

Bart King — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:29:49 +0000

Blue Marble Brands has signed on as a partner for the EcoBonus customer rewards program in an effort to raise awareness of its organic and natural brands among eco-minded shoppers.

EcoBonus consists of a searchable database of 75,000 products that are “more natural, eco-conscious, and/or socially responsible.” Product details in the database contain third-party ratings and certifications for attributes such as organic, fair trade, and non-GMO.

EcoBonus members earn points by buying products from EcoBonus’s Reward Partners and can redeem those points for earth-friendly gifts.

“Ecobonus is a great fit for us,” said Chris Jensen, director of marketing for Blue Marble Brands. “The collect and earn program is really just the beginning. The ability to raise awareness of our brand, incentivize trial, and then reconnect with those consumers via the platform offers us tremendous opportunity.”

Blue Marble is a collection of fourteen organic, natural, specialty, ethnic, and functional food companies, including Rising Moon Organics and Woodstock. EcoBonus was established on Earth Day 2010 and is a division of Bi Worldwide.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.

February 17, 2012

Why Companies With Ideals Are Winning

Marc Stoiber — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:05:06 +0000

Morten Schroder of Van Houtte Coffee knows something about being a sustainability leader.

In fact, Van Houtte has a long, proud history of adopting sustainability measures, even before a clear ROI matrix has been established. (The latest example is Van Houtte’s implementation of Renewable Natural Gas, a product I helped position and market).

“We believe in making decisions based on the bottom line, of course. But we also have a very clear agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” said Schroder. “What surprised us is that our sustainability decisions – without fail – have all paid off financially. Even when they were based on investing in new ideas.”

Schroder is not the only trailblazer reaping the rewards of acting on ideals.

As reported recently in Sustainable Brands, new research on the world’s 50 fastest growing brands found a cause-and-effect relationship between a brand’s ability to serve a higher purpose and its financial performance.

The research, from Millward Brown and Jim Stengel, cited companies like Method, Seventh Generation and Stonyfield Farm. All companies that have elevated ethics and sustainability to leading operating principles.

The study forms the backbone of Stengel’s book GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies.

So are ideals the next brand differentiator? Is acting ethically the best way to engage jaded consumers? Or does it all come down to common sense?

A Practical, Successful Shift: B Corp

B Corp gained prominence a few years ago as a business sustainability certification program.

One of the things that made B Corp different was, in hindsight, incredible common sense. The program provided a template for companies to incorporate longer term payback – often key to sustainability initiatives – right into their corporate charter.

This simple, yet profound shift away from short term ROI made it possible for companies to invest in ethical, sustainable improvements without the fear of having their programs axed for lack of short term payback.

On Friday, February 3rd, B Corp announced it had over 500 US companies on board, and had just signed up its first 39 Canadian companies. A success that Houston Peschl of DIRTT, one of the largest Canadian corporations to sign on, attributes to finding a common sense way to validate ethical behavior. As Peschl says, “DIRTT understands that it requires a different approach to be successful, the old business practices of manufacturing are archaic. Through innovative product design, amazing work force culture, and revolutionizing how to manufacture environmentally friendly products within a local economy, B Corp allows us to capture many of the intangibles of our unique approach and show the world what we are doing to change manufacturing in North America.”

Futureproof Brand Lesson: Reconsider The Business Model

If there’s one thing to be learned from Van Houtte Coffee and B Corp, it’s that the old business model for measuring performance needs to be tweaked.

Quarterly returns are fine. But the consistent long term gains seen from sustainability measures – gains like customer loyalty, staff motivation and improved efficiency as energy use is reduced – take time to manifest.

It can be likened to the returns on brand investment. Brand building is a slow process, but accepted as invaluable to companies.

While we’re looking at the business model, attention needs to be paid to the ROI measures used. New, exciting sustainability initiatives often have hidden benefits, or hard to measure benefits. For example, the Renewable Natural Gas program that I worked on offered incredible marketing benefits that easily outweighed the operational costs – but those marketing benefits needed to be brought into the ROI measurement before the business case made sense.

Finally, if you want to build a futureproof brand, you need to lead. That said, your leadership needs to be based on strong insights into market trends and consumer demands. As Henry Ford and Steve Jobs understood, leaders can create products that people need – even before people know they need them.

Just ask Morten Schroder or B Corp.

February 17, 2012