greening biz operations

Should emissions from employee commutes be included in company GHG inventories?

When businesses dip a toe in the rising sea of corporate action on climate change, the first box they check before diving in involves tabulating their own greenhouse-gas inventory. In getting your corporate house in order, the first step is defining where your yard ends and your neighbor's begins.

The good news: There is a clearly accepted international standard providing guidance to companies sorting "what's in" and "what's out" for their GHG inventory. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard is the playbook everyone is working from.

The bad news: Some issues are more clearly defined in the guidance than others, leaving individual companies to sort out their own best way forward.

Emissions from employee commutes are one such gray area. In these early days, how leading companies come down on this issue is critically important in setting a precedent. The GHG Protocol does provide general guidance on this issue, but more specific direction is needed.

An interview with eco-certification expert Michael Conroy

Michael Conroy. Photo: Chris Conroy Photography As a shopper, you can’t turn around without running into some type of green label, from Fair Trade to FSC-certified. But what do they all mean, and where the hell did they even come from? Economist Michael Conroy digs into the history behind these increasingly common labels in his […]

Wal-Mart wants your cleantech ideas

Wal-Mart wants your help: We are trying something new at Wal-Mart…amidst the crazy fast, rapidly growing space of clean/green technologies we have found it pretty difficult to do two things: 1. Find the technologies that we should be implementing and 2. Be sure those that we know about are the best options with the most […]

MBA students do care about green issues, contrary to BusinessWeek article

Do today's MBA students care about the environment? You'd answer "no" if you took seriously a January BusinessWeek article by Derek Thompson, which was based on a recently released study by the communications consulting firm Hill & Knowlton.

BusinessWeek is an authoritative publication, with the largest U.S. circulation of any business magazine. But even if you can't balance your checkbook and wouldn't recognize a cash flow statement if one bit you, there's no need to abandon common sense when reading the magazine.

The headline of Thompson's piece reports the finding that "A good environmental reputation doesn't make the grade when it comes to rating a company as a prospective new employer." This assertion is based on the fact that "only 34 percent" of MBA students participating in the Hill & Knowlton survey consider a prospective employer's "environmental or green policies" to be "'extremely' or 'very' important." But "only" 34 percent? Doesn't this figure support an opposite conclusion from the one the article trumpets?

Don’t let Wal-Mart’s greenish diversions distract you

The following is a guest essay by Alex Goldschmidt, online editor at Wal-Mart Watch.

-----

Wal-Mart has been trying its hardest to distract its environmental critics. In a carefully orchestrated act of diversion, the company shows off its skylights and light bulb sales. In doing so, Wal-Mart has managed to draw attention away from the other, deeper environmental problems lying at the heart of the company's business model.

Wal-Mart's public relations efforts help hide the fact that despite all its talk, the company isn't any greener than it was in 2005 when it laid out a series of company-wide environmental initiatives. The fact remains that Wal-Mart's energy use is still rising. Until the company significantly reduces the amount of energy used to earn a dollar, its sustainability initiatives remain fundamentally flawed. Several aspects of the company's basic business model hinder this kind of comprehensive change:

Wal-Mart CEO outlines lofty green goals

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott made a big ol’ speech yesterday spelling out ambitious social, health, and environmental goals for the retail behemoth. Wal-Mart will work with other retailers to boost industry-wide green standards, said Scott, and, within five years, Wal-Mart suppliers will be required to meet stringent environmental standards — and may even be paid […]

Wal-Mart CEO lays out ambitious social and environmental goals for his company

Yesterday, Wal-Mart CEO gave a fairly amazing speech, assessing the company’s progress on its social and environmental goals and laying out some extremely ambitious plans for the future. A taste: He then laid out sweeping plans for the company on several health and environmental issues, and he hinted that even more ambitious goals might be […]

Yogurt CEO blazes green path

Check out Joel Makower on Gary Hirshberg, founder and head of Stonyfield Yogurt. Stonyfield was bought by French food conglomerate Danone last year, at which I point my kneejerk dirty hippie-ism kicked in and I assumed they’d sold out. Apparently not, though: All of which further empowered Hirshberg to pursue, and align, his dual missions […]

Six insights on the business trend toward sustainability

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Forum for the Future recently asked a selection of top business and branding folk to give us the lowdown on the recent trend toward sustainable business. The gurus included Rita Clifton of Interbrand, Stuart Hart of Cornell University, William Kramer of the World Resources Institute, and Jonathon Porritt of Forum for the Future. I have distilled their wisdom into six insights.

1. A real sea change is underway. Looking at the current trends and recent announcements, there are signs of real progress and positive signals of change. In an arena that was once confined to the Body Shop and hippies, we're now seeing a major shift in more mainstream businesses. In the U.K., Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Topshop are all in on the act.

2. Progress is partial. Despite the advances, the size of the challenges we face in building a sustainable future means there is still a long way to go. Even the more progressive strategies, such as General Electric's "Ecomagination," do not fully acknowledge -- or live up to -- the scale of change required. Fundamental questions regarding unsustainable business models need to be addressed before strategies can be fully credible.

3. Business is in the driving seat, not consumers. Although consumer interest is increasing, it's not yet strong enough to drive these trends on its own or make up the entire business case. Business strategy can't completely rely on consumer insight or market research. Bold action and leadership is needed from business to drive this change through to the consumer.