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UPS Boosts Mileage 40% with Prototype Plastic Delivery Vans | GreenBiz

UPS Boosts Mileage 40% with Prototype Plastic Delivery Vans

United Parcel Service is rolling out a prototype delivery van that gets 40 percent better mileage than its familiar big, brown boxy predecessor.

The twist here is less high tech than you might guess: It’s not a new recipe for electric batteries or some new exotic fuel. Rather, to deliver big fuel savings, UPS put one of its standard package vans on a strict weight loss program.

By replacing aluminum sheet body panels with rugged, lightweight ABS plastic, UPS engineers have lowered fuel consumption by about 40 percent. Using less sheet metal cut the truck’s weight so much that UPS could then opt for a smaller, lighter engine, saving still more weight. All together, the changes have carved off 1,000 pounds, or about 10 percent, from the weight from the original 5-ton truck design, says Dale Spencer, UPS’ director of automotive engineering.

Five of the slim-line trucks are going through a trial-by-fire at a mix of urban, suburban and rural facilities across the country. The design, known as CV-23 among UPS’ engineers, was created in collaboration with diesel engine-provider Isuzu and Wakarusa, Ind.-based Utilimaster, which executed the composite body makeover.

The design team approached the makeover holistically, examining how one change affected others. For example, switching all of the vehicle’s lights — except headlamps — to efficient LEDs further cut demands on the engine. In the final design a 150-horsepower, four-cylinder diesel with a six-speed transmission was able to replace the 200-horsepower power plant used in the older design.

The plastic body panels also offer maintenance savings. Rather than coating them with a layer of brown paint, the composite material is colored all the way through. This saves the weight of paint — which can be 100 pounds or more — but also hides minor scratches and dings. In today’s trucks, if a ding exposes underlying metal, the truck requires a costly trip to the touch-up shop.

And if damage is worse than a ding, the panels are easy to swap out. In the case of a serious dent, current metal-body trucks would need a shop visit, to either patch or replace the damaged body panel. The CV-23 can avoid many of these service calls. Its panels are designed to snap on easily and are light enough to be stored in the garage for a quick makeover…

Continue reading at greenbiz.com

 

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PepsiCo’s Water-Saving Mission Flows Beyond Its Factories | GreenBiz

When it comes to water issues, PepsiCo‘s fizzy drinks tend to get all the attention. But the company is also a huge manufacturer of snack foods. Its food operations, PepsiCo is finding, offer huge potential to save water — including going “off the water grid.”

At a UK factory that makes Walkers potato chips — or “crisps,” as the locals prefer — PepsiCo is exploring the possibility that the potatoes themselves could yield enough water to operate the factory.

Potatoes offer a unique opportunity to turn off the taps, PepsiCo’s plant managers have recognized. When raw spuds arrive at the loading dock, they’re about 80 percent water by volume.

Indeed, the biggest challenge in making chips crispy is extracting all that water. As the thinly sliced spuds pass through the deep fryer, a thick fog of steam rises from the oil’s surface, as the water steams off.

Instead of letting it escape through a chimney, PepsiCo is exploring the possibility of capturing the vapor, condensing it to reuse and maybe recapturing the heat energy at the same time. It’s a move the company estimates could save the plant in Leicester, England, $1 million per year.

PepsiCo’s UK and Ireland arm has become a leader in setting ambitious environmental and operating goals. These also include being fossil fuel free by 2023 and achieving zero landfill across its supply chain by 2018 (click here to see more on the UK and Ireland goals).

Thinking like this is helping PepsiCo push ahead with ambitious goals globally, to cut water use across the beverage-and-snack conglomerate’s worldwide operations, says Dan Bena, PepsiCo’s director of sustainable development.

I caught up with Dan last week to hear how things were going since Pepsi published its inaugural water reportlast September (click here to download a PDF).

The report followed PepsiCo’s move in 2009 to publicly endorse water as a human right, just in advance of a similar declaration by the UN general assembly.

PepsiCo’s approach combines internal efforts at its plants with collaborative programs to conserve supplies of and improve access to clean water globally.

As part of a broader set of corporate sustainability goals, PepsiCo is specifically aiming to:

  • Improve water use efficiency by 20 percent per unit of production by 2015 compared with 2006;
  • Strive for positive water balance in operations in water-distressed areas; and
  • Provide access to safe water to 3 million people in developing countries by the end of 2015.

Efforts to cut water are ahead of schedule to beat the 20-by-2015 goal, says Bena. To drive this process within its factories, the company is turning to ReCon — short for “resource conservation” — a homemade analytic tool that maps out the use of energy and water in manufacturing plants. Deployed at hundreds of sites, and used in collaboration with supply-chain partners, the tool has saved many millions of dollars in water and energy costs.

“There’s a myth that water is cheap in many areas,” says Bena. “Even in places where it is inexpensive to buy, once you start measuring, you see the costs of treating water, using it, filtering it, and discharging it piling up.

“In some cases, we’re seeing a tenfold increase in the fully measured cost of water from when it enters a facility to when the process is complete. When business people see water costs real money, there’s no better way to get their attention.”

Bena explained that the second of PepsiCo’s three water goals, above, amounts to a kind of “one-for-one” rule. For every liter of water the company uses, PepsiCo hopes to restore, replenish or prevent the waste of as much or more water.

By this measure, Bena says that PepsiCo has already exceeded this goal in India thanks to its role developing a direct-seeding technology for rice. The method drastically reduces the period during which the rice stalks must be submerged in 6 to 12 inches of water.

“We patented a piece of equipment that saves about 30 percent of the water compared with traditional methods,” says Bena.

PepsiCo’s R&D team developed the specialized tractor over about four years, and has given Indian farmers free access to the equipment, along with technical guidance to learn new growing methods.

According to a World Business Council case study of the effort, PepsiCo’s initiative also cut farmers’ costs by 3,500 rupees (about $80) per hectare compared with traditional methods. Extended to 2,630 hectares (approx. 6,500 acres) in 2009, the system conserved an estimated 5.5 billion liters of water.

In addition, the Indian Government estimates that reduced water use lowers the paddy’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 70 percent, cutting down the volume of rotting vegetative mass, which gives off methane, in the standing water.

To push towards its third goal, providing safe water to 3 million people by 2015, PepsiCo has been focusing on developing public water kiosks in Ghana, India and Kenya. “There’s a misconception that people can’t or shouldn’t pay for water,” says Bena. “The reality is that in many poor countries, they already do, and they pay a high price for low quality water.”

Working with Water.org — which is the culmination of the July 2009 merger between Water Partners International and Matt Damon’s H20 Africa Foundation — PepsiCo is trying to supplant high-priced, private water distributors to build community taps.

There’s another benefit, too. “By brining water into a community, you eliminate the time children — often hours, and usually girls — typically spend fetching fresh water,” says Bena.

Back in the factories where it makes fizzy drinks, PepsiCo continues to drive down the volume of water use. “On average, it takes about 2.5 liters of water to produce one liter of beverage.”

“It’s really variable though,” Bena says. “Some newer, advanced plants are running at half that ratio. Some older ones are probably double that. That’s the opportunity that we face.”

Image courtesy of PepsiCo.

Check out the original story here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/04/19/pepsicos-water-saving-mission-flows-beyond-its-factories?page=full

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GE Invests $600M to Build Largest US Solar Plant | GreenBiz

GE Invests $600M to Build Largest US Solar Plant

Looking back it’s easy to pinpoint the moment the U.S. wind industry came of age: April 12, 2002, when General Electric won Enron Wind Corp.’s wind assets in a bankruptcy auction.

The conglomerate’s $358 million bid has since mushroomed into a $6 billion dollar business and the fastest-growing electricity generation technology in the U.S.

Now GE is hoping to repeat that trick in solar energy. GE announced yesterday a $600 million investment to start manufacturing solar panels in a new factory slated to be the largest in the U.S.

The move is likely to shake up an industry locked in a near-permanent price war. GE is adapting — and says it has bettered — the same technology as the world’s current high-volume, low-cost manufacturer, FirstSolar, based in Tempe, Ariz.

Rather than produce solar systems based on silicon, a technology which dominates in the panels found on most household and commercial building roofs, GE’s is turning to thin-film materials.

In thin film panels, instead of building the solar cells on silicon wafers, sheets of glass are used to sandwich minuscule layers of active material, including a key ingredient, cadmium telluride (CdTe), which gives the panel their name.

GE says its approach produces the most efficient CdTe panels to date, citing an evaluation by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab. NREL found that GE’s thin film panels convert 12.8 percent of light into electricity, surpassing all previous measurements for CdTe panels.

While only about three-quarters as efficient of conventional silicon panels, the lower manufacturing costs of CdTe thin film panels make them cheaper, measured by per watt of capacity, than any currently viable commercial technology.

Declining to reveal any pricing details, Vic Abate, GE’s vice president of renewable energy, affirmed the company aims to be a price leader.

As part of the announcement, GE completed the acquisition of PrimeStar, Inc., a thin film pioneer that GE first took a minority stake in three years ago. In earlier news, GE has also bid $3.2 billion for Converteam, a maker of advanced electronics used to manage and produce renewable energy…

Continue reading here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/04/08/ge-invests-600M-build-largest-US-sola…

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With its First-Ever CSO, UPS Kicks Sustainability Up to the C-Suite | GreenBiz

With its First-Ever CSO, UPS Kicks Sustainability Up to the C-Suite
Scott Wicker started at United Parcel Service, Inc. on his first day of college in 1977. The job was part of a deal with his dad: If Wicker could help support his own expenses, his dad would cover housing costs and tuition at Wayne State. Responding to a flyer posted in a school administration building, Wicker applied to UPS and was unloading big rigs in no time.

Thirty-four years and a couple of engineering degrees later, Wicker’s still at UPS. In that time, he’s gone from the loading dock to supervising the $50-billion company’s sustainability strategy and practices.

Scott WickerOn Wednesday, Wicker got kicked upstairs, becoming the shipping giant’s first chief sustainability officer. Wicker was promoted from his former role as vice president of sustainability and plant engineering.

The new title culminates a decades-long process at UPS to elevate sustainability to the company’s highest levels of management. “It was strategic decision, made between our CEO and COO,” says Wicker. “[Sustainability] is high on their list of priorities, so things get done. ”

As CSO, Wicker serves on a steering committee that routinely gathers the company’s top brass — its CFO, CIO, COO, plus heads of marketing and communications, human resources, and communications, among others — to oversee green strategy and help coordinate efforts of midlevel sustainability working groups across the enterprise.

The approach is part of an effort over the past few years “to really put teeth into our sustainability programs,” Wicker said in telephone interview earlier this week. “As sustainability has moved along and we wanted to accelerate that, we needed more structure, and the organization has recognized that fact.”

Top priorities for Wicker include devolving sustainability practices more deeply throughout UPS’ sprawling global operations. To spread the word, UPS will continue to rely on internal training and communications.

Wicker also sees the profit potential in green service offerings as a way to recruit serious commitment from UPS’ sales teams. “We’ve learned we have a competitive advantage in this area, and staff are always interested in ways to sell our business better from a sustainability perspective,” says Wicker. “One of the first places we went was to the sales and marketing team to see the benefits of these programs.”

One example of a green feature that is winning over customers, says Wicker, is UPS’ push to develop detailed carbon footprint reporting for practically any shipment a UPS customer makes. “Every year, the requirement from our customers gets tougher, so our data has to get better and better,” says Wicker.

For instance, the General Services Administration, the federal government’s buying arm, is requiring carbon information for its suppliers. For companies working to meet that requirement by measuring and improving their supply chain, “They discover UPS is big piece of their business model.” …  Continue reading here greenbiz.com

GreenBiz

How the ARPA-E ‘Incubator’ Helps Hatch Next-Gen Energy Projects | GreenBiz

How the ARPA-E 'Incubator' Helps Hatch Next-Gen Energy Projects
Short for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E is modeled after the more familiar DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Famously, DARPA invented and incubated the proto-Internet nearly 50 (!) years ago and stands out as a success story, repeated by the left and right alike, of government investment in basic technologies.

ARPA-E shares more than just the familiar — if awkward — acronym from its predecessor. (I guess EARPA just sounded a little silly.) Like DARPA’s approach, ARPA-E is curating very early stage technologies, picking and cultivating those that could, it hopes, deliver Internet-scale disruptive benefits to the energy economy.

Even in the best of times, such an audacious goal is a serious challenge. But as Arun Majumdar, ARPA-E’s director, told the attendees at the State of Green Business Forum last week in Washington, D.C., the energy innovation incubator also faces tough budgetary realities, despite promising early successes.State of Green Business

“Our goal by statute is to look for technologies that don’t exist in the energy markets today … These are disruptive, not incremental, technologies,” Majumdar said.

Like his boss Steven Chu, Majumdar has a science pedigree from the West Coast’s energy-technology-policy hothouse at University California at Berkeley and nearby Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

And like his boss, Majumdar arrived in D.C. to find strong support for energy research. The agency’s first year budget, at $400 million, was divvied up and deployed into about 400 projects across six research areas (more on those below) in short order.

But now, with that foundation laid, ARPA-E’s funding for both fiscal year 2011 ($300 million requested) and 2012 ($550 million requested) is stalled in the fight over the budget. With its extant funds committed and despite bipartisan support, “we’re in a holding pattern,” said Majumdar.

Last month, the agency announced that six of projects it had funded generated private investment. The half dozen projects that originally received a total of $23.6 million in seed funding from ARPA-E attracted another nearly $100 million in outside private capital investment, Majumdar said.

About one-third of first year funding went to university projects, 40 percent to small businesses, another 5 percent or so to national labs, and the remainder to corporate R&D projects. For the smaller projects, “this is a huge boost … These scientists cannot go to the bank or to venture capitalist because the projects are often pre-prototype,” Majumdar explained…

Continue reading here: greenbiz.com

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The Blend of Judo & Kabuki That’s Driving Sustainability at GSA | GreenBiz

As a crucial part of his ambitious goal to turn the federal government into a leader in green practices, President Obama has turned to an unexpected resource to help drive the effort: the government’s purchasing and property arm, the General Services Administration. 

The GSA’s administrator, Martha Johnson, was picked to lead this mission as head of the giant agency last February. Speaking at the State of Green Business Forum in Washington, D.C. yesterday, Johnson asserted that the twin challenges of fiscal pressure and sustainability goals are perfectly matched to create change at an organization better known for its role as buying agent for some $90 billion worth of government materials and manager of half a million federal buildings.

“One of the things about sustainability in government which is so beautiful is… it talks about ‘no waste’,” Johnson said. Focusing on sustainability reframes the discussion away from negative connotations of cost cutting towards positive attitudes about constructive change.

“The government has a choice,” she added. “We are either under this screw of cutting costs, or we can judo it and say: Let’s be about sustainability, less waste in the system, and more intelligent use of resources. It really changes about how we think about tax payer dollar. That is a huge shift.”

State of Green Business

 

Mere months after entering office, Johnson and her leadership team unveiled a goal of reducing the agency’s environmental footprint to zero. It’s a vision that wowed many, and mystified some, in the green community, given its audacious scope and the uncertainty of just how to achieve it.

Yet for Johnson, it’s the sort of “stretch goal” that the agency is ready for. “Of course we don’t know how to get to zero environmental footprint,” said Johnson. “If you knew how to do it, you should be doing it already.”

Big goals inspire staff and animate new thinking about old ways of operating, she added: “It’s very much like President Kennedy talking about the moonshot. I don’t mean to be grandiose or anything, but that’s helpful.”

With a background in the private sector heavy with “organizational transformation” experience, Johnson regards greening the GSA as serious challenge that can help lead practices elsewhere in the economy.

In the past, huge goals have acted as pole stars, inspiring change and spreading from industry to industry, such as “total quality” or “total safety.” “That north star notion,” she said, “That’s what zero environmental footprint is about.”

Steps toward this goal are multiplying across the agency’s operations. As part of the Recovery Act, for example, the agency was awarded $5 billion to retrofit federal buildings with greener technology…. Continue reading here: greenbiz.com

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Winning the Sustainability Battle, Losing the Carbon War? | GreenBiz

Winning the Sustainability Battle, Losing the Carbon War?

In establishing the Carbon War Room, Richard Branson, the British-born media and aviation billionaire, explicitly treats the threat of catastrophic climate change as one similar to the threat posed by a world war.

Taking this metaphor a step further, Branson appointed as his general Jigar Shah to head up the CWR. Nearly a year into the mission, however, Shah seems palpably frustrated.

Speaking with Joel Makower at GreenBiz.com’s State of Green Business Forum in Washington today, Shah emphasized that the foot soldiers in this mission — companies, policy makers and voters — are waging a losing fight in this multi-decade struggle.

State of Green Business

First some context on the scope of the fight. Shah reminded the audience that global greenhouse gas emissions are running at about 50 gigatonnes per year today, and are on track to grow to 60 gigatonnes by 2020 if economic growth and climate trends continue without change. To avoid catastrophic climate change of 2 degrees Celsius or more, scientists say we need to trim 17 gigatonnes from that trend by 2020.

Not surprisingly, technology is ready to help solve the problem, says Shah, who earned a reputation as a wunderkind of the solar business, and a fortune — perhaps several hundred gazillion dollars, Makower joked — as the founder of solar energy pioneer SunEdison in 2003. “You’ve got Bjorn Lomborg saying we can’t do anything without more R&D. And policy people saying unless we pass a price on carbon, we can’t do anything,” said Shah. “That’s just poppycock.”

The deeper problem is a tendency to grasp at feel-good solutions without reaching for, or even acknowledging, harder, far more impactful steps.

Shah offered the example of turning off the taps while brushing your teeth: it’s a painless, feel-good behavioral change promoted by countless green living advice columns. Yet compared to the 40 percent of water wasted through leaking pipes across our crumbling water networks, it’s meaningless.

While Makower suggested you could pursue both lifestyle changes and long-term infrastructure goals, Shah batted back the suggestion. “It is an either-or decision,” no matter how much we’d like to think otherwise.

Echoing psychological studies suggesting that consumers’ interest in these issues peters out after a single action, Shah said: “There’s very few people who react to [any environmental message]. So when an NGO mails out to 20 million people turn off your taps, they could just as easily say the more important thing is to actually fix this infrastructure.” But the harder sell is all to rarely made, said Shah.

The problem is compounded by failures of incomplete information, Shah added. With scant understanding of the scale of the climate change challenge, for example, good intentions get diluted.

via greenbiz.com

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Coca-Cola Decides to Gulp Down the Rest of Honest Tea | GreenBiz

Coca-Cola Decides to Gulp Down the Rest of Honest Tea
Honest Tea, the fast-growing 13-year-old vendor of organic teas, first attracted the attention of Coca-Cola back in 2008, when the fizzy drinks giant took a 40 percent stake in the green-minded startup. Today, CEO Seth Goldman announced that Honest Tea had notified its shareholders of Coke’s decision to exercise its option to buy the balance of those shares, almost three years to the day after their original agreement. The deal is on track to close within the next few weeks.

The deal would cap a period of accelerating growth for the Bethesda, Md.-based tea brand. Sales peaked at some 100 million units of bottles and bags last year, bringing sales close to $100 million, Goldman explained, thanks in part to a boost in distribution that came from the original deal with Coke.

State of Green Business

“We’ve seen growth three-fold,” said Goldman, thanks in part to current or pending distribution deals with major national chains including CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid. The high point of Honest Tea’s arrival to the mainstream, Goldman joked, may have been marked when the company appeared as a clue in a New York Times Friday crossword puzzle. The clue, “Honest ______ (drink brand).” The answer: Honest Ade, not Tea — one for the experts.

In a nod to Goldman’s central role as founder and CEO — or TeaEO — Coke has ensured that he maintains an equity stake in the operation and will continue to run the brand. The move is unprecedented, Goldman told attendees at the State of Green Business Forum today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Coke has a well-evolved business process for buying up small-brands, transitioning out the founder and folding the products into the parent’s larger manufacturing, distribution and marketing operations. “A veteran of the beverage business told me that after a takeover, for the first few weeks, they want to know your opinion, for the next few weeks, they want to know your telephone number, and after that they don’t want to know you,” said Goldman. “This was unusual for Coke, but came from the chairman.”

Speaking with GreenBiz.com’s senior writer, Marc Gunther, Goldman acknowledged the decision stirs charges that the organic tea brand is compromising its green integrity. Honest Tea has cultivated sustainable practices among its tea suppliers to achieve USDA certified organic status. It has also ruled out using high fructose corn syrup, and has certified its products as Fair Trade.

Goldman dismisses the charge, arguing that scaling up his business is the path to delivering the greatest benefits most broadly. “It’s easy to fall into a ‘big is bad, small is good’ trap,” said Goldman. “To those critics, I ask, ‘What’s your strategy to change corporate America?'”

Coke has proven loath to tinker with Honest Tea’s green appeal — even in the face of tension with the newcomer. The companies attracted national attention in 2010 when The New York Times detailed a conflict over Honest Tea’s decision to brand its kids’ beverage line as free of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), despite pressure from Coke. The big drink brand was facing charges over the synthetic nature of the corn-derived sweetener along with the high calorie count of its fizzy drinks…

Continue reading here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/02/16/coca-cola-gulps-down-rest-honest-tea
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What GE Has in Store for Round 2 of the Ecomagination Challenge | GreenBiz

What GE Has in Store for Round 2 of the Ecomagination Challenge
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GE is going back to the innovation well. Encouraged by the success of its $200 million Ecomagination Challenge — a crowdsourced contest, which yielded scores of grid-scale technology and investment opportunities — the Connecticut-based conglomerate is turning up the heat on the hunt for innovative home energy solutions.

The search includes both today’s and tomorrow’s technology. Starting with upgrades to existing gizmos — kitchen appliances, washing machine and dryer and other domestic energy hogs — innovative ideas are also sought for future solutions, such as electric car recharging systems or software apps to help cut power use.

Announced earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show, GE’s decision to extend the Ecochallenge was spurred by the huge volume of home-related ideas submitted in the first phase of the competition. Of some 4,000 submissions, more than a quarter focused on home energy use.

“Powering your home” is seeking submissions across two broad categories: energy efficiency, including appliances and air conditioning, as well as software systems to manage home energy; and renewable power, including familiar solar and wind systems but also residential-scale hydro and biomass solutions.

Select winners will be offered the opportunity to develop a commercial relationship with GE through:

• Investment: $145 million of the $200 million pool from GE and its partners remains to be committed.
• Validation: GE technical and commercial experts will evaluate entrant’s business strategy through in-depth discussions.
• Distribution: The company will also explore partnership opportunities to scale the product or service globally.
• Development: Winners can tap into GE’s technical infrastructure and GE Global Research Centers to accelerate technology and product development.
• Growth: They can also explore opportunities for utilizing existing GE customers to take winning products to market.

The panel of expert judges — which includes GE execs and leading academics and technologists — will also pick five ideas that represent pioneering entrepreneurship and innovation. Winners of these Innovation Awards will score $100,000.

Launched in July 2010, the ecochallenge is a collaboration with leading venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital, and Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired magazine. Also joining this stage of the project is Carbon Trust, a London-based not-for-profit with a track record of commercializing low carbon technologies.

This phase of the challenge seeks will re-examine ideas already submitted as well as new proposals submitted before the deadline of March 1, 2011. The contest is open to proposals from around the globe. Learn more at www.ecomagination.com/challenge.

via greenbiz.com

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Inside GRI’s Efforts to Boost CSR Reporting in the States | GreenBiz

Inside GRI's Efforts to Boost CSR Reporting in the States

 

Federal efforts to require companies to report on environmental impacts and other sustainability measures in their financial filings have all but stalled, victims of the recession and a loss of momentum for federal climate policy.

But while official efforts have deflated, independent groups are ratcheting up the pressure. The case for greater transparency got a push today, with the announcement that the Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), is launching a U.S. effort to guide more American corporations to adapt GRI’s framework to disclose environmental, social and governance performance. Advocates make the case that increased transparency not only tends to boost profitability, but that such details are legally material to corporate financial statements.

Dubbed Focal Point USA, GRI’s US initiative debuted today at a breakfast meeting at NYSE Euronext on Wall Street. Pointing out that only hundreds of tens of thousands of US companies strive to document their broader impact, GRI Chief Executive Ernst Ligteringen asked the 230 attendees, “Why is America letting the world lead in sustainability reporting?”

Born of 1997 U.N. initiative, GRI has over the past decade evolved rules over addressing the needs of different sectors, from mining to media, and worked to win official endorsement of its guidelines from standards bodies such as the OECD and UN.

The value of sustainability practices as crucial to risk management echoed through comments made by a panel of executives whose companies presently follow GRI reporting guidelines. “What is the justification of the 75,000 corporations who don’t report on ESG [environmental, social and governance] issues to fly blind?” asked David Vidal, director, Center For Corporate Citizenship And Sustainability at The Conference Board.

At Avon, which relies on a sales force of 6.5 million independent resellers, GRI’s framework emerged a useful bridge, linking sustainability advocates among the company’s senior ranks, with financial executives. “GRI gives a formal framework that the bean counters can relate too, and get behind,” said Susan Arnot Heaney, Avon’s director of corporate responsibility.

Issues of sustainability resonate especially strongly with Avon’s nearly all-female sales force, Heaney emphasized, creating upward pressure on corporate managers. Avon has over one million direct sales representatives in Brazil alone, a group larger than the nation’s army, Heaney explained.

Simply standardizing sustainability data into more accessible standard forms has enhanced financial markets’ regard for the value of the information, said Curtis Ravenel, Director of Sustainability Initiatives, at Bloomberg LLP. The financial and news service recently has begun to include sustainability indicators alongside conventional financial analytics on one of the most widely viewed data screens in the Bloomberg terminal.

“As a private company Bloomberg didn’t have a culture of reporting or transparency,” said Ravenel. The media company plans to release its first GRI compliant report in 2011, following a three-year effort to compile the necessary data. The exercise helped convince management of the value of reporting on sustainability data internally, and via its terminals, Ravenel explained.

“This is a dynamic time for the Global Reporting Initiative, with sustainability reporting becoming a vital part of the business strategies of an increasing number of companies, including in the US,” said Mike Wallace, Director of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Focal Point USA.

The US launch follows similar announcements in China and India. Following the New York event, Focal Point USA is planning a breakfast meeting hosted by The World Bank in Washington, DC on February 3 and a roundtable event hosted by Ceres in Boston on February 4. For more information about these events and about GRI’s Focal Point USA, contact Mike Wallace or more information here.

NYSE photo CC-licensed by Francisco Diez.

 

via greenbiz.com