Protecting Forests and Reducing Carbon at the same time.

Paying people to not cut down forests? Sounds like an odd business model, but it is one that is gaining ground as governments, companies and advocates try to address reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Right now, eighteen percent of global carbon dioxide emissions come from cutting, burning and degrading the world’s forests, especially in the tropics – making protection of our forests a crucial part of our strategies to mitigate climate change. Just last month, the Voluntary Carbon Standard approved its first methodology to quantify the benefits of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation – known as REDD in the carbon market world.

Listen and subscribe at www.ceres.org/podcast.

Programs Gain More Traction in Atlanta

The demand for impactful community engagement programs also increases the demand for effective reporting. Companies need credible metrics that are practical to implement, according to the organization True Impact, which offers expertise to help organizations maximize and measure the social and business value of their operating practices.

The group has created Web-based tools and support services to help companies, foundations and nonprofits prove value by quantifying the impact of programs. Additional tools also help companies determine which existing or prospective programs offer the biggest return on investment.

CVC of Atlanta members UPS, The Coca-Cola Company, IBM, Delta Air Lines Inc. and Cbeyond, to name a few, are among the companies that participate in the HandsOn Network’s Corporate Service Council. Its Committee on Return on Investment and Standards provides direction on reporting, measurement and performance benchmarking.

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Fly Ash in Building Products: Proceed with Precaution

Healthy Building News

On September 1, 2010, Environmental Building News (EBN) announced it would “no longer consider the use of fly ash in products or materials to be an environmental attribute when doing so does not offset greenhouse gas emissions.” EBN continues to support the use fly ash as a substitute for portland cement in concrete. In his editorial explaining the EBN position, Executive Director Alex Wilson also called for transparency and disclosure standards that allow purchasers to know the “hazard concentration grade” of toxic materials such as mercury that are frequently found in fly ash. The Green Guide for Health Care, the California Collaborative on High Performance Schools and the draft LEED for Health Care also set strict limits on mercury levels in fly ash in all applications, including those which offset greenhouse gases, such as cement.

The EBN position is the latest significant rebuke to regulations recently proposed by the EPA that aggressively promote unregulated recycling, or “beneficial use,” of fly ash and other waste products from coal-burning power plants. These have been challenged by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) for lacking “demonstrated scientific support for the safety or quantifiable benefits of using coal combustion wastes in building and consumer products.”1 One major concern is that as air pollution control technology gets better, larger concentrations of contaminants such as heavy metals are “scrubbed” from the gases and concentrated in various waste streams: fly ash, bottom ash, or materials from the stack known as “flue gas desulfurization residuals.” Each waste stream has its own issues. These will vary depending upon the composition of the coal, although heavy metals like lead, arsenic and mercury are common concerns with all.

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Cause Marketing Speaks Loudest to Moms and Millennials

According to the Cone survey, some 95% of moms find cause marketing acceptable, and 9 out of 10 want to buy a product that supports a cause. They are also more willing to switch brands (93% vs 80% average) in order to support a cause. All of this means that moms purchased more cause-related products in the past year than any other demographic (61% vs. 41%).

Not far behind moms are Millennials (18-24 years old), who also do their shopping with causes in mind. Ninety-four percent of this age group find cause marketing acceptable (vs. 88% average), and more than half (53%) have purchased a product benefiting a cause this year. Notably, this group of young people wants to work in socially conscious companies, and make investing choices based on their social or environmental values as well.

The Cone survey revealed some interesting data about how consumers view the voting campaigns that have been popular recently with large corporations. These usually ask customers to vote on which issues or causes the company should support with its CSR initiatives. But, in the Cone survey, 61% of the respondents said they would prefer to see a company make a long-term commitment to a focused issue rather than determining themselves which issue the company should support in the short-term.

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Managing the Ripples of Change in the Supply Chain

Drop a pebble in a pond and you will see a number of concentric waves radiating from the point of entry.  Wait a few seconds and those same perfect circles become distorted, blurred, and eventually disappear. In business, particularly in the supply chain, this same pattern is demonstrated as information filters down the supply chain.  As information travels away from its source, growing uncertainty and risk often results in a returning product misaligned with expectations.

Our sustainability consulting experience leads us to believe that supply chains which experience the least amount of supply variability in times of uncertainty and/or change are arguably the most sustainable.  A defining characteristic of these sustainable supply lines is the ability to effectively manage the flow of information among key business relationships.  By increasing clarity within the supply chain, efforts to mitigate risk become activities to improve efficiencies.

Moving forward, business sustainability may be providing a common platform of discussion for businesses and their suppliers.  Companies, small business owners, and entrepreneurs now more than ever find themselves at the crossroads of supply chain risk and opportunity. 

 Rather than scrambling to respond to propagating ripples of change in the supply chain, our sustainability consulting resources are focused on the opportunities of proactive business sustainability action.  We provide information and small business resources to clients of all sizes seeking to make incremental steps towards a sustainable supply chain.  Ready to get started?  Contact us today.

IKEA – Going Cheap On Community Investment

Yeah, I’m not sure this is such a great idea….

IKEA announced the launch of their latest marketing campaign – The Life Improvement Project. As part of the campaign, IKEA will award someone $100,000 to walk away from work for a year and just ‘improve the life of others’.

“Whether you’d like to volunteer at a homeless shelter to start a non-profit organization, this contest gives one winner the opportunity to pursue their passions, and share their experience with the world.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a great idea for companies to engage their employees in long term placement programs with non-profit partners. One of my friends, Quinn Bingham, now works as the Campaign Director at the United Way of Toronto as a direct result of such a program. Similarly, while the IBM Corporate Service Corps program is not a sabbatical year away from IBM it is another exemplary approach to the same idea. If you’re interested in these types of programs be sure to check out the Taproot Foundation or Catchafire for great ideas and programs.

There is a considerable difference, however, between placing an employee with a nonprofit organization for the purpose of developing that employee, and this latest cause marketing program at IKEA. Ogilvy & Mather, IKEA’s creative agency, developed the The Life Improvement Store concept. Along with the sabbatical year for some worthy consumer, they’ve also integrated in a series of 51 free Life Improvement Store Seminars for eager shoppers.

Not wanting to leave IKEA employees out in the cold, there is also the Life Improvement Co-Worker Challenge, which provides opportunities “to get further engaged in local community initiatives.” IKEA will run “an internal Life Improvement Co-Worker Challenge to provide $10,000 each to support five winning community projects suggested by teams of co-workers across the country.”

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CSR & The Job Hunt: What 51 MBA Students Can Accomplish In One Summer

Consider these numbers: $350 million in net operating savings over the projects’ lifetimes. 400,000 metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions. More than 650 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.” — Victoria Mills, EDF’s Managing Director for Corporate Partnerships

These are the savings identified this year by the 51 MBA students who participated in Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps internship . “Finally, an internship program that gets sustainability” was my reaction back in May when I heard about the program that encourages companies to seek out sustainability efforts by focusing on energy efficiency solutions.

These are real numbers and carry a real ROI for companies’ sustainability efforts. As Mills succinctly points out: “If MBA students can come up with results like these in a 10-week summer fellowship, what could happen if businesses all across the country got serious about energy efficiency.”

Celebrating the fellows that allowed us to be a part of their summer internships this year, here are a few examples of what they accomplished with companies like PepsiCo, News Corp, eBay, RBS/Citizens Bank and Yahoo!:
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