CSR Minute: LEED’s Status in China Construction; Home Deport Foundation Award to SC

Corporate Social Responsibility News: LEED’s Status in China Construction; Home Depot Foundation + Sustainability Institute of South Carolina’s Sustainability Award to North Charleston.

Sexy And Recycled – Meet The FlexibleLove Folding Chair

Talk about having extra seating when you need it.

The FlexibleLove Folding Chair was designed by Chishen Chiu. He stumbled upon a small factory producing ‘honeycombed’ sheets of recycled paper in suburban Taipei one day, and was intrigued. Taking the idea of the honeycomb structure and creating cardboard palettes to replace traditional wooden palettes, he believed the material could be applied to create any rigid structure. Within days, the idea for FlexibleLove had been sketched out and turned into a working model.

Compacted, it’s a sturdy seat for one. But all you need to do is stretch out the accordian-like structure into any appropriate seating shape and blammo! instant party.

This durable furniture is produced from widely-available recycled materials like paper and wood waste, and is made using pre-existing manufacturing processes in order to reduce its overall impact on the environment.

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behaviors on our website, through our Greenopolis Tracking Stations and with curbside recycling programs.

Passing Water Without the Water! Waterless Urinals Save H20, Dollars | 3BL Media

Al Gore has put his money where his, uh, urine is. The former VEEP and current environmental leader has invested in waterless urinals as a way to save energy and fresh water. I’ve used them, and I assume that Al tested them before investing as well. It’s something we have in common. These flushless, odor free urinals are a seemingly small step, but a significant one.

A recent article in Christian Science Monitor lays out the benefits of passing water without passing it through water. We all know that fresh water is a strained resource all over the world. Every drop counts. According to a report for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, a waterless urinal saves one to three gallons of fresh water per flush, compared with a normal model. Take a big office building or university campus with 10,000 men in it, peeing several times daily. That represents a savings of nearly 16 million gallons a year.

Waterless urinals have been installed everywhere from ballparks in the USA to the Taj Mahal in India. Still, less than 1% of the world’s urinals are waterless. With fresh water resources stressed all over the globe, pardon the pun, that should piss you off.

Some people think the idea of waterless urinals is gross. But they are well designed to let the stream flow, so to speak, while using special sealants and designs to keep odors out. Regular urinals, which are wet all the time, actually grow biofilms of growing organisms. And flushing creates a spray that lands on the rim, floor and as I can attest, sometimes the user, creating a breeding ground for bugs and germs.

Human urine is sterile and can be captured and made into fertilizer – it’s full of nitrogen. This waste to resource approach saves dollars and avoids petroleum based fertilizers, as well as avoids flushing nitrogen rich water into streams and oceans where they create algal blooms that suck the oxygen out of the water killing fish. And you thought peeing on your mother’s bushes was a killer.

A green-product company Ecovita in New Bedford, Mass has a urine diverting toilet and a waterless urinal that can be directed to a self-contained planter. This waterless urinal can also be used by women and is available on their website. Ornamental plants use the nitrogen in the urine- don’t tell the neighbors why the flowers are so fragrant!

Al Gore’s investment, Falcon Water Free Technologies has models that come in several styles and true to “guy stuff”, come with snappy names, from the F-1000 on the left, to the slimmer F-7000 and the sleek stainless F-9000SS! Why pee in an old plodding urinal when you can use one of these sleek models named like a jet plane?

The Benefits of a waterless urinal:

1. Cheaper to buy than flush urinals

2. Cheaper to maintain – no moving parts to break or leak

3. No water costs to operate

4. No more teenage boys stopping them up and flooding the men’s room

5. Water savings – one urinal can save up to 40,000 gallons of fresh water annually

6. Energy savings from water that does not need to be pumped, piped, or treated

7. Odor free

So men, stand up for waterless urinals! I mean, you’re standing anyway, right? Take matters in hand, so to speak, and hold your water until there’s no more water in your urinal! Ok, enough for now. All this writing and drinking coffee has gotten to me. I gotta go “water the garden.” And when you gotta go, you gotta go. Here, watch this video until I get back.

Falcon Water Free Urinals

Related Greenopolis posts:The Old Man and…the Urinal?

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behaviors on our website, through our Greenopolis Tracking Stations and with curbside recycling programs.

Climate Counts Shows Economic Downturn Doesn’t Detract from Corporate Commitment to Climate

Despite a sustained economic downturn, leading corporations appear to be strengthening their voluntary response to climate change. With the release of its third annual corporate climate scores for 90 well-known consumer companies, the non-profit organization Climate Counts pointed to a 22% increase in scores by 81 of the companies, as well as significant gains among those previously in the index’s lowest tier.

  For the second straight year, Nike’s score of 83 points (out of a possible 100) topped the list. For the first time all of the 12 companies scored in the electronics sector and the four companies evaluated in the consumer shipping sector have now earned a score above 50 points, or what Climate Counts considers “striding” companies (in contrast with those “starting” companies earning 13-49 points and those “stuck” companies with 12 points or less). In recent years, these two sectors each have seen significant competitive energy around corporate sustainability, which appears to have had the effect of elevating scores – and substantive innovation efforts.

  “Competition – the most fundamental tenet of a thriving global marketplace – will define the future of corporate climate action and sustainability,” said Climate Counts Executive Director Wood Turner. “Our scores show that companies are motivated to act when they may not measure up to other companies on their response to issues that matter to people. Climate change is certainly one of those issues, and companies in every major consumer sector have dialed up their efforts in an evolving economy to make the reduction of global warming pollution a competitive advantage.”

  Climate Counts also found that the improved scores of a number of the companies it evaluates were more than just incremental. Scores surged for previously low-scoring companies like eBay (a jump of 48 points), US Airways (up 43 points to match most of the top scorers in a relatively low-scoring sector), Apple (up 41 points), and Levi Strauss (up 36 points) when many such companies became much more engaged in quantifying and reducing their impact on climate change and in supporting public policy on climate (or opposing the climate positions of groups like the US Chamber of Commerce). Climate Counts uses a 22-criteria scorecard to track corporate climate action in four key areas: measurement of impact; reduction of impact; engagement on public policy related to climate change; and openness and transparency with consumers on corporate climate activities.

  “Climate Counts is one the key external benchmarks we consider in evaluating our progress to address climate change,” said Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist from Microsoft, up 23 points in the latest round of scores. “We appreciate the work they do to provide the marketplace with a framework for assessing companies’ actions to address the pressing issue of climate change.”

  “Our new scores show that many, many companies have begun to take their responsibility for climate action seriously,” said Turner. “But the onus is also on consumers. It’s time now for them to show business that corporate climate action does not go unnoticed. Companies will continue to see climate protection as an opportunity when consumers tell them in no uncertain terms that inaction is simply not an option.”

  To augment consumer action tools on its website, Climate Counts will release an iPhone application later this year to help consumers not only access company climate scores while shopping but also send messages to those companies about their scores.
 

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Better World Business From Europe

America used to be the vanguard for change and innovation. Apple, Microsoft, Google, just to name a few, were companies that changed the way we do business. Well, innovation is still coming from the U.S. (i.e. GoodB)! Yet progress in “Better World Business” practices is more important than ever since the economic crisis this past year. This week GoodB reports on some innovative endeavors from the other side of the Atlantic…

Europe Saves the Planet

You know all those extra cell phone chargers that you don’t know what to do with? Now these useless gadgets can go to the great charger resting place in the sky aka: the dump. Unfortunately, they are not recyclable or biodegradable. Not to mention how costly they become every time we “upgrade” our phones. A waste of money, waste of plastic, and just plain waste!

Well, the environmentally savvy European Union has done it again and come to the rescue! Europe saves dollars and our planet on the plan for a universal cell phone charger. Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and five other companies struck a deal with the European Union (EU) this year. Read More

The Gold Standard

French-based luxury jeweler Cartier has vowed to buy only “sustainable gold” for their gems. Similar to Fair Trade coffee, Cartier is working with the non-profit PACT to buy gold from smaller miners to improve their economic conditions. Pact’s stated mission is to help poorer nations “build empowered communities.”

Additionally, Cartier has joined ranks with a consortium of civic-minded gem companies, the Responsible Jewellery Council (RSJ), to promote “responsible ethical, human rights, social and environmental practices in a transparent and accountable manner throughout the industry from mine to retail.” Read More

The Holy Grail of Free Markets: Competition

Antitrust laws in Europe and the U.S. are very clear that competition in the marketplace is a fundamental value of modern business. Much of the criticism surrounding global banking and official bailouts has been centered on the interference with free market competition in the wake of government aid.

Competition is held so sacred that Microsoft was aggressively litigated in the U.S. and Europe for anti-trust infringement. The tech company was forced to pay hundreds of millions in penalties to the EU and the U.S. Simon Johnson, former IMF economist and MIT professor, expressed a persuasive view in The “Quiet Coup” that financial institutions, particularly in the U.S., are monopolies.

A one day annual conference, European Competition Day, was held in early October in Stockholm to encourage European countries and the EU to keep market competition open.
Read More

Click for the latest updates on Good-B

GoodB Blog

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GE Transportation and CSR Qishuyan Finalize Locomotive Diesel Engine Joint Venture

GE Transportation announced today the formation of a joint venture company with CSR Qishuyan Locomotive Co., Ltd., a unit of China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR), to develop, build and service GE’s Evolution® Series locomotive diesel engines in China.  The announcement as made as part of “GE’s Clean Technology Week in China” activities.The joint venture is scheduled to launch operations at the end of 2011, including the assembly, testing and overhaul of engine components such as power assemblies and turbochargers in China.  During the second phase, starting in 2013 engines as well as components will be assembled, tested and overhauled.

“This new joint venture directly aligns with GE’s strategic direction to design, manufacture and service product within the region or country in which they are used,” said Tim Schweikert, President of GE Transportation China.  “GE will continue to supply key engine components for the final engine assembly such as turbocharger and fuel injection kits.  Providing these key components also helps sustain approximately 120 U.S. manufacturing jobs.”

In October 2005, GE Transportation marked the formal beginning of its partnership with CSR Qishuyan by signing a strategic contract with China’s Ministry of Railways to supply 300, 6,250-horsepower Evolution Series HXN5 China Mainline Locomotives.  Today more than 100 of these Evolution Series China Mainline Locomotives already have been produced by CSR Qishuyan and placed in revenue service by the Ministry of Railways.

There is significant opportunity for locomotive modernization in China.  CSR produced more than half of the more than 12,000 diesel locomotives currently in service.  Most diesel locomotives in China would benefit from advanced fuel-savings and emissions- reducing technologies.  The Evolution Series locomotive diesel engines are GE’s most fuel-efficient and low emission diesel engines to-date and, thereby, support China’s green initiatives.  The Evolution Series Locomotive is one of GE’s most prominent ecomaginationSM products.  Ecomagination is a GE-wide initiative to help meet customer demand for more energy efficient products.

To learn more about GE’s announcements in China this week, visit http://www.ge.com/chinanews.

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CorporateRegister Full Report Now Available for the Newsweek Green Rankings

CorporateRegister.com is pleased to announce that the full NEWSWEEK GREEN RANKINGS REPORT is now available to purchase at http://www.corporateregister.com/greenranking.html.

CorporateRegister.com played a key role in these rankings, drawing on the resources of our site, our users, and our partners, in order to contribute to what we believe is the first objective ‘green’ analysis of America’s 500 largest companies.

The rankings are a product of a year-long collaboration between CorporateRegister.com, Newsweek, and environmental research firms KLD Research & Analytics and Trucost. Despite the challenges of comparing sustainability across sectors, the team created an overarching methodology to compare firms based on a Green Policies Score, an Environmental Impact Score, and a Reputation Score.

Companies that topped the rankings include Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, and IBM, and additional rankings by sector were also clarified.

The full report, available in PDF and printed formats, features additional details of the findings, including:

• Proprietary data for all 500 companies in the NEWSWEEK GREEN RANKING.
• Sector-by-analysis, including an overview of 15 industry sectors, detailed performance data about the top 10 companies in each sector, and each company’s ranking relative to its peers.
• Expanded information about the NEWSWEEK GREEN RANKING environmental reputation survey results, including how a company’s U.S. image differs from how it’s seen abroad.

The online summary report can be found at http://greenrankings.newsweek.com/.

Registered CorporateRegister.com users can request a discount code for online purchase of the full report. Simply contactinfo@corporateregister.com with subject line ‘Newsweek’ and your username to request the discount code. Then go to http://www.corporateregister.com/greenranking.html to purchase the full report.

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Quite the feat: CRMS students send 500 pairs of used shoes to needy souls around the world

Post Independent (John Stroud) Glenwood Springs, CO – CARBONDALE, Colorado — Friends and fellow Colorado Rocky Mountain School juniors Kelsey Bohannon and JJ Worley recently found a way to help needy people around the world, and keep what otherwise would be trash out of area landfills.

Through the Soles4Souls shoe charity, they collected some 500 pairs of used shoes from throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. The shoes will be sent to a warehouse in Nevada, and eventually shipped to villages around the world where people cannot afford to buy shoes themselves.

“I heard about it and it just interested me as a way for people do something for those in need without sending money,” said Bohannon, 16, who lives in Glenwood Springs.

“Some people don’t like giving money, because they’re not sure what’s really going to happen to it,” she said. “There’s not much else you can do with used shoes, though. You know someone is going to be wearing them who needs them.”

Worley, also 16, from Carbondale, looks at it as a “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” sort of approach to global charity.

“People really do get tired of donating money. This is a way to get rid of something you’d be throwing away anyway, and for a good cause,” she said.

Bohannon and Worley put up flyers around the valley and set up collection boxes at Summit Canyon Mountaineering in Glenwood Springs and at Dos Gringos Burritos in Carbondale.

“They asked me to come empty the box at Summit because it was overflowing,” Bohannon said. “The shoes filled up my car.”

Once they collected all the shoes they realized it would cost $230 to ship them to Nevada, even after the 80 percent charity discount from UPS. So they approached the Aspen Skiing Company, and it covered the shipping cost.

“We didn’t even think about the money part of it,” Worley said. “We really want to thank the Skico for helping us out.”

They received some interesting shoes along the way, including some Go-Go boots, a pair of snowboard boots, and ballet slippers.

“Some of them are pretty fancy shoes, and not very used at all,” Bohannon said.

Miser’s Mercantile, a local second-hand store, also donated some of the shoes it had in stock, and the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary collected a box of shoes as well.

The students may do another drive in the future, but their collection efforts are done for now. However, Independence Run and Hike, a local running and outdoor gear store, is also a collection location for Soles4Souls.

The store, located in the Gateway Plaza at Highway 133 and Cowen Drive in Carbondale, is collecting “gently worn” footwear and/or monetary donations to help ship the shoes.

The shoes sometimes go to victims of a natural disaster, or who are subject to living in extreme poverty, according to the organization’s website, www.giveshoes.org.

“It is estimated that Americans have 1.5 billion pairs of unused shoes lying in their closets,” it notes. “The charity can use each and every one of these pairs to make a tangible difference in someone’s life.”

Independence Run and Hike owner Brion After said he is glad to contribute, both in the charitable sense and because of the reduced environmental impact of recycling used shoes.

“We believe in taking care of the land that takes care of us,” he said. “Partnering with Soles4Souls enables the local running and hiking community to be environmental stewards and assist those in need throughout the world.”  jstroud@postindependent.com

For more information on Colorado Rocky Mountain School please contact lraleigh@crms.org

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Moody’s Mega Math Challenge: Wall Street’s Strategic Philanthropy

“Want to know if the stimulus act will work or whether ethanol is the right choice for U.S. energy independence? Need advice on how to beat Wall Street?” So asked the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) at the annual Moody’s Mega Math Challenge. For the past three years, Moody’s has awarded college scholarships and summer internships to the high school students with the best answers to these questions. In 2010, Moody’s is increasing to $100,000 of scholarships.

What drives a Wall Street firm to such generosity, especially now when every dollar they spend is accounted for to shareholders and the board? I have been working with corporate leaders for the past several years to help them shift their philanthropy and their service programs in order to advance the companies’ own purposes while also benefiting the community. This is the only way that corporate social responsibility will actually be effective and sustainable.

And as I reported from the Clinton Global Initiative in

2008

and

2009

here in my posts, the tide has turned.

See continuation here…http://bit.ly/3NvtsR

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McKesson Releases Corporate Citizenship Report and Announces McKesson Foundation Focus on Chronic Disease Management | 3BL Media

McKesson Corporation, the nation’s oldest and largest healthcare services and IT company, today announced the release of its 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship Report and launched the McKesson Foundation’s new strategic focus on chronic disease management. Designed to minimize paper and energy usage, the Company’s new online-only interactive report tells McKesson’s corporate citizenship story through the voices of McKesson employees and stakeholders. McKesson’s Corporate Citizenship Report is available at www.mckesson.com/citizenshipreport.

McKesson’s 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship Report
McKesson’s 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship Report highlights the Company’s high levels of employee engagement, commitment to environmental sustainability, culture of diversity and inclusion, and industry leading efforts to improve the safety, quality, and cost of healthcare. Corporate social responsibility principles are embedded within McKesson’s mission and focused goal of helping its customers improve patients’ lives. For example, in the last year nearly half of McKesson’s 32,000 employees participated in the Company’s annual Community Days volunteer event. At hundreds of sites worldwide McKesson Community Days volunteers created more than 16,000 care packages for hospitalized veterans at VA medical centers.

McKesson’s environmental sustainability journey, while still in its initial stages, has already yielded rewards for the planet and the Company, including a better understanding of McKesson’s greenhouse gas emissions, cost savings and employee participation. In 2008 McKesson established an executive-level Environmental Council and then launched a network of 12 employee-led Environmental Councils at McKesson sites around the world. After only eight months, McKesson Environmental Councils were responsible for projects that not only reduced the Company’s environmental impact but also resulted in nearly $100,000 in cost savings. In August McKesson also unveiled it’s first LEED-certified pharmaceutical distribution center located in the Chicago, Ill. area.

“At McKesson our belief is that a commitment to good corporate citizenship is a fundamental part of creating sustained value for both society and the company,” said Carrie Varoquiers, vice president of corporate citizenship and president of the McKesson Foundation. “McKesson’s corporate citizenship work complements the Company’s goal of helping our customers improve patients’ lives.”

Information within McKesson’s 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship Report is framed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines, internationally recognized sustainability and social responsibility reporting standards. McKesson self-declares this Report to GRI application level C. A full list of GRI indicators and McKesson’s reporting on these indicators is available in the Corporate Citizenship Report’s GRI Index. McKesson publishes its Corporate Citizenship Report biennially and released its last report in fall 2007.

McKesson Foundation Strategic Focus on Chronic Disease Management
In conjunction with the Company’s Corporate Citizenship Report release, the McKesson Foundation announced a new strategy to focus on chronic disease management. By combining the Foundation’s cash donations with McKesson Corporation’s deep institutional health care services and IT expertise, the program seeks to further the social impact that can be achieved. The Foundation’s near-term commitment is to fund innovative diabetes management projects.

During this challenging economic environment the Foundation has also expanded its matching gift program for employees and opened it up to all eligible 501(c)(3) organizations. For more information about the McKesson Foundation visit www.mckesson.com/foundation.

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