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Posts Tagged ‘environment’

CSRI CSR Research Digest (September 2010)

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Date

September 2010

Sustainability Commitment Study (US: Gibbs & Soell)
Banking Sector Report (Global: Covalence)
Environment Consulting Study (UK: Environment Analyst)
Food Security Risk Study (Global: Maplecroft)
Transport Report (Global: Carbon Disclosure Project)
SMEs and Low Carbon Economy Report (UK: Federation of Small Businesses)

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CSRI CSR Research Digest (September 2010)

About CSRI Research Digests

This Digest is prepared by CSR International as a free service to its subscribed members. The Digest should not be reproduced or forwarded without the permission of CSR International. The views expressed in this Digest in no way reflect those of CSR International, nor does CSR International endorse or vouch for the quality or accuracy of any third party research included. For more information on CSR International, membership or the Digests, please go to www.csrinternational.org or email info@csrinternational.org.

Tags: banking, commitment, consulting, economy, environment, food, low carbon, security, SME, Sustainability, transport
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Environment Consulting Study

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

The recent study by Environment Analyst covers in detail the market of UK environmental consulting sector. The market analysis is based on core figures supplied by over 50 companies as well as market trends information collated from 375 environmental business managers via Market Snapshot survey conducted during March to May 2010.

Key Findings

UK environmental consulting market falls by 5% but a return to growth is projected for 2010.

Market declines for first time in two decades to £1.35 billion in 2009, shedding over 1,000 jobs.
The headline findings also reveal the economic downturn has forced firms to sharpen their commercial skills and become more efficient, evident through rising staff utilization rates and turnover per head in 2009.
Demand from government bodies rose by 17% in 2009, in sharp contrast to a 9.5% dip in sales to the private sector (including utilities and other corporate clients).
There were double- digit declines in sales to the extractive, manufacturing & process industries, as well as to the finance & services and construction/property sectors.
However, public sector demand began to weaken in 2010, with consultants reporting growth of just 1-2% in government work at the time of our market snapshot survey3, which ran from March to May 2010.
Notwithstanding the spectre of public sector spending cuts, the overall market in the UK is forecast to grow by 1.4 % in 2010, compared with the projected GDP increase of 1.2%.
Climate change and energy, waste management and strategic environmental/sustainability services are expected to be the strongest growth areas for this year.
Contaminated land no longer ranks as the number-one income generator for UK environmental consultants as it has been for the last fifteen years, with revenue shrinking by more than a fifth in 2009 to £167 million – a victim of the decimation of the housebuilding industry and fall-out from the credit crunch.
Environmental impact assessment (EIA) & sustainable development has moved into pole position to account for just over 14% of the total sector last year, with revenues declining less steeply than in contaminated land largely due to a more diverse client base.
Although overall market conditions are set to improve in 2010, there are indications that many small firms will struggle for survival this year.
Nearly half of SME survey respondents (those working for firms with revenues of less than £10 million) said their Q1 2010 performance was worse that they had budgeted for, compared with just 16% of larger firms (those with revenues greater than £10 million).

Author(s)

Environment Analyst

Source

Further details

Tags: consulting, environment, Environment Analyst, sector, UK
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CSR Leader Profile: Amory Lovins

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

CSR International Top 100 Leader (Ranked 19 in 2009)

Amory Lovins is a consultant physicist and is among the world’s leading innovators in energy and its links with resources, security, development, and environment. He has advised the energy and other industries for four decades as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense.

His work in over 50 countries has been recognized by the “Alternative Nobel,” Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Goff Smith, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 11 honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, Time International Hero of the Environment, Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership, National Design, and World Technology Awards.

He has briefed 20 heads of state and advises major firms and governments worldwide, including the leadership of Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Ford, Holcim, Interface, and Wal Mart. He cofounded in 1982 and serves as Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank that creates abundance by design.

His most recent visiting academic chair was in spring 2007 as MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford’s School of Engineering, offering the University’s first course on advanced energy efficiency. The latest of his 29 books is Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size (2002), an Economist book of the year blending financial economics with electrical engineering, and the Pentagon-cosponsored Winning the Oil Endgame (2004), a roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, ledv by business for profit. In 2009, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.

After two years at Harvard, Lovins transferred to Oxford, and two years later became a don at 21, receiving in consequence an Oxford MA by Special Resolution (1971) and, later, ten honorary doctorates of various U.S. and U.K. universities.

Lovins was born in 1947 in Washington DC.

Tags: Amory Lovins, development, entrepreneurial, environment, independent, innovator energy, market-oriented, nonpartisan, nonprofit, physicist, resources, Rocky Mountain Institute, security, Small is Profitable, Winning the Oil Endgame
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CSRI CSR Research Digest (August 2010)

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Date

August 2010

Sustainability in Business Report (US: Deloitte)
Middle Eastern Executives Study (Middle East: Sustainability Advisory Group)
FTSE CDP Carbon Strategy Index Report (Global: ENDS Carbon)
Sustainable Consumption Report (Global: BSR)
Environmental Issues Study (Global: McKinsey)
Illegal Logging Study (Global: Chatham House)

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CSRI CSR Research Digest (August 2010)

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Tags: Carbon, CDP, consumption, environment, executives, FTSE, illegal, logging, middle east, Sustainability
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Measuring What Matters: GDP, Ecosystems and the Environment

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

GDP GDP is no longer the gold standard for measuring a country’s progress.

On March 30th an historic gathering of thought leaders, non-governmental organizations, philanthropists and representatives from federal and international agencies met in New York City with an ambitious yet long-overdue goal: to replace GDP as the nation’s most common measure of economic progress.

The “Dethroning GDP” strategy session, hosted by Demos, WRI, and the Institute for Policy Studies, in partnership with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, featured Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, WRI Founder Gus Speth, former WRI economist Robert Repetto, Gund Institute’s Robert Costanza and former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Katharine Abraham, and RealNetworks founder and chairman Rob Glaser.

The Shortcomings of GDP

As an overall barometer of progress, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has long been criticized because it simply measures economic activity and not genuine improvements in the quality of our lives. As noted long ago by Robert Kennedy, “it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” GDP lumps together costs with benefits, so that activities that enhance welfare (e.g., education expenditures) have equal weight as expenditures that represent the externalized costs of growth (e.g., oil spill remediation).

GDP also tells us nothing about sustainability. It fails to track the depletion or degradation of natural, human, built, and social capital on which all economic activity ultimately depends. It fails as well to capture the inherent unsustainability of economic activity financed by debt.

Finally, GDP fails to recognize the costs of inequality. It counts growth concentrated in the upper-most income brackets as “progress,” even if incomes and quality of life are falling for most.

Recent Efforts to Replace GDP

The movement to “green” or replace GDP has proceeded in fits and starts for decades. While dozens of new approaches have been developed such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, Green Savings, and Green GDP the traditional GDP-based framework of progress only became more ingrained in our economic thinking and policy structure in recent decades.

However, the political landscape has changed dramatically in the wake of the economic crisis and opportunities for fundamental changes in how we measure economic performance and social progress are now significantly more promising than they have ever been.

Source

World Resources Institute

Full article

Tags: country, ecosystems, environment, GDP, progress, World Resources Institute, wri
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IBM Addressing Sustainability of 30,000 Suppliers

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

IBM IBM has a new program to address sustainability and environmental aspects of its nearly 30,000-member-strong supply chain. The program covers suppliers in 90 nations, according to IBM’s Smarter Planet blog.

Starting this year, IBM is asking each of its suppliers to define an environmental management system suitable to their particular business operations, said Wayne Balta, IBM’s vice president of corporate environmental affairs and product safety.

“We’re asking them to establish voluntary environmental goals and measure performance for at least three topics applicable to virtually all businesses: energy conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste management/recycling,” Balta said. “In addition, we’re asking them to publicly disclose their results.”

IBM also will ask suppliers that the requirements be “cascaded down” to any of their suppliers who perform work that is “material to what is ultimately supplied to IBM.”

There will not be a blanket, one-size-fits-all requirement, however, and suppliers will not be publicly graded.

IBM is seeking for chemicals to be properly managed from inception through final use and disposal.

IBM also seeks for products and components to be designed to maximize life-cycle efficiency.

“Take the electronics industry, which supplies IBM with components for our servers,” Balta said. “As an example, we want them to use environmentally preferable materials. However, that doesn’t happen overnight, and a supplier must put a system in place to phase out a particular material or manufacturing process.”

In other news, IBM has opened a $30 million manufacturing facility in

Poughkeepsie, which will produce IBM’s next line of System z mainframe computers and high-end Power Systems servers.

Spokeswoman Laurie Friedman said the facility features several energy saving processes, including:

- A closed loop system that circulates chilled water throughout the facility for air conditioning, systems cooling and other functions.

- A chilled water cooling capacity of 1,700 tons — constantly circulating through pipes, air conditioning, servers and cooling sources. The localized system cooling uses IBM’s “Cool Blue” Rear Door Heat eXchangers, which feature a passive water-cooled door which mounts to the back of computer equipment, cooling exhaust air before it re-enters the data center operating environment.

- Advanced temperature control and lighting, such as high-efficiency fluorescent lighting and occupancy sensors, to further reduce energy consumption.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

Tags: environment, Environmental Leader, IBM, suppliers, Sustainability
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PepsiCo Unveils Global Nutrition, Environment and Workplace Goals

Monday, March 29th, 2010

PepsiCo, the world’s second-largest food and beverage company, today announced new global goals in the areas of nutrition, the environment, and workplace practices at its investor conference here at the Legends Suite Club in Yankee Stadium.

The goals are designed to advance PepsiCo’s commitment to deliver sustainable growth and they apply to the company’s food and beverage businesses around the world, including Frito-Lay, Quaker, Pepsi-Cola, Tropicana and Gatorade. PepsiCo calls this commitment Performance with Purpose.

To encourage people to live healthier lives and to address growing consumer desire for healthier, great-tasting products PepsiCo is committing to achieve industry-leading nutrition goals, including:

Increasing the whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and low-fat dairy in its product portfolio
Reducing the average sodium per serving in key global food brands in key markets by 25 percent by 2015
Reducing the average saturated fat per serving in key global food brands in key markets by 15 percent by 2020
Reducing the average added sugar per serving in key global beverage brands in key markets by 25 percent by 2020

“We believe that a healthier future for all people and our planet means a more successful future for PepsiCo,” said Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo chairman and chief executive officer. “These commitments are shared by all of our businesses and reflect our focus on profitable, long-term growth and will guide us as we continue to build a portfolio of enjoyable and wholesome foods and beverages for consumers around the world.”

PepsiCo is among 10 leading food and beverage companies to sign the “Global Commitment to Action on the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health,” a commitment addressed to the World Health Organization in 2008. The company’s new global goals are action steps that directly address the key WHO commitments.

Following is a sample of some of PepsiCo’s commitments:

Human Sustainability/Health and Wellness

Display calorie count and key nutrients on food and beverage packaging by 2012
Eliminate the direct sale of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools around the globe by 2012
Expand PepsiCo Foundation and PepsiCo corporate contribution initiatives to promote healthier communities, including enhancing diet and physical activity programs
Invest in business and research and development to expand offerings of more affordable, nutritionally relevant products for underserved and lower-income communities

Environmental Sustainability

Provide access to safe water to three million people in developing countries by the end of 2015
Reduce packaging weight by 350 million pounds – avoiding the creation of 1 billion pounds of landfill waste by 2012
Work to eliminate all solid waste to landfills from PepsiCo’s production facilities
Commit to an absolute reduction in GHG emissions across global operations

Talent Sustainability

Ensure a safe workplace by continuing to reduce lost time injury rates, while striving to improve other occupational health and safety metrics through best practices
Encourage associates to lead healthier lives by offering workplace wellness programs globally
Match eligible associate charitable contributions globally, dollar for dollar, through the PepsiCo Foundation

Source

CSRwire

Full article

Tags: CSRwire, environment, Global, goals, nutrition, PepsiCo, workplace
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New Biotech Tools for Cleaner Environment

Monday, March 29th, 2010

biotech At the December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, President Obama committed the United States to “cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050,” relative to 2005 emissions of nearly 6 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalents (per the EPA). To see through on this commitment, the United States must look for innovative technological solutions to reducing emissions, since these can simultaneously create jobs and economic growth.

Industrial biotechnology can help manufacturers and producers reduce emissions of both greenhouse gases and many other pollutants. A recently published report by WWF, “Industrial Biotechnology: More than Green Fuel in a Dirty Economy,” envisions a biobased economy in which production systems rely on natural biological processes to transform sustainable, renewable raw material inputs or waste from other processes into energy and finished goods. In this biobased economy, industrial biotechnology could reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions between 1 billion and 2.5 billion tons per year by 2030, or roughly 16 to 41 percent of current U.S. emissions, according to a report published by the WWF.

Industrial biotechnology reduces emissions because it enables manufacturers to replace petroleum with renewable resources, and it allows them to increase energy efficiency and create fewer byproducts. Biotech-enabled processes that use enzymes can avoid use of toxic feedstocks and processing reagents, which in turn minimizes toxic wastes. The natural fermentation abilities of microbes can produce acids, alcohols, lipids and oils, which can be used as ingredients in liquid biofuels, biochemicals, and biomaterials.

Industrial biotechnology is already used in a number of industries and everyday products, such as detergent, paper and textiles. Through energy and process efficiencies, industrial biotechnology applications currently reduce emissions globally by 31 million tons of CO2 each year, equal to the emissions of 5,400 cars. If industrial biotechnology applications were used as widely as possible just in these industries, we could avoid an additional 52 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually, according to the WWF.

Industrial biotechnology is used most widely in biofuels production. The WWF suggests that rapid adoption of advanced biofuels, to meet 20 percent of transportation fuel demand by 2030, could save 1 billion tons of CO2 equivalent emissions each year. By comparison, the fossil fuels we burn for transportation in the United States produce nearly 1.9 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year, or nearly one-third of all U.S. emissions.

U.S. companies lead the world in developing advanced biotechnology for biofuels and in imagining new renewable resources to produce them – from crop residues, energy crops and fast-growing trees, to algae and even directly from sunlight and CO2. And they’re applying the same science to produce chemicals and plastics from renewable resources.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

Tags: biotech, biotechnology, clean, environment, Environmental Leader
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Environmental Disclosures of Palm Oil Plantation Companies in Malaysia: A Tool For Stakeholder Engagement

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

This paper examines annual environmental protection disclosures of palm oil companies in Malaysia that have significant implications for the preservation of earth, water and air quality. The empirical research used analysis of the annual reports of 60 listed companies in the plantation subsector of the palm oil industry on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia.

Key Findings

Some palm oil plantation companies provided only general statements on their awareness of environmental issues. Others offered no disclosure or acknowledgement at all.

• Some companies provide a lengthy section on the environment in the CSR section of their annual reports, with details including operational best practice, emissions reductions, carbon sequestration and conservation initiatives.

• Some companies’ reports take a clearly defensive attitude in discussing their interactions with the environment.

• The most popular section of the annual report for environmental disclosures was the Chairman’s Statement, as it is often used as a forum to make political or social comments about government, taxation, accounting standards or similar.

• The authors suggest that the limited information provided in palm oil plantation companies’ annual reports have not satisfied stakeholders’ appetites for more specific disclosures which accurately outline their environmental impacts.

• They suggest that accountants have a particularly important role in ensuring such non-financial information is embedded alongside financial details in annual reports.

Author(s)

R. Othman, R. Ameer

Source

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (2010), 17, 52-62

Tags: air, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, earth, engagement, environment, Malaysia, palm oil, R. Ameer, R. Othman, stakeholder, water
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CSRI News Digest Week 2, November 2009

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Date

Week 2, November 2009

Aviva Investors Challenges Global Stock Exchanges to Take Action on Corporate Responsibility (Reuters)
Leisure Marine Industry Commits to Action Sustainability (Greenwise)
Why the US Government and American Companies Should Lead Sustainaibility Globally (3BL Media)
Climate Friendly Policies Pay Off, Report Shows (WWF)
The Palm Oil Empire Strikes Back (Mongabay.com)
World’s Largest Carbon Capture Project Under Way (triplepundit)
EU Banks and Insurers Duck Regulatory Responsibilities (Bloomberg)

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CSRI News Digest Week 2, November 2009

About CSRI News Digests

This Digest is prepared by CSR International, with news selected by SustainabilityForum, as a free service to its subscribed members. The Digest should not be reproduced or forwarded without the permission of CSR International. The views expressed in this Digest in no way reflect those of CSR International, nor does CSR International endorse or vouch for the quality or accuracy of any third party research included. For more information on CSR International, membership or the Digests, please go to www.csrinternational.org or email info@csrinternational.org.

Tags: Australia, Aviva, banks, British Marine Federation, buildings, carbon capture, carbon neutrality, carbon reduction, carbon storage, CCS, Chevron, China, climate change, Copenhagen, corporate responsibility, efficiency, environment, EU, Europe, forest, G20, ge, global stock market, greenhouse emissions, ICRAF, Indonesia, insurers, investors, leadership, leisure marine industry, Malaysia, Mexico, palm oil, RYA, sequestration, subprime, Sustainability, sustainable stock exchange, The Green Blue, UK, UN, US, World Growth Report, WPNSA, WWF
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Posts Tagged ‘environment’

CSRI CSR Research Digest (September 2010)

Date

Contents

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About CSRI Research Digests

Environment Consulting Study

Key Findings

Author(s)

Source

CSR Leader Profile: Amory Lovins

CSR International Top 100 Leader (Ranked 19 in 2009)

CSRI CSR Research Digest (August 2010)

Date

Contents

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About CSRI Research Digests

Measuring What Matters: GDP, Ecosystems and the Environment

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IBM Addressing Sustainability of 30,000 Suppliers

Source

PepsiCo Unveils Global Nutrition, Environment and Workplace Goals

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New Biotech Tools for Cleaner Environment

Source

CSRI News Digest Week 2, November 2009

Date

Contents

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About CSRI News Digests