wrdforwrd

It’s a very good thing when a manufacturer decides to operate in a sustainable and socially responsible manner, but knowing what to do next to implement an effective, sustainable operation is the real challenge.

That’s why the OECD’s “Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit” is a useful place to start for businesses that are serious about implementing sustainability measures. It provides some answers to the age-old question: What do we do now?

The mission of the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.” The organization provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. Read the rest of this entry »

While urbanization and returning to nature may seem incompatible, there’s a body of evidence that says increasing migration to cities has definite environmental benefits.

One obvious benefit is that living close to or even where you work takes cars off the road and reduces CO2 emissions.

Also, as people increasingly move to urban centers, pressure on global forests eases. Because forests double as the planet’s lungs, they are a natural and effective answer to sequestering carbon emissions, so the more these particular lungs can hold the better. Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time collaboration was not all that radical a concept, in the business world and even in Congress.

Lately collaboration has become a buzzword, something that businesses and their PR departments are quick to pay lip service to; maybe they even aspire to collaborate with their partners; maybe they really believe they are collaborative. (Shall we take Congress and the notion of bipartisanship and collaboration out of this discussion entirely? Let’s do.)

Talking the collaborative talk is one thing; true collaboration these days is the exception.

Trewin Restorick, chief executive of the UK environmental advisory body Global Action Plan, added the idea of “collaborative consumption” to the mix in a thoughtful Trewin’s Blog post. His blog post begins:

“One of the fundamental challenges constantly facing the environmental movement is the disconnection between the scale of the problem and the solutions proposed. Are we really surprised at public apathy when on the one hand we talk about climate change as the biggest challenge facing humanity whilst on the other we recommend unplugging mobile phone chargers? Clearly more fundamental change is required if we are to get anywhere near an 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Carbon Disclosure Project says broadband—and increased access to it on a global basis—is the key to stimulating new, sustainable economic growth.

CDP is a London non-profit that claims to hold the “largest database of primary corporate climate change information in the world.” It outlined the opportunity that broadband represents in a 24-page paper released late last month,” Building a 21^st century communications economy.”

Global oil demand is forecast to grow 1 percent each year through 2030, according to CDP, with much of the increase coming from emerging economies, mainly China and India. Natural resources, especially oil, are becoming harder to access and more expensive to buy, so when talking about strategic action CDP says there is an alternative: Creation of a “low carbon, low-environmental impact economy through greater investment in advanced communication networks.” Read the rest of this entry »

Goods movement stakeholders in port areas and the Environmental Protection Agency have launched an initiative that’s designed to help clear the air and reduce emissions in the nation’s port areas.

The EPA SmartWay Drayage Program builds on clean truck programs that have been around at various port regions for several years.

The players with the EPA in the nationwide initiative include: The Coalition for Responsible Transportation and the Environmental Defense Fund. The CRT partners comprise: Best Buy; Hewlett Packard; Home Depot; JC Penney; Lowe’s; Nike; Target; Wal-Mart; and the following port trucking carriers: California Cartage Express, LLC; California Multimodal, LLC; Container Connection; Evans Delivery Company, Inc.; GSC Logistics; PDS Trucking Inc.; Performance Team/Gale Triangle; Total Transportation Services, Inc.; and the Western Ports Transportation.

The launch was announced recently at the Port of Charleston, SC. According to the joint announcement, the program “builds a partnership between numerous goods movement stakeholders including major national retailers, trucking companies, port communities, environmental groups and the U.S. EPA to solve a critical health and environmental challenge: how to reduce harmful air emissions from port drayage trucks.”

Drayage trucks, which haul cargo containers arriving at ports to storage areas, transload centers and nearby distribution centers, are usually old and a major source of diesel emissions in and around port areas. Getting those vehicles off the road is one of the thorniest and most controversial port and transportation issues around.

In a statement, Rick Gabrielson, who is the CRT President and is Target’s Director of Import Operations, said, “This partnership will generate private sector investment in clean technology, improve the environmental quality of our nation’s port communities and demonstrate the commitment we have made as the shipping industry’s leaders to emissions reductions.”

The program “offers great incentives for independent owner operators and trucking companies to replace their older drayage trucks with cleaner, less polluting models,” said Marcia Aronoff, the EDF’s senior vice president for programs. “With the rise in population and the growth of the freight transportation industry, we must be vigilant, forward thinking and creative in finding solutions that reduce toxic emissions and embrace market-based sustainability efforts.”

The drayage program is based on the EPA’s SmartWay Transport Partnership, generally regarded as an innovative and successful collaboration between the EPA and goods movement interests. The voluntary program provides a framework for assessing and addressing transportation-related emissions and energy efficiency while recognizing superior environmental performance through market-based incentives.

Under the program, port trucking companies and independent owner-operators sign a partnership agreement and commit to track diesel emissions, replace their older dirtier trucks with cleaner, newer ones, and achieve at least a 50 percent reduction in particulate matter and 25 percent reduction in nitrous oxide (NOx) below the national industry average within three years.

Then the SmartWay retailers sign a partnership agreement, committing to ship at least 75 percent of their port cargo with SmartWay trucking companies within three years.

“By giving business priority to SmartWay drayage carriers, the program creates a market-driven approach to incentivize emissions reductions at port communities across the country,” EPA says.

This approach has worked well in the Pacific Northwest, where market-based clean truck programs between stakeholders at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma have been around since 2008 and have removed hundreds of dirty drayage trucks from those port areas.

Here’s an amenity coming soon to an apartment complex near you: electric vehicle charging stations.

Car Charging Group and Equity Residential have teamed up to solve the problem of how to conveniently charge your new Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt or Wheego LiFe if you’re an apart dweller.

Car Charging, based in Miami, owns and operates EV charging services and plans to build a nationwide network of charging stations. Its business model focuses on residential charging services, which is where Equity Residential, a leading owner, developer and operator of high-end apartment communities, enters the picture. Read the rest of this entry »

Algae-based crude oil

Pacific Northwest aviation and renewable energy interests say there are encouraging signs of an emerging market for sustainable aviation fuels. And those same interests want to make it real.

The Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest consortium, in a report this month, concludes that no single feedstock or technology pathway is likely to provide sustainable aviation fuel at the scale or speed needed to produce and maintain jet fuel supply.

Therefore, the 132-page report, “Powering the Next Generation of Flight,” focuses on a portfolio of options, including different conversion technologies and sources of potentially sustainable biomass, including oilseeds, forest residues, solid waste, and algae.

Instead of trying to single out the best source of aviation fuels, SAFN emphasizes the need to create “complete supply chains that can draw upon diverse feedstocks.” Read the rest of this entry »

Among the developments  at Chevron’s recent raucous annual shareholder meeting was the oil company’s stubborn refusal to settle an $18 billion lawsuit over oil pollution in Ecuador.

Chevron is on trial in Ecuador for widespread contamination of Amazonian land and water resources in the 1970s by Texaco, which Chevron purchased in 2001. Plaintiffs suing Chevron are challenging the adequacy of a remediation effort that Texaco completed in 1998. A court-appointed expert in the Ecuadorian litigation has recommended that Chevron be held liable for up to $27.3 billion in damages. In February, an Ecuadoran judge fined the San Ramon oil major $9.5 billion over oil-field contamination in a portion of the Amazon rain forest where Texaco used to drill, working as a partner with the government-run Petroecuador. The fine could increase to $18 billion. Read the rest of this entry »

Sustainability is becoming a widespread corporate mantra but choosing the right set of sustainability standards is getting complicated. There are a variety of options available for companies seeking internationally accepted responsibility codes and standards to guide their reporting and, well, to brag about in CSRs.

Since 2000 the United Nations Global Compact has been a leading initiative for businesses “that are aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ford calls its sustainability report for the 2009/10 period the “future at work,” and for a relatively short 8-page document, it outlines a surprisingly broad and—OK I’ll admit it—visionary strategy for the future of the company and alternative energy vehicle production.

The company says it is “steadfastly focused on creating a strong business that builds great products that contribute to a better world,” the way it has been able to weather difficult economic times is because it’s business and sustainability strategies are aligned and intertwined.”

While Ford’s much-ballyhooed “ONE Ford” plan, which began in 2007, is mostly about aggressive restructuring and accelerated product development, sustainability is a key part of the mix, especially the accelerated product development part.

Ford says it has developed a “science-based global strategy” to reduce GHG emissions and processes while “working cooperatively with the public and private sectors to advance climate change solutions.”

In 2008 the carmaker set a target to reduce CO2 emissions from new U.S. and European vehicles by 30 percent by 2020, relative to the 2006 model-year baseline. Ford also set a “technology migration plan” for near-, mid- and long-term product plans to meet that goal. The company says it is “on track” to surpass that 30 percent CO2 reduction goal.

In 2009 and early 2010 Ford reduced CO2 emissions from its new 2009 models by 12 percent for U.S. vehicles and 6.7 percent for European vehicles. Among a host of progress points in 2009/10, Ford said it was delivering on a 2006 pledge to double the number of flexible-fuel vehicles produced in the United States by the end of 2010. Ford also committed to introduce five new electrified vehicles in Europe by 2013, including battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid electric vehicles that will also be introduced in North America by 2012.

The company this month unveiled a battery electric version of the Focus,which will debut in 2012.

Ford noted that the shift to EVs will “require unprecedented levels of collaboration and partnership” between automakers, government officials, utilities, transportation providers and IT companies. “A wide range of stakeholders will need to work together to develop charging infrastructure, integrate electric vehicles with electric utilities, and knit vehicles and grids together into an efficient system,” Ford says.

The company revealed it is collaborating with Microsoft on new energy management software that will help owners of plug-in EVs determine when and how to recharge their vehicles, “while giving utilities better tools for managing the expected changes in energy demand.” Now there’s an app for the EV age.

Over the 2020-2030 period, Ford’s vision is for “volume expansion of hybrid technologies, “continued leverage” of plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles (whatever that means), introduction of fuel cell vehicles and increased use renewable fuels, clean electric/hydrogen fuels.

A surprising observation by the company is that “by 2050, there will be nine billion people on Earth, 75 percent of whom will live in urban areas. Putting nine billion people into private automobiles is neither practical nor desirable.”

There’s a switch, a company that doesn’t want to sell its products to every person on the planet.