Category Archives: Behavior

Walmart's Sustainability Trilogy: A Close-Up Perspective from EDF's Office in Bentonville

By | Published: May 10, 2013

By: Alisha Staggs, Bentonville-based project manager at Environmental Defense Fund In Marc Gunther’s recent article "Walmart’s index: a real life toy story," he calls the Walmart supplier Sustainability Index, "the biggest environmental initiative in the company's history," and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) agrees. He also questions whether "Walmart is taking this too far”"and "how the [...]

Also posted in Chemicals, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Innovation, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Walmart | Leave a comment

Don't let those water savings go down your company's drain

By | Published: May 8, 2013

Think of all the times you've turned on a faucet and no water came out… I'll be the first to admit I can't remember the last time this possibility even crossed my mind. The truth is we take water for granted, and don't stop to question its seemingly unlimited abundance. Recently we've seen clear signs [...]

Also posted in About Us, Innovation, Partnerships, Tools, Water | Leave a comment

Caterpillar collaborates internally and externally to cut costs and carbon

By | Published: May 1, 2013

All companies – from consumer products to manufacturers to retailers – can find significant cost and carbon emissions savings in their logistics network. The latest example is Caterpillar.  Its efforts were recently highlighted in Inbound Logistics – a leading industry publication. Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment, cut carbon emissions and [...]

Also posted in Goods Movement, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Innovation, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Tools | 1 Response

Cutting Water Use – It Starts by Keeping Score

By | Published: April 29, 2013

By John Schinter, Executive Director of Energy at AT&T When I was hired in 2009, my task was – and still is – to improve the way AT&T manages energy use. The company understood that inefficient energy use was having an environmental impact and costing us money. In 2010 and 2011, we found energy savings [...]

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, Innovation, Partnerships, Tools, Water | Leave a comment

Rubicon Global Disrupts the Waste Stream through Entrepreneurism

By | Published: April 16, 2013

By Elizabeth Hill, Director of Corporate and Social Responsibility, Rubicon Global Why do we throw trash away? Because we have already extracted the value out of a product and we do not need what is left over. What remains is usually seen as dirty or useless. It goes into the can and out of our [...]

Also posted in Innovation, Paper & Packaging, Supply Chain Management, Tools | Leave a comment

Industrial Ecology: A Call for Papers

By | Published: April 12, 2013

By Reid Lifset, Associate Research Scholar, Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology, Associate Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is an ensemble concept that specifies ways in which firms can and are currently starting to deal with their environmental impact. It builds on a [...]

Also posted in Education, Innovation | Leave a comment

Saving Business from Itself

By | Bio | Published: April 9, 2013

Is the business community its own worst enemy? That was my takeaway from a recent post on FastCompany’s blog. In it, Joss Tantram makes the provocative argument that trade — “rights of enterprise, private trade and market activity” — is a fundamental human right.  But he also notes that that right is increasingly at risk, given [...]

Also posted in Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Innovation | Leave a comment

It's not just about the trucks, but we can't do it without the trucks

By | Bio | Published: April 4, 2013

A great piece in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye last week.  The article highlighted the impressive productivity gains trucking fleets have made recently. These, in turn, have led to a reduction in average truck miles of two percent from 2006.  Two percent might not seem like much. But, by increasing the productivity of [...]

Also posted in Fleet Vehicles, Goods Movement, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Innovation, News Commentary, Supply Chain Management | Leave a comment

How Ocean Spray cut its shipping emissions 20 percent

By | Bio | Published: February 13, 2013

Corporations aren't paying enough attention to the massive global impact of their carbon emissions from transporting freight — yet there are simple steps they can take to reduce their shipping footprints. Last month, EDF released the first in a series of case studies intended to draw attention to the significant potential for emission improvements and [...]

Also posted in Fleet Vehicles, Goods Movement, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Innovation, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Tools | Leave a comment

Corporate Sustainability 2012: Some Standout Companies… But Most Mired in Rampant Incrementalism

By | Published: January 30, 2013

Each winter in Davos, world leaders and captains of industry gather to discuss the most pressing issues on the planet. For the past seven years, this amazing event has also hosted the launch of the annual “Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies,” published by the Canadian media and research firm, Corporate Knights. Sustainability ratings matter! And [...]

Also posted in Innovation | Leave a comment