Eating right, exercising regularly, flossing -- we know we should be doing these things every day but they're just not that exciting. For many businesses, energy efficiency feels the same – it's clearly a good idea, but somehow it always falls to the bottom of the corporate "to do" list.

Ho-hum as it may sound, energy efficiency packs a punch. Consulting mavens McKinsey and Co. estimate that the U.S. has the potential to reduce its annual energy consumption by 23 percent over the next 10 years through cost-effective energy efficiency measures.  That would be enough -- by itself -- to meet President Obama's climate goals.

Energy efficiency is doable now, it's cost-effective, and it's too big a part of the solution to be ignored. But it is lagging. To accelerate energy efficiency, we need to capture the imagination of individuals from college dorm rooms to corporate boardrooms across the country.

Target Corporation signed onto an innovative program called Climate Corps -- a symbol of its ongoing commitment to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Like the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Teach for America, Climate Corps energizes young people to help solve our tough challenges.

The heart of the program is the Climate Corps intern. EDF recruits students from the country's top business schools, trains them and places them in summer internships at enrolled companies. The interns bring a laser focus to their task and build a rock-solid business case for energy efficiency.

This past summer, EDF placed interns at 23 companies, and together they found 100,000 tons in annual greenhouse gas savings and electricity savings that could power 14,000 homes -- all at a net cost savings of $54 million dollars.

Target is a good fit for the program. The company is already known for its innovative design, its commitment to communities and a longtime record of building energy efficient stores that have a low impact on the environment. With energy saving programs in place at Target stores, distribution centers and office buildings, the Climate Corps intern will have lots of opportunities to help on innovative projects to further improve the company's energy programs.

Related News & Blogs

By the end of summer, the Climate Corps intern at Target may have a compelling story to tell, like this one from technology company Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD):

Neelam Bhatia, a business student from Cornell University, spent last summer at the company's building and data center in Austin, Texas. She looked into opportunities from lighting retrofits to energy management software, and even investigated a unique way to cut costs by storing energy in the form of ice at night (when prices are low) to use during the day (when prices are higher). Bhatia identified $1.3 million in energy saving opportunities, as well as several hundred thousand dollars worth of available rebates for energy projects the company undertakes.

At networking equipment company Cisco, Emily Reyna and Sarah Shapiro, both from the University of Michigan, helped spread a technology for managing energy use in the company's many data labs. Once the technology is adopted companywide, it will cut Cisco's global greenhouse gas footprint by 3 percent while saving the company $8 million per year.

Carin Dopieralski from Rice University spent her summer as a Climate Corps fellow at the Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets. She assessed lighting retrofits, window films, occupancy sensors and power management software, and found a suite of actions that would reduce annual energy costs by $68,000 while avoiding over 650 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Today's generational challenge is climate change, and we're thrilled to see these young superstars responding to the call.

Climate Corps is creating a movement for energy efficiency, grounded in smart economics and fueled by the talents and the enthusiasm of the tomorrow's business leaders.

Whether you're a business student or a corporate executive, it's time to move energy efficiency to the top of your list.

[greenbiz]

When you hear the name Johnson & Johnson, you might think about baby oil, baby powder and band-aids–and not necessarily think of them as leaders in sustainability.  At a speaker panel at the Net Impact Conference on Friday, several J&J company leaders spoke to how the company’s Credo is the backbone of its sustainability strategy and how they have avoided greenwashing as they implement their “Healthy Planet 2010 goals.”

During the talk, Al Iannuzzi, Senior Director of J&J’s Worldwide Environmental Health & Safety unit, told a story of his early days as an environmentalist in the 1970s who believed that “corporations are evil.”  He resisted working for big corporations until he read J&J’s Credo–which upholds its responsibility to its employees, the environment and communities–and found an interesting job within the company.  He’s been with J&J now for nearly 30 years and wants everyone to know how J&J is using business for good.

“If we’re not saying anything, people assume we’re not doing anything,” said Iannizzi.  So J&J wants people to know what their doing–but they don’t want to greenwash, either.

J&J has not always been vocal about its socially and environmentally responsible efforts, even so it has gotten attention for its sustainability strategies, including being #3 on Newsweek magazine’s Green Rankings List of green companies.




Some interesting facts about J&J: it’s the second largest producer of solar panels in the U.S., it’s the largest corporate user of hybrid vehicles, and it gets 30% of its energy from renewable sources.  It’s also done a lot to reduce its water footprint, reduce PVC content in products, sell waste as raw materials, and use recycled paper in product packaging.

Despite all this good work, J&J wants to make sure it doesn’t overstate its efforts.  Specifically, it wants to make sure it adheres to the following:

• Don’t Say Something You’re Not: Don’t put yourself out there as the end all and be all, because most likely that’s not true.  Products can be “greener,” but cannot always be 100% green because of the nature of consumer products–so don’t say you are.
• Be Specific: Use LCAs to know the exact sustainability measures of your products.  Provide your consumers with real numbers that inform and empower them.
• Transparency: Partner with NGOs that can hold your products accountable and add credibility to your business.  Follow the 7 Sins of Greenwashing and check yourself before you go to market.

J&J wants people to know about their commitment to sustainability, and they plan to inform people in a way that’s honest and not misleading.  That strategy is very much in line with its famous Credo.

[triplepundit]

UPS continues as innovators in the small package delivery sector, announcing this week a new program offering its customers the option of offsetting the emissions generated by transporting their packages within the United States.

U.S. customers simply opt to pay a flat rate, covering the cost of calculation, program administration, and the cost of the actual offset. UPS will match offset purchases in 2009-2010, up to 1 million packages, thus doubling the effectiveness of the program.

The per-package cost for the carbon offset program is five cents for UPS Ground, and twenty cents for UPS Next Day Air, UPS 2nd Day Air, and UPS 3 Day Select services. The service is initially available to the approximately 1 million U.S. customers using UPS Internet Shipping with their UPS account number, with plans to roll the service out to other UPS customers next year.





Calculating emissions, offsets purchased

Emissions calculations are based on a variety of historical and current operational data, including distance and transport mode. The company’s calculation methods and processes are verified by Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), using a calculator based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the most widely used international standard for carbon accounting and reporting.

UPS purchases Gold Standard, Voluntary Carbon Standard and Climate Action Reserve verified offsets, as well as European Union Allowances and Certified Emission Reduction offsets. The carbon offset process is certified by The CarbonNeutral Company.

Carbon analysis for large customers

UPS also now offers its larger, high-volume customers a complete carbon analysis service of the customer’s entire UPS shipping activity. Using a proprietary calculator, also verified through SGS, customers can then use the data to either purchase offsets directly or through UPS.


Steps to sustainability

“We believe these steps are important not just for UPS, but also for our customers,” says Bob Stoffel, senior vice president, engineering, strategy, supply chain and sustainability.  “Our global economy depends upon reliable transportation, so we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint on the environment.”

This latest announcement from UPS is one in a line of steps we’ve chronicled here in TriplePundit of the shipper’s ongoing efforts in environmental and social responsibility. As with any offset program, the best greenhouse gas emission is the one not emitted. And then there’s the real world where people move, ship packages, and do business. Well-conceived programs like this are one more step toward sustainability.

[triplepundit]

This report from Clean Production Action and ChemSec highlights the innovations driven by electronics manufacturers that have removed toxics like bromine and chlorine from high-tech gadgets.

The report, "Greening Consumer Electronics: moving away from bromine and chlorine," offers case studies of seven electronics companies that have overhauled their product designs through a combination of transparency around product materials and working with suppliers to develop safer alternatives to brominated and chlorinated chemicals.

“These seven companies demonstrate that there are less toxic and still cost effective alternatives to substances of high concern that do not compromise performance or reliability,” CPA Project Director Alexandra McPherson said in a statement. “They are well positioned to gain competitive advantage in a marketplace and regulatory environment increasingly sensitive to the use of toxic chemicals in consumer products.”

At least some of the impetus for the design successes highlighted in this report come as a result of the Restrictrion on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) law, enacted in 2006 in the European Union; since then similar laws have been adopted in South Korea, Turkey, China and Japan. That law restricts the use of six toxic materials, including two brominated chemicals.

In the wake of RoHS restrictions, as well as pressure from customers and NGOs, Apple and Sony Ericsson in particular have reformulated product lines to restrict or eliminate entirely the use of bromine and chlorine in products. Apple now has a number of polyvinyl chloride-free (PVC) and brominated flame retardant-free (BFR) product lines, including iPhones, iPods and a number of the company's computers.

Sony Ericsson has not only removed these substances from their products -- all are 99.9 percent BFR free and will be 100 percent PVC free by the end of 2009 -- but the company is also developing full chemical inventories for all of their product lines as well.

Full material disclosure was one of the keys to success for another of the companies profiled in the report. Seagate, the world's largest manufacturer of disk drives, implemented a product stewardship policy in 2005 that has led to releasing a full chemical inventory of all of its products, as well as achieving PVC- and BFR-free formulations of 50 percent of the products it ships.

More details about the companies profiled and the issues involved in the report are available online at CleanProduction.org and ChemSec.org.

[greenbiz]