2Sustain

BSR and Hilton Worldwide have launched the Center for Sustainable Procurement to help global business procurement managers integrate sustainability into their purchasing decisions. Funded in full by Hilton Worldwide with day-to-day management by BSR, the Center will develop:

• Research, case studies, and surveys on topics such as incentives for category managers, key issues for buyers to consider at the product level, the efficacy of third-party labels and certification, and more
• Metrics analysis that focuses on integrating sustainability into existing approaches such as “total cost of ownership”
• Educational guidelines, webinars, and web content for companies to share with internal sourcing teams
• One-on-one and collaborative consulting projects for a small group of BSR members to examine current purchasing processes, develop solutions for integrating sustainability into decisions, and share lessons collectively

The idea for the Center originated with the procurement and supply chain work BSR supported over a two-year period with Hilton Worldwide during which the company developed an analysis and comparison tool focused on quantifying product sustainability to help inform buying decisions. The criteria looked at nearly 100 different measures, including core lifecycle-assessment components such as inputs, manufacturing, packaging, logistics, use, and end-of-life. In total, the company collected and assessed nearly 1,700 SKUs across multiple product categories such as food and beverage, property operations, and rooms representing over US$165 million in spend.

Hopefully programs like this one will help companies of all sizes to incorporate sustainability goals and objectives into their procurement strategies.

Sustainability stakeholders and business executives are gearing up for the Carbon Economy Summit in Toronto on June 6, a full-day event focused on environmental and cost savings, brand enhancement and risk management. Sessions will cover top strategies for controlling emissions and costs from manufacturing, transportation, facilities, infrastructure and supply chain.

Keynote presenter Margaret Wente, award-winning columnist with the Globe & Mail, will discuss Ontario’s green energy policies. The agenda also includes a dynamic panel on the highs and lows of using social media to communicate sustainability.

Speakers represent Natural Resources Canada, University of Waterloo, Holcim (Canada), PricewaterhouseCoopers, Quantis, LoyaltyOne, Rogers Communications, CarbonZero, Heenan Blakie, Energent, and more!

Session topics include:

• Energy management and incentives;
• Sustainable supply chains and transportation;
• Carbon and cost control;
• Social media and green;
• Carbon policy.

These kind of events not only raise awareness, but provide a valuable forum for sharing new sustainability program best practices.

KleanJobs.com is a new job search engine specifically tailored to a broad sector made up of clean technology products and services, including energy management, sustainability, and careers related to accounting for and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Green collar jobs include employees across the fields of engineering, accounting, sales, marketing, manufacturing and product development. The high demand for renewable energy, as well as companies focusing on sustainability initiatives, is shifting more jobs into what has come to be called “The Green Economy.”

“Green economy employers have very specific needs and requirements for their workforce,” said Greg Schreiner, Clean Tech Recruitment Manager at RedFish Technology. “This field is becoming very competitive, and we see the demand for highly qualified employees with broad based knowledge of green technologies increasing. Getting the right people in the right roles is every company’s first responsibility, and we are looking to sites like KleanJobs.com and CleanTechRecruits.com to help us identify the right people.”

In addition to offering a search site for green-collar workers, KleanJobs will also be branching out into related services, such as job certification in green economy skills and resume writing and editing services. Company co-founder, PJ Stoural, says he hopes to address a need for employers in this field to locate the talent they need. “There’s a huge unmet need for US workers, as well as returning US service members, to get trained in these fields. There are estimates of up to 46,000 new clean jobs in the US this quarter, and we have employers who want to hire.”

More “courageous interventions” are needed from industry and government to enact real change in the area of sustainability, according to Unilever CEO Paul Polman. Polman said co-operation between companies and with government is vital to alleviate the impact of business on the environment and to change consumer habits.

“Frameworks with governments is a good example. If you have clear goals on CO2 emissions and carbon trading globally, if you have governments saying no to illegal deforestation, things would move a lot faster,” he said.

This week, Unilever published the first results of its ten-year Sustainable Living Plan, a program of initiatives designed to reduce its impact on the environment while the company grows. Unilever has made progress, notably on sourcing more of its agricultural raw materials more sustainably and reducing the amount of energy used throughout its operations. However, the report also lists areas where the company is “off plan” (including the sustainable sourcing of sunflower oil) and where it missed its target (on improving heart health).

Polman insisted the Sustainable Living Plan had, for Unilever, become “the way we do business” and he claimed the company’s strategy had “galvanized” others into action. He acknowledged that getting others to act “is not always easy” but said he had seen signs that industry had been able to “transform markets”.

And, although the Unilever chief believes government intervention is needed in some areas to encourage more sustainable behavior from industry and consumers, he believes business can go further. At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Polman arranged a meeting of CEOs on sustainability, which he says will lead to a range of businesses making commitments at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June. “At Rio, you will see business pushing much harder and faster than governments as they will be tied up in election cycles,” he says.

Using SWITCH, a highly detailed computer model of the electric power grid, to study generation, transmission and storage options for the states west of the Kansas/Colorado border, the UC Berkeley researchers examined the least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They determined that to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming the best strategy is to replace coal with renewable and other sources of energy that may include nuclear power.

“Decarbonization of the electric power sector is critical to achieving greenhouse gas reductions that are needed for a sustainable future,” said Daniel Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. “To meet these carbon goals, coal has to go away from the region.”

To achieve this level of decarbonization, policy changes are needed to cap or tax carbon emissions to provide an incentive to move toward low-carbon electricity sources, Kammen and the other study authors said.

While some previous studies have emphasized the high cost of carbon taxes or caps, the new study shows that replacing coal with more gas generation, as well as renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy, would result in only a moderate increase to consumers in the cost of electric power – at most, 20 percent. They estimate a lower ratepayer cost, Kammen said, because the evolution of the electrical grid over the next 20 years – with coordinated construction of new power plants and transmission lines – would substantially reduce the actual consumer cost of meeting carbon emission targets.

“While the carbon price required to induce these deep carbon emission reductions is high – between $59 and $87 per ton of CO2 emitted – the cost of power is predicted to increase by at most 20 percent, because the electricity system will redesign itself around a price or cap on carbon emissions,” said Kammen. “That is a modest cost considering that the future of the planet is at stake.”