2Sustain

Baxter recently launched a new Global Supplier Sustainability program designed to promote responsible business practices throughout its supplier network.

The program focuses on: (more…)

You may not realize it, but the largest contributor to GHG emissions in the U.S. is buildings.

In fact, 38 percent of all carbon emissions in America come from powering our buildings, and frankly, much of that energy is wasted.

How much CO2, energy –and money –could be saved with relatively simple retrofits to lighting, windows, climate control, etc.?

A new report, titled “Energy Efficiency in Real Estate Portfolios: Opportunities for Investors,” deep dives into this question, and finds that those gains would be a boon to real estate investors’ bottom lines. Both direct property owners (like large pension funds) and smaller investors (who primarily hold real estate securities) would benefit financially, even as they make our buildings far less power-hungry and a big part of America’s efforts to combat climate change.

The report was commissioned by Ceres and authored by the responsible investment group of the investment consulting business line of Mercer.

For proof of bottom-line benefits, the report cites research such as: (more…)

Last month, BASF, one of the world’s leading chemical companies, received an award for the best German sustainability report in 2008.

The award is bestowed every two years by the German Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) and future e.V., an environmental initiative founded by a group of small and medium-sized German enterprises. These groups analyzed the transparency and completeness of the sustainability information published by Germany’s 150 largest companies, and according to the jury, BASF’s report was particularly convincing because of its structured treatment of product safety, climate protection and responsibility in the supply chain. (more…)

Will shifting freight from trucks to rail create a greener transport system?

Not necessarily, according to a new report from FTR Associates.

In Today’s Trucking, Noel Perry, who wrote the report, says it’s not an “either/or” proposition. Instead, maximum energy efficiency might be gained from more transloading of freight between truck and rail, where truck is used for local transport and rail for the intercity movement. (more…)

When it comes to CSR reporting, Bristol-Myers Squibb (U.S.) and Sanofi-Aventis (France) lead the pharmaceutical sector, according to new research by the Roberts Environmental Center (REC) at Claremont McKenna College.

REC analyzed online sustainability reporting for the 26 largest pharmaceutical companies world-wide and scored the firms based on the transparency, intent, and performance for both environmental and social issues. Ultimately, the grades in this report were assigned on a curve, with the highest scoring companies receiving an A+.

Here’s a look at the highest and lowest scores: (more…)