2Sustain

Last month, Mattel, Inc. announced that it has made considerable progress in several areas of its global sustainability program.

The strategy –called “Design It, Make It, Live It”–focuses on helping the company minimize its footprint throughout the value chain and across the organization and emphasizes the importance of personal commitment in business as well as everyday practices and processes. Here’s how Mattel explains the three different stages:

• First, the company “designs it” with the end in mind, exploring opportunities for sustainability in the design of products and packaging.

• Then, Mattel “makes it” with eco-efficiencies that allows the company to identify opportunities to gain efficiencies and reduce environmental impacts through the manufacturing and distribution of its products.

• Lastly, the company “lives it” with the personal commitment that fosters a culture of sustainability, which in turn, inspires employee-led grassroots initiatives.

With regard to environmental initiatives, Mattel reported that it has made progress with: (more…)

Despite  the growing adoption of sustainability programs in certain sectors, many industries lack comprehensive metrics and established best practices to effectively guide these green initiatives.

In the printing industry, for instance, consistency remains a significant problem. Some printing companies have responded aggressively to environmental challenges (more eco-friendly inks, process efficiencies, recycling, etc.). But, others have failed to show a clear commitment to sustainability matters. That’s a problem. First Research estimates that the US commercial printing industry includes some 35,000 companies with more than $100 billion in annual revenue. Obviously, printing has an enormous environmental impact –and sustainability is going to become an increasingly important driver of both competitiveness and profitability.

A new study from the Printing Industry Center at RIT deep dives into these issues with the intention of establishing a baseline for the current state of adoption and implementation of sustainability practices within the printing industry. The research found that: (more…)

A year ago, I wrote about the launch of the Procter & Gamble Company’s supplier environmental sustainable scorecard and rating process.

Now, P&G has released an update on scorecard results, while also announcing that it has rolled out an expanded version for 2011.

“By urging collaboration and unlocking innovation to create meaningful environmental progress, the initiative has already been a success and is just another example of how we strive to touch and improve the lives of more consumers, more completely, in more parts of the world,” Dr. Len Sauers, Procter & Gamble’s vice president for global sustainability, said in a press release. “Working with our external partners is clearly critical to realizing our long-term environmental vision as a company, and this scorecard is a helpful tool to facilitate that collaboration. After all, using 100 percent renewable or recycled materials for all products and packaging will only be achieved through strong collaboration with our business partners.”

The P&G Supplier Scorecard was designed to measure and improve the environmental performance of key suppliers, and it has three fundamental goals: (more…)

Back in 2007, China earned the dubious distinction of overtaking the US as the world leader in greenhouse gas emissions.

Since then, it seemed there would be “no end in sight.” As China’s economy continues to soar, won’t its energy use and GHG emissions follow the same trajectory?

Surprisingly, a new analysis by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) suggests the answer to that question is a rather emphatic “no.”

According to the research, China’s energy use will level off well before mid-century, even as its population edges past 1.4 billion. Why? Because, somewhere between 2030 and 2035, China will: 1) reach a “saturation” point with regard to consumer goods, and 2) develop alternative energy sources.

For example, the study predicts that before 2050: (more…)

Take one look around any doctor’s office or a hospital room, and it’s obvious: Modern healthcare depends on plastic products and materials.

Clearly, increasing the overall recycling of this plastic could have enormous positive impacts on both the environment and healthcare costs, so I was happy to hear that eight leading brands from the healthcare, recycling and waste management sectors are now joining forces to “inspire and enable” sustainable, cost effective recycling solutions for plastic products and materials used in the delivery of healthcare.

The new Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) consists of members from:

• Becton, Dickinson and Company
• Cardinal Health
• Engineered Plastics
• DuPont
• Hospira
• Johnson & Johnson
• Kimberly Clark
• Waste Management

The goal of the collaboration is to identify plastics recycling barriers and solution development along the entire value chain, seeking to affect plastics recycling from healthcare product design and manufacturing through product use, disposal and recycle.

HPRC says initially it will focus on three initiatives: (more…)