2Sustain

PepsiCo UK and Ireland has released its second environmental sustainability report and announced several ambitious goals aimed at minimizing the company’s environmental impact. It’s obvious that PepsiCo UK recognizes the business impact of sustainability initiatives, and over the next few years, the company will be working towards furthering its commitment to sustainability in significant ways.

For example, PepsiCo UK says it plans to be completely fossil fuel-free by 2023.

As it stands now, one fifth of the company’s electricity is sourced from renewable sources. But PepsiCo UK wants to do even better. According to the report: (more…)

Reinforcing results reported in earlier studies, new research from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants shows that most companies fully appreciate the relationship between social and environmental stewardship and business performance.

CIMA, AICPA, and CICA surveyed organizational leaders from their respective memberships and found that more than three-fourths (79 percent) of larger companies currently have a formal sustainability strategy. One-third (33 percent) of smaller companies do, too, and an additional 23 percent of smaller companies have plans to formulate a sustainability strategy within the next 2 years.

In addition, the study also found that: (more…)

In an effort to enable retailers to better integrate sustainability into their real estate footprint, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) has released a new retail specific rating system for LEED building certification.

The LEED for Retail rating system was modeled after the long-established LEED for New Construction and LEED for Commercial Interiors rating systems; however, the new retail system includes key considerations for retail space, such as occupancy, waste streams, energy consumption and water use.

Developed with the support of nearly 100 pilot participants, including RILA members’ Delhaize America, Best Buy, Target, Staples and REI, LEED for Retail underscores the retail industry’s commitment to sustainability initiatives. More than 650 retail projects have already achieved LEED certification. Perhaps more importantly, more than 4,000 additional retail projects have been registered and are working towards LEED certification. (more…)

Businesses turn to the cloud for a variety of reasons. For some, the decision is financial. For others, it’s a matter of capacity, agility or simple practicality.

Now, a new study has revealed two more benefits of cloud computing: It’s more energy efficient and can significantly reduce your environmental impact.

The ground-breaking  study, commissioned by Microsoft Corp. and conducted by Accenture and WSP Environment & Energy, assessed the carbon footprint of server, networking and storage infrastructure for three different deployment sizes (100, 1,000 and 10,000 users) of Microsoft’s popular business applications Exchange, Sharepoint and CRM Dynamics. The results show that:

• When small organizations (100 users) move to the cloud, the net energy and carbon savings can amount to more than 90 percent on a per user basis!

• For large corporations, the savings are typically 30 percent or more in energy consumption and carbon emissions. For instance, in a case study with a large consumer-goods company, the team calculated that 32 percent of emissions would be avoided by moving 50,000 e-mail users in North America and Europe to Microsoft’s cloud.

According to the report, the lower energy use and carbon emissions enabled by the cloud stem from a number of key factors, including: (more…)

Shipping just got much more transparent –and that’s great news for any company that’s working to reduce its environmental impact.

Earlier this month, Maersk Line became the first shipping line to receive independent verification of its CO2 emissions data, vessel by vessel.

The company will now add the CO2 data – which is verified by Lloyd’s Register – as one of eight performance measures in score cards that are presented to customers.  Starbucks Coffee Company, one of Maersk Line’s customers, says this improved emission data will help reduce its overall carbon footprint.

“Being a good environmental steward is important to Starbucks Coffee Company. Our global logistics providers can aid us in lowering the carbon footprint of our supply chain by improving their CO2 emission data. Quantified measurement and verification is a step in the right direction. Together, we continue to strive to better the world in which we do business,” John Bauer, director of global transportation, Starbucks Coffee Company, said. (more…)