2Sustain

Cisco has released its seventh annual corporate social responsibility report, which outlines the company’s accomplishments and efforts in five areas: governance and ethics, the value chain, Cisco employees, society and the environment.

This year, Cisco supplemented its report with input from 25 external global CSR stakeholders who came together via Cisco TelePresence to provide feedback on the company’s CSR reporting process, performance and emerging issues.  According to Cisco, this input resulted in a more navigable report format, increased transparency on supply chain and governance issues  and added detail about how Cisco’s products and solutions are helping its customers meet their energy and environmental goals.

Here are a few environmental accomplishments highlighted in the report:

• Nearly 20,000 Cisco employees use Cisco Virtual Office to extend the company’s network into their homes, permitting high-speed access to voice, video and data applications and reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions by telecommuting one or more days each week.
• Cisco is on track to meet its commitment to reduce all Scope 1, 2, and business-air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions worldwide by 25 percent absolute by CY12 (from a CY07 baseline).
• In FY11, Cisco conserved approximately 16.9 million kWh of energy and avoided 7,400 metric tonnes of CO2e emissions by investing $1.9 million in energy conservation projects. Twenty-six percent of Cisco’s global energy use was from renewable sources.

With regard to responsible sourcing and the value chain: (more…)

WhiteWave Foods, the Colorado-based company that makes Silk^®, Horizon Organic^®, International Delight^® and Land O Lakes^®, released ambitious new sustainability targets last week.

Most notably, by 2013, WhiteWave plans to:

• reduce GHG emissions by 25 percent, working from a 2006 baseline.
• reduce non-ingredient water use by 15 percent, compared to a 2008 baseline.

The company had previously set several sustainability goals in 2006 and 2007, and the results to date are impressive. For example, WhiteWave already has: (more…)

Recent research by KPMG found that even though corporate responsibility reporting has reached an all-time high among the Global Fortune 250 (G250), many of the reports lack rigor.

Now, another new study offers an even harsher critique.

After analyzing more than 4,000 corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, rankings and surveys published by companies worldwide over the past 10 years, researchers at the University of Leeds and Euromed Management School (France) found that most included significant errors, such as unsubstantiated claims, gaps in data and inaccurate figures.

In fact, out of 443 European Union companies featuring in the FTSE All World Index between 2005 and 2009, fewer than one in six reported greenhouse gas emissions that covered all corporate activities, while others were vague, failing to reveal precisely how the data applied to specific activities.

The research uncovered some glaring examples of misinformation. (more…)

Asda, which operates more than 500 retail stores across the UK, announced earlier this month that it is on track to deliver customer savings adding up to £800 million (about $ 1.2 billion) by 2020, thanks to its commitment to sustainability initiatives.

The company has been working towards a variety of sustainability targets since 2005, when global parent Walmart announced its commitments to sustainable sourcing and reductions in energy use and waste.

Asda has already made considerable progress. The company has:

• saved more than £70m in 2010 alone by reducing waste and energy usage in its operations.
• reduced absolute carbon emissions by an industry leading 11.9 percent  –exceeding its target to achieve a 10 percent reduction by 2015.
• eliminated 149,000 tonnes of carbon from operations since 2007. (That’s the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road for a year.)
• eliminated 900 jumbo jets worth of packaging from its products.
• reduced energy use in stores equivalent to that used by over 55,000 homes every year.
• eliminated 17 million miles from its supply chain. (The company says that’s the same as going to the moon and back 38 times.)
• redirected all food waste and 96 percent operational waste from landfill through recycling programs, including diverting waste for energy.

In addition, over the past nine months, Asda has asked customers about their views on sustainability issues and what matters to them. Based on this research, the company concluded that: (more…)

Tiffany & Co. has launched its first annual web-based Corporate Responsibility Report.

Developed in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative’s voluntary sustainability reporting framework, the online report includes highlights regarding environmental and social performance, and also provides intriguing insight into the jewelry giant’s standards and operations for the sourcing of precious materials.

For example, Tiffany says that:

• In order to minimize environmental and social risks, gold, silver and platinum used in its workshops are sourced from responsibly mined metal deposits and recycled sources in the US.
• The company has implemented a multiphase assessment process of its supply chain. Accordingly:
  • Vendors are required, when applicable, to complete a self-assessment of their performance against the Tiffany Vendor Code of Conduct.
  • Tiffany performs internal audits of its vendors.
  • Tiffany contracts with a third-party social responsibility auditing firm to provide audits on its suppliers.

In addition: (more…)