2Sustain

The US Green Building Council awarded General Mills yet another LEED Gold certification –this one for its expanded production facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Three of General Mills’ company buildings have already earned LEED certification.

Environmental benefits of the expanded production facility include:

• An aggressive recycling program almost eliminating waste paper, plastics, cardboard and packaging.
• A 30 percent reduction in energy use due to the production line’s new proprietary high-efficiency oven.
• A 30 percent reduction in indoor water use with the installation of high-efficiency faucets and low-flow plumbing.
• A 70 percent reduction in irrigation water with the use of native vegetation for landscaping.

The following commitments also contributed to the plant’s certification: (more…)

The University of Victoria has released a new report ranking the eco-labels used to distinguish seafood produced with less damage to the environment. This is the first study of its kind evaluating how eco-labels for farmed marine fish compare to unlabeled options in the marketplace.

How Green is Your Eco-label? will help seafood buyers sort through competing sustainability claims and better identify which labels result in farming methods that are less damaging to the ocean.

Here are a few key findings of the report: (more…)

Last month, Kraft Foods shared results of a pioneering survey that measured the company’s impact on climate change, land and water use.

The multi-year footprinting project—in partnership with Quantis Inc. and reviewed by World Wildlife Fund and academics at the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment—showed Kraft that its environmental impact goes far beyond the company’s walls.

For example, based on the results of the analysis, Kraft, learned that more than 90 percent of its carbon footprint is outside its plants and offices. Nearly 60 percent is from farm commodities.

The company doesn’t own farms, but the survey certainly supports the work of Kraft’s sustainable agriculture efforts on key commodities to improve crop yields, reduce environmental impacts and improve the lives of farm workers and their families.

In addition, the footprinting work revealed that: (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…)

The nonprofit advocacy group Mercy for Animals launched an undercover investigation into McDonald’s egg supplier Sparboe Egg Farms and found cruel conditions. Hidden-camera video from the investigation showed a number of abuses, including:

• the use of battery cages, which are banned in California, Michigan and throughout the entire European Union,
• workers burning off the beaks of young chicks and callously throwing them into cages, some missing the cage doors and hitting the floor and
• rotted hens, decomposed beyond recognition as birds, left in cages with hens still laying eggs for human consumption.

In a statement, McDonald’s described the behavior on the video as “disturbing and completely unacceptable.” (more…)