2Sustain

In the wake of rising energy prices, businesses around the country are constantly searching for ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies. In fact, researchers estimate the energy consumption management industry is now a $5.2 billion industry in the US –and it’s growing at an astonishing 40 percent per year. However, the steady introduction of new vendors, each with its own version of “energy management” software, has generated a high level confusion and propelled the need for thoughtful analysis on current offerings.

Fortunately, Groom Energy Solutions provides some needed clarification with its new report, The Enterprise Smart Grid – a Corporate Buyer’s Guide for Energy Management Software. Responses from 65 interviews with corporate energy, facility and sustainability managers and vendors offering Enterprise Smart Grid related technologies identified 11 distinct functional areas and categorized the range of vendor solutions to assist companies as they develop their own energy management strategy.

For example, Groom Energy found that: (more…)

The risk of natural resource shortages, coupled with changing customer and employee expectations, is likely to impact core business objectives in the coming years. Exactly how global companies have been addressing impacts like these has been somewhat murky –at least until now.

Results from a 2011 Ernst & Young LLP/GreenBiz Group comparative survey, “Six Growing Trends in Corporate Sustainability,” determined an increasing financial focus by executives on corporate sustainability efforts affecting core business objectives.

For example, the replies of 272 sustainability executives from 24 industry sectors provided several illuminating statistics centered on six major trends: (more…)

American consumers buy 320 million cleaning products in trigger bottles each year, and millions of those plastic containers end up in landfills. SC Johnson, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of household products, wants consumers to consider a different option to “spray and throw away.”

In response to consumer demand revealed through earlier focus groups and a study with GfK Roper examining green attitudes and behaviors, SC Johnson has announced the expansion of its Mini line of concentrated cleaners. This new product line allows buyers to combine one bottle of concentrate with regular tap water in a reusable trigger bottle, eliminating the need to buy new trigger bottles of the same product.

The Mini line includes five of SC Johnson brands: (more…)

If gas prices continue to climb, will you consider making significant changes to your driving habits? Will you consider buying a different car, or maybe even abandoning auto ownership all together?

Interesting new research from Oliver Wyman and the ESB Business School Reutlingen in Germany reveals that for many urban dwellers in Western Europe and Asia, the answer to all of those questions is a resounding “yes.”

The “Future of Mobility” found that, if fuel prices rose significantly by 2030, more than three-fourths (77 percent) of the 3,000 people polled would change their mobility behavior by:

• switching to a smaller car,
• switching to an electric car, or
• abandoning car ownership entirely and replacing it with a mixture of transport modes.

Survey respondents in Shanghai (91percent) and France (82percent) were particularly open to changing their mobility patterns. High-income respondents (71percent) were the least likely demographic segment to consider a switch.

The survey also asked respondents to predict how their behavior would change under a more aggressive “sustainability mobility” scenario. For this particular scenario, those polled were asked to imagine a 2030 with fuel costs at 4 euro/liter (the equivalent of about $20/gallon), more traffic congestion, better quality public transport and the possibility of planning multimodal trips using smartphone apps. Under this “sustainability mobility” scenario: (more…)

The world’s leading chemical company, BASF, has announced new ambitious environmental, health and safety goals.

Since BASF operates in an energy-intensive industry, it makes perfect business sense for the company to mitigate its energy and raw material risks by focusing on energy efficiency and then broader sustainability goals.

For example, by 2020, BASF wants to:

• Increase its energy efficiency –defined as the amount of sales products in relation to the primary energy demand – worldwide by 35 percent, compared to the previous goal of 25 percent.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions per ton of sales product by 40 percent compared to 2002.
• Reduce carbon emissions related to the amount and distance of transported natural gas by 10 percent compared with 2010.
• Reduce by half the current amount of drinking water in use for production compared to 2010.
• Establish sustainable water management systems at all production sites in areas of water stress.

These new ambitions mesh well with BASF’s past progress. As of last year, the company had: (more…)