2Sustain

Even though investors and companies increasingly agree on which corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues affect a company’s financial value, there are still disconnects regarding metrics and disclosure. A new study, Finding Common Ground on the Metrics that Matter, released by the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute, deep dives into these concerns and provides the first comprehensive analysis of which corporate ESG information is tracked by companies and how it is –or isn’t –consistent with analogous information sought by investors, researchers and other stakeholders.

In broad terms, the study revealed that:

• There is agreement on key corporate sustainability issues, but not on the metrics used to measure the management of them, nor on the purposes served by examining corporate ESG information.
• Though ESG metrics routinely are reported on request by many companies, few report all the ESG information they collect internally.ESG researchers, investors and corporate representatives approach ESG issues from a risk mitigation perspective, not a value creation perspective.

In addition, key data from the study concluded that: (more…)

Last week, President Obama visited the Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) manufacturing facility in Mount Holly, North Carolina, where he announced a new $1 billion National Community Deployment Challenge to spur deployment of clean, advanced vehicles in communities around the country.

DTNA is a partner in the Energy Department’s SuperTruck initiative, which is focused on increasing the fuel efficiency of long haul trucks (aka, 18-wheelers) by 50 percent by 2015.

While these particular trucks represent only 4 percent of the on-road vehicles in America, they are responsible for almost 20 percent of the country’s on-road fuel consumption, and this class of vehicle currently consumes more than 30 billion gallons of gasoline each year.

In order to achieve the SuperTruck imitative goal, companies like Daimler are developing and improving a number of vehicle technologies, including engine efficiency, aerodynamics waste heat recovery and hybridization.  Through these types of improvements, the Energy Department estimates fuel economy increases could save long-haul truckers more than $15,000 per truck per year in fuel costs. (In an earlier post, I reported that MIT researchers also have identified significant cost savings for businesses that use electric vehicles to make deliveries on an everyday basis in big cities.) (more…)

Communications conglomerate AT&T, in collaboration with global sustainability consultancy Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), is continuing its march on environmentally-conscious business practices with the release of a new eco-rating system for its products.

In just a few months, consumers will find AT&T eco-ratings on simple, easy-to-read-and-understand labels included with AT&T-branded mobile devices.

As a recent Deloitte study showed, sustainability is becoming increasingly important for consumer purchasing decisions. In fact, more than half (54 percent) of surveyed shoppers said they consider sustainability to be one of their top decision-making factors.

To provide consumers with information so they can make more educated and environmental decisions, AT&T’s new eco-rating system will cover attributes such as: (more…)

New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows that electric vehicles are not just environmentally friendly; they also have the potential to improve the bottom line for many kinds of businesses.

Granted, the up-front costs of electric vehicles can be significant. A company looking to purchase an electric-powered delivery truck today will likely have to shell out nearly $150,000 –compared to about $50,000 for the same kind of truck with a standard internal-combustion engine.

But, the researchers at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) found that electric vehicles used to make deliveries on an everyday basis in big cities can cost 9 to 12 percent less to operate than trucks powered by diesel engines. What’s more, as battery costs continue to drop, the business case for electric vehicles will only get better, according to Jarrod Goentzel, director of the Renewable Energy Delivery Project at CTL and one of four co-authors of the new study.

The CTL study was conducted using data collected by the international office supplier Staples, as well as ISO New England, the nonprofit firm that runs New England’s electric power grid.

Using that data, the researchers modeled the costs for a fleet of 250 delivery trucks, and they examined alternate scenarios in which the whole fleet used one of three kinds of motors: purely electric engines, hybrid gas-electric engines and conventional diesel engines.

The researchers analyzed outcomes if the trucks in the fleet were driven 70 miles a day for 253 work days per year, with diesel gasoline costing $4 per gallon. They found that: (more…)

A new partnership between Nike, Inc. and Netherlands-based DyeCoo Textile Systems B.V., is poised to introduce a revolutionary technology to the sportswear world.

DyeCoo has developed and built the first commercially-available waterless textile dyeing machines. Remarkably, this industry-altering technology eliminates the use of water in the textile dyeing process by using recycled carbon dioxide—supercritical fluid carbon dioxide (SCF CO2 ) to be exact—to adhere coloring to cloth. After exploring this technology for the past eight years, Nike expects to showcase the new apparel at several events later in 2012.

Here are some facts and figures on the textile industry and what changes this growing technology will bring: (more…)