2Sustain

Earlier this month, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol launched two new standards to help businesses better measure, manage and report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions:

• The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard reveals opportunities for companies to make more sustainable decisions about their activities and the products they produce, buy and sell. Large and small companies can look strategically at greenhouse gas emissions across their value chain, showing them where to focus limited resources to have the biggest impacts.
• The Product Life Cycle Standard enables companies to measure the greenhouse gas emissions of an individual product. Covering materials, manufacturing, use and disposal, the product standard will help companies improve and design new products and provide insights for more informed consumer choices.

The two new standards were developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). They were created in response to businesses that want to better understand and measure their climate impacts beyond their own operations, and they’ll enable companies to save money, reduce risks and gain competitive advantage, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol says.

“The new standards provide companies with a comprehensive view of the emissions produced when making a product and across the value chain. They will help companies make better business decisions and stimulate innovation of products and production methods,” explained Björn Stigson, President, WBCSD. “In today’s world, it is necessary to understand and measure the costs for production, labor and transportation of products, which become visible and actionable through emissions.”

Already, these new standards are gaining widespread traction: (more…)

Water is quickly becoming a significant business growth and development risk.

In fact, after polling 150 large corporations, CDP Water Disclosure found that nearly 40 percent of responding companies had already experienced disruptions in operations, increases in expenses and other detrimental impacts related to water. Of course, government entities are also increasingly concerned with water-related disruptions, and they’re seeking viable approaches for mitigating risks, as well.

Fortunately, a new group promises to offer the kind of information needed for public and private sector decision-making regarding water risks.

Launched just last week, the Aqueduct Alliance is a consortium of leading water experts from the private and public sectors, NGOs and academia. It was founded by the World Resources Institute (WRI), Goldman Sachs and General Electric, but already the alliance has added Bloomberg, The Dow Chemical Company, Talisman Energy, and United Technologies. The Coca-Cola Company is also engaged and will be providing an extensive global database of once proprietary water risk information to support Aqueduct’s work.

From the alliance’s website: (more…)

Two powerhouses in the field of corporate sustainability –the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – have announced an agreement to align their work in advancing corporate responsibility and transparency.

With this new collaboration, the organizations will be able to further develop their combined strengths – the Global Compact’s strategic advancement of key sustainability issues, and GRI’s reporting framework.

Under the terms of the new agreement: (more…)

The World Resources Institute (WRI) is beefing up its efforts to help companies green their supply chains, thanks to a $420,000 grant from Walmart.

WRI’s Green Supply Chain Initiative will develop and deploy a new set of accounting tools to measure the greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of a company’s supply chain and the products that are sold to customers. These tools will be based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, which is an international accounting standard used by businesses to identify, calculate and report their own emissions. It was developed by the WRI and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in 1998.
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Degraded ecosystems. Climate change. Population growth. Increased consumption levels. These mounting pressures on natural resources are bound to drive higher costs along corporate supply chains in the future. However, have you ever wondered about the financial relevance of those higher costs? And, five or ten years from now, whom do you think will be bearing those costs –society or corporations?

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