Point 1... Recently I worked on a group project analyzing ways in which to "green up" a company. What we found is that almost all of our proposed ideas would actually save the commpany money.
Point 2... I constantly hear professors at the university I attend complain about budget cuts, small budgets for marketing their programs, and many other things.
Point 3... 2 + 2 = 5... They are wasting money in so many areas it is rediculous. To me it is the same as burnig money and then complaining because you lack the funds to feed yourself. What to do??? Rationality says quite burning the money and buy some food. What do we do??? A friend of mine is actually working on this subject and after seeing what we had done on our group project asked me to help her prepare suggestions backed up by numbers and present them with her to the university's VP of finance. I don't know where this all will lead but I will keep you posted.
Thinking about this after running some numbers, I began to see just how much money is wasted. If all universities across the US and for that matter, the world became more efficient we would not only help our environment but we would help our budget problems too!
Keep reading as I will keep you posted in the months to come.....
Location: Japan
Year founded: 1945
Revenue: $84.2 Billion
Employees: 145,000
The most fuel-efficient auto company in the U.S. While other automakers gripe, Honda attacks the issues of fuel economy and emissions with relish. Working independently, it is focusing on two alternative fuel technologies, the natural gas powered "Civic GX" and the hydrogen fuel cell "FCX." Honda has also taken a crack at solving a problem other automakers have left to the oil companies: creating an infrastructure for hydrogen. Honda's solution is for individual refueling stations that provide heat and electricity for the home as well as hydrogen for a fuel-cell-powered car. Long term, Honda wants to be the world's cleanest, most efficient manufacturer. It has promised to reduce CO2 emissions from its factories as well as its vehicles by 5 percent between 2005 and 2010 - on top of the 5 percent it achieved between 2000 and 2005. --Alex Taylor III
#2
Continental Airlines
Location: Houston
Year founded: 1934
Revenue: $13.1 Billion
Employees: 44,000
Worked with Boeing to engineer more fuel-efficient aircraft. AMID RISING concern about aviation pollution, British Airways introduced a "CO2 emission calculator" on its website, letting passengers pay to offset the carbon dioxide generated by their flights. Lufthansa recently equipped an Airbus A340 with a 1.5-ton mobile laboratory to track gases and compounds. But it is American airline Continental that's gone furthest to green operations. Besides spending more than $16 billion over the past ten years to replace its fleet with more efficient aircraft, it installed fuel-saving winglets that reduce emissions by up to 5% on most of its Boeing 737s and 757s, and reduced the nitrogen oxide output from ground equipment at its Houston hub by over 75% since 2000. Its 13 full-time staff environmentalists work with engine manufacturers, design green terminals, and track carbon emissions and chemical recycling daily. Even all the trash from company headquarters is later sorted for recyclables. --Barney Gimbel
#3
Finding black gold is a dirty job - particularly when it's buried in tar sands. But Suncor still stands out for how it does the job. Its environmental and social efforts have earned it membership in the Dow Jones sustainability index and the British equivalent, the FTSE4Good. In a survey of 23 global oil companies last year, Jantzi Research, a Canadian consultancy, named Suncor a top performer, noting its environmental and greenhouse-gas management programs. Specifically, it has improved emissions intensity (the amount of oil it extracts per ton of greenhouse gases emitted) 25 percent since 1990. Ditto for energy, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Suncor is part of an initiative to develop carbon-capture techniques. And while Suncor hopes to double its production by 2012, its water management is so advanced that it expects to draw no additional water from Alberta's Athabasca River. --Cait Murphy
Wind-powered stores, high-tech recycling, biodiesel delivery trucks - Tesco does all that. Last year the company pledged to cut the average energy use in its British buildings in half by 2010; now it says it will get there two years early. State-of-the-art trains that have lower-than-normal noise and pollution reduce the use of trucks, slashing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions; in a major store initiative, Tesco will estimate the "carbon costs" of each item. To ensure that its leadership walks the talk, Tesco now determines senior-management bonuses partly on meeting energy- and waste-reduction targets. Tesco is also encouraging customers to be greener by awarding points, redeemable for merchandise, to those who bring their own reusable shopping bags. --Matthew Boyle
When Alcan took over French rival Pechiney in late 2003, the Montreal-based aluminum maker also landed world-class smelting technology. Because of Pechiney's proprietary methods (and an aggressive push by Alcan to track emissions), the company has been able to reduce its greenhouse-gas output by 25 percent since 1990, while production increased 40 percent. Alcan's latest goal is to install a high-capacity process that increases energy efficiency by as much as 20 percent and lowers emissions. A pilot plant in Quebec is already under construction. "It's inherent to the engineering culture to respond to problems like these," says Alcan's Corey Copeland. "It's what makes engineers tick." --Jia Lynn Yang
PG&E Played a big role in getting mandatory controls on greenhouse gases enacted last year in California, and CEO Peter Darbee is now pushing for federal legislation.
The utility generates 56 percent of its retail electricity sales from non-greenhouse-gas-emitting sources, and it aggressively helps customers become more efficient. For instance, it subsidizes homeowners who buy energy-efficient appliances with $75 grants. PG&E is also experimenting with a variety of clean power alternatives. It is seeking permission to develop generation projects that could convert wave energy off the Pacific Coast into electricity. It is bullish on solar thermal technology, and it has a pilot project in the San Joaquin Valley in which cow manure is turned into electricity. "That's a dung good idea," cracks Darbee.
Jokes aside, Darbee is seriously excited about the prospect of plug-in hybrids that would draw power from the electricity grid at night and then feed power back into the grid during the day when demand peaks. These clean cars would burn less gasoline, pollute less and take advantage of the utility industry's capital-intensive infrastructure. "The energy industry," Darbee concludes, "is on the brink of a revolution." --Marc Gunther
In 1935, long before sustainability became a corporate buzzword, H.F. Johnson Jr. led a 15,000-mile expedition to Brazil in search of a sustainable source of wax, the carnauba palm tree, for his company's first product, Johnson's Wax.
His grandson and the current CEO, Fisk Johnson, has continued that legacy at S.C. Johnson, a family-owned company that makes Windex, Pledge, Ziploc bags and Raid. Its most notable innovation is its Greenlist process, a classification system that evaluates the impact of thousands of raw materials on human and environmental health. By using Greenlist, S.C. Johnson eliminated 1.8 million pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from Windex and four million pounds of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) from Saran Wrap, which is now PVDC-free. (VOCs and PVDC are both pollutants.) The company licenses Greenlist royalty-free to other firms that want to use it. It is also cutting back its reliance on coal-fired power, recently building its own power plant that runs on natural gas and methane piped in from a nearby landfill. Glenn Pricket of Conservation International says that when it comes to the environment, "Fisk Johnson is probably the most personally committed CEO I've met." --Marc Gunther
When Goldman Sachs announced a groundbreaking environmental policy in 2005, critics said chief executive Hank Paulson was imposing his green ethos. Wrong. The bank has become even more planet-friendly since Paulson left. Why? Because it is doing lots of green business.
Goldman's investment of $1.5 billion in cellulosic ethanol, wind and solar have paid off. Texas Pacific and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts turned to Goldman, which had built bridges to environmental groups, as they prepared a bid for Texas energy company TXU. Research clients are pleased that Goldman's equity analysts in Europe now factor environmental, social and governance issues into their reports. "The world's changing," says one Goldman official. The company is too - some cars that take bankers home are hybrids. --Marc Gunther
Swiss Re's main product is insurance for insurers, so its products never come near a smokestack. And Swiss reinsurance companies are not exactly known for boldness. Even so, Swiss Re has been way ahead of the pack on climate change, warning as early as 1994 about the bottom-line threat in the form of higher claims from storms and other weather-related disasters.
In addition, Swiss Re has pioneered products like weather-based derivatives to hedge these risks. Buyers can bet on future heat waves or cold snaps with puts and calls on specific periods of time and temperatures, much as conventional options have a preset strike price for a stock. So a farmer in India might be able to buy insurance from a local insurer in case the usual monsoon rains fail to arrive or, conversely, his fields are flooded. Swiss Re was also among the early supporters of the Chicago Climate Exchange, an emerging hub for traders in derivatives linked to carbon emissions. --Nelson D. Schwartz
High tech is falling all over itself to go green. It may be that Prius-driving engineering types are more eco-sensitive than the rest of us, or maybe they're simply battling for competitive advantage. The fact is, as more of modern life goes digital, the environmental impact of those computers and gadgets has gone from negligible to considerable. Hewlett-Packard has done the most to mitigate that. HP owns massive e-waste recycling plants, where enormous shredders and granulators reduce four million pounds of computer detritus each month to bite-sized chunks - the first step in reclaiming not just steel and plastic but also toxic chemicals like mercury and even some precious metals. HP will take back any brand of equipment; its own machines are 100 percent recyclable. It has promised to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010. HP also audits its top suppliers for eco-friendliness, and its omnibus Global Citizenship Report sets the standard for detailed environmental accountability. --Oliver Ryan
Suncor
Location: Canada
Year founded: 1917
Revenue: $13.6 Billion
Employees: 5,500
Measures the environmental impact of each project. Finding black gold is a dirty job - particularly when it's buried in tar sands. But Suncor still stands out for how it does the job. Its environmental and social efforts have earned it membership in the Dow Jones sustainability index and the British equivalent, the FTSE4Good. In a survey of 23 global oil companies last year, Jantzi Research, a Canadian consultancy, named Suncor a top performer, noting its environmental and greenhouse-gas management programs. Specifically, it has improved emissions intensity (the amount of oil it extracts per ton of greenhouse gases emitted) 25 percent since 1990. Ditto for energy, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Suncor is part of an initiative to develop carbon-capture techniques. And while Suncor hopes to double its production by 2012, its water management is so advanced that it expects to draw no additional water from Alberta's Athabasca River. --Cait Murphy
#4
Tesco
Location: Britain
Year founded: 1919
Revenue: $71 Billion
Employees: 380,000
Cut energy use and is trying to get customers to think green. Wind-powered stores, high-tech recycling, biodiesel delivery trucks - Tesco does all that. Last year the company pledged to cut the average energy use in its British buildings in half by 2010; now it says it will get there two years early. State-of-the-art trains that have lower-than-normal noise and pollution reduce the use of trucks, slashing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions; in a major store initiative, Tesco will estimate the "carbon costs" of each item. To ensure that its leadership walks the talk, Tesco now determines senior-management bonuses partly on meeting energy- and waste-reduction targets. Tesco is also encouraging customers to be greener by awarding points, redeemable for merchandise, to those who bring their own reusable shopping bags. --Matthew Boyle
#5
Alcan
Location: Canada
Year founded: 1902
Revenue: $23.6 Billion
Employees: 68,000
Investing in clean, efficient manufacturing When Alcan took over French rival Pechiney in late 2003, the Montreal-based aluminum maker also landed world-class smelting technology. Because of Pechiney's proprietary methods (and an aggressive push by Alcan to track emissions), the company has been able to reduce its greenhouse-gas output by 25 percent since 1990, while production increased 40 percent. Alcan's latest goal is to install a high-capacity process that increases energy efficiency by as much as 20 percent and lowers emissions. A pilot plant in Quebec is already under construction. "It's inherent to the engineering culture to respond to problems like these," says Alcan's Corey Copeland. "It's what makes engineers tick." --Jia Lynn Yang
#6
PG&E
Location: San Francisco
Year founded: 1852
Revenue: $12.5 Billion
Employees: 20,000
Strategic investments in efficiency and renewables. PG&E Played a big role in getting mandatory controls on greenhouse gases enacted last year in California, and CEO Peter Darbee is now pushing for federal legislation.
The utility generates 56 percent of its retail electricity sales from non-greenhouse-gas-emitting sources, and it aggressively helps customers become more efficient. For instance, it subsidizes homeowners who buy energy-efficient appliances with $75 grants. PG&E is also experimenting with a variety of clean power alternatives. It is seeking permission to develop generation projects that could convert wave energy off the Pacific Coast into electricity. It is bullish on solar thermal technology, and it has a pilot project in the San Joaquin Valley in which cow manure is turned into electricity. "That's a dung good idea," cracks Darbee.
Jokes aside, Darbee is seriously excited about the prospect of plug-in hybrids that would draw power from the electricity grid at night and then feed power back into the grid during the day when demand peaks. These clean cars would burn less gasoline, pollute less and take advantage of the utility industry's capital-intensive infrastructure. "The energy industry," Darbee concludes, "is on the brink of a revolution." --Marc Gunther
#7
S.C. Johnson
Location: Racine, Wis.
Year founded: 1886
Revenue: $7 Billion
Employees: 12,000
Three generations of committed environmental stewardship. In 1935, long before sustainability became a corporate buzzword, H.F. Johnson Jr. led a 15,000-mile expedition to Brazil in search of a sustainable source of wax, the carnauba palm tree, for his company's first product, Johnson's Wax.
His grandson and the current CEO, Fisk Johnson, has continued that legacy at S.C. Johnson, a family-owned company that makes Windex, Pledge, Ziploc bags and Raid. Its most notable innovation is its Greenlist process, a classification system that evaluates the impact of thousands of raw materials on human and environmental health. By using Greenlist, S.C. Johnson eliminated 1.8 million pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from Windex and four million pounds of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) from Saran Wrap, which is now PVDC-free. (VOCs and PVDC are both pollutants.) The company licenses Greenlist royalty-free to other firms that want to use it. It is also cutting back its reliance on coal-fired power, recently building its own power plant that runs on natural gas and methane piped in from a nearby landfill. Glenn Pricket of Conservation International says that when it comes to the environment, "Fisk Johnson is probably the most personally committed CEO I've met." --Marc Gunther
#8
Goldman Sachs
Location: New York
Year founded: 1869
Revenue: $69.4 Billion
Employees: 24,000
Bold climate-change policy shapes major investments. When Goldman Sachs announced a groundbreaking environmental policy in 2005, critics said chief executive Hank Paulson was imposing his green ethos. Wrong. The bank has become even more planet-friendly since Paulson left. Why? Because it is doing lots of green business.
Goldman's investment of $1.5 billion in cellulosic ethanol, wind and solar have paid off. Texas Pacific and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts turned to Goldman, which had built bridges to environmental groups, as they prepared a bid for Texas energy company TXU. Research clients are pleased that Goldman's equity analysts in Europe now factor environmental, social and governance issues into their reports. "The world's changing," says one Goldman official. The company is too - some cars that take bankers home are hybrids. --Marc Gunther
#9
Swiss Re
Location: Switzerland
Year founded: 1863
Revenue: $24 Billion
Employees: 10,500
Developing financial tools to deal with the risks of climate change.Swiss Re's main product is insurance for insurers, so its products never come near a smokestack. And Swiss reinsurance companies are not exactly known for boldness. Even so, Swiss Re has been way ahead of the pack on climate change, warning as early as 1994 about the bottom-line threat in the form of higher claims from storms and other weather-related disasters.
In addition, Swiss Re has pioneered products like weather-based derivatives to hedge these risks. Buyers can bet on future heat waves or cold snaps with puts and calls on specific periods of time and temperatures, much as conventional options have a preset strike price for a stock. So a farmer in India might be able to buy insurance from a local insurer in case the usual monsoon rains fail to arrive or, conversely, his fields are flooded. Swiss Re was also among the early supporters of the Chicago Climate Exchange, an emerging hub for traders in derivatives linked to carbon emissions. --Nelson D. Schwartz
#10
Hewlett-Packard
Location: Palo Alto
Year founded: 1939
Revenue: $91.7 Billion
Employees: 156,000
Silicon Valley's longtime industry leader in eco-sensitivity. High tech is falling all over itself to go green. It may be that Prius-driving engineering types are more eco-sensitive than the rest of us, or maybe they're simply battling for competitive advantage. The fact is, as more of modern life goes digital, the environmental impact of those computers and gadgets has gone from negligible to considerable. Hewlett-Packard has done the most to mitigate that. HP owns massive e-waste recycling plants, where enormous shredders and granulators reduce four million pounds of computer detritus each month to bite-sized chunks - the first step in reclaiming not just steel and plastic but also toxic chemicals like mercury and even some precious metals. HP will take back any brand of equipment; its own machines are 100 percent recyclable. It has promised to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010. HP also audits its top suppliers for eco-friendliness, and its omnibus Global Citizenship Report sets the standard for detailed environmental accountability. --Oliver Ryan
