[Editor's Note: Last month, the GreenBiz editorial staff had a briefing with Beth Colleton, the vice president of NBC Universal's "Green is Universal" project. Over the course of a wide-ranging interview, we talked about the company's "Green Week," the larger sustainability efforts of the company, and what happens with green behind the scenes. What follows is a transcript of that interview, which has been edited for clarity and length; we have also combined questions by all the editors together as coming from "GreenBiz."]

NBCUniversal, which was purchased by Comcast at the end of January, is the umbrella company for more than 40 on-air and online brands, from the NBC network to Oxygen, as well as Universal Studios and the Universal Studios theme parks and resorts around the world. In 2007, NBC launched its "Green Week," a week-long celebration of environmental issues that took place during its shows, at its theme parks, and throughout the company's offices.

GreenBiz: How much of NBC Universal's sustainability efforts are about messaging to the audience? How much of it is internal? Looking at the first part of that, how do you shape the various messages for an MSNBC vs. Oxygen?

Beth Colleton: I think the key to it is that we, the Green is Universal team, don't try to do that. We work in a solid partnership with the producers, editors, and the staff at each of those entities because they know their audience best.

So, while we might be able to warn them on information about the environment and where the issues currently stand, they ultimately are the folks that craft that message in a way that'll have real traction and be applicable to the audience in which they speak to every day. I think that goes to a bigger core driver for NBC Universal, which is we don't have a structure that has Green is Universal in one silo trying to drive all this change single-handedly through the business.

We are cross-organizational. We work across every division of the company but we also believe that the solutions will come from the workforce, that it's about educating them, engaging them and also recognizing them for the work that they do to advance sustainability and get it into our DNA.

GB: Other than messaging to viewers, how much of Green is Universal's work has to do with NBC's own internal efforts? How much work do you do with employees? How much work do you do with facilities, things like that?

BC: We do a lot. At certain points we're talking about marketing, consumer messaging. Otherwise we're talking about kilowatts, energy consumption and government regulation in the sector. So we really do run the gamut here and are committed to driving sustainability 365 days a year.

The other thing on the operational end that we've been very sensitive to is that our business is a little bit different. The creative process, the production business is unique every single time. No movie, TV show or episode is the same as the one prior. So we are very focused on educating the staff and the employees within those functions. It's almost like teaching a man to fish so they learn the areas they should be targeting and then when we step out of the picture they can create solutions in an ongoing basis.

GB: How do you track that? That is one of our big questions: What does Green Week mean for the rest of the year? Are there things that you have in place to manage how progress happens, or to check in on what's working?

BC: Yes, we do. I think one of the places we get to on tracking is we need a baseline for that and baseline isn't necessarily measurement right now. The first thing is what makes certain operations or best practices sustainable. So we've actually developed a whole series of instruction manuals. We have a green TV production guide, a green film production guide, a sourcing guide, etc; about seven of them in total

So the first thing we've done is create a baseline for, "What are the targets we're going after? What are the activities we're trying to implement across the board?" From that, the different parts of our business have been able set goals. For example, our television division that produces both our shows that are on network and on cable, out of the green productions guide, set a series of green goals.

The first year there were 17 goals. Last year they added several more that they can implement across their slate of production. Then from that we can get some numeric measurements, successes, and also learnings, because sometimes the activity not going well provides us with great learnings.

GB: Can you give us some examples of both successes and things that you had to adjust?

BC: Yes, I can even give you a simple one. There's such a great conversation around biodiesel, and down at our theme parks in Orlando, all of the park vehicles, boats, cars, and otherwise run on biodiesel. It's very successful down there. So when we explored it for our TV production, we realized why many shows do it -- because it works for that location; but biodiesel freezes in the mid-30 degrees.