FedEx this week published its third annual sustainability report, highlighting both the company's achievements on sustainability and where it's going from here.

At the top level, FedEx's CSR report shows steady reductions in emissions from aircraft, overall corporate emissions across all scopes.

It highlights investments in renewable energy, waste reduction and recycling, and green facilities practices like FSC-certified paper use and ISO 14001 environmental management systems.

And over the last year, the company has racked up some notable successes in its sustainability, and efficiency, efforts:

• In October, FedEx opened the doors on a solar-powered hub in Germany, one of five FedEx facilities that together generated 11.2 gigawatt-hours of solar power in the past year.

• This spring, FedEx was one of five companies to sign on to President Obama's National Clean Fleets Partnership, to develop cleaner, greener fleets.

• And in January, FedEx landed two LEED Gold certifications, one for its global headquarters and one for its Las Vegas operations. At the same time FedEx announced that all of its new facilities going forward would be designed to achieve LEED certification.

But that's not the story that FedEx is really telling with its report.

"What we wanted to do with this report is show that sustainability is really a team sport," explained Mitch Jackson, FedEx's Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability. "If you just encapsulate it in [your CSR report], the potential benefit and impact would be less than if you try to get it out in the teams and work groups."

Jackson was talking about FedEx's approach to CSR reporting -- and to some extent its entire approach to sustainability. Unlike more data-intensive reports, FedEx has incorporated standards into the foundation of its efforts, but pushes forward in ways that meet business requirements rather than reporting requirements.

For example: Although Jackson said the report is based on some of the key metrics laid out in the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines, you won't find a GRI grade or a GRI data table in the FedEx CSR report.

"We try not to make the report be the end goal of our sustainability efforts," Jackson said. "We're focused on this broad list of initiatives and trying to make improvement on that, and report on those material issues."

"It's not to discount those things, but you have to focus."

Jackson offered a number of examples of how the company is shifting its sustainability strategy to strategic efforts. A telling example is FedEx's aircraft replacement project.