The spring rains have yielded a bumper crop of new reports on the business of green. I've been a bit behind in fielding them, given my travels and last week's highly successful Greener by Design conference. Here are five of the latest:
The USA study also includes a to-do list for three key stakeholders: utilities, solar companies, and policymakers. Suffice to say, there's plenty of work cut out for everyone.
The challenge of defining "carbon neutral" has long been problematic, as I've frequently noted (see here and here, for example). For example, there's no agreed-upon definition of how much of a company's carbon footprint it needs to offset (is it responsible for the gasoline that fueled the chain saw that cut down the tree that created the paper packaging for the company's widget?) or what's needed to offset it (can the company simply write a check to plant trees somewhere, or does it have to do more?).
Getting to Zero attempts to make sense of all this, laying out the boundaries, providing definitions, and recommending company approaches. Among the recommendations:
Embrace a stretching boundary. The key tension surrounding any claim of neutrality remains reconciling the absolute nature of the claim — implying zero net impact — with a practical boundary-setting process. In the spirit of the term, we recommend that companies accept that claiming neutrality implies some responsibility to consider and address broader value-chain emissions. This is not to suggest that companies accept legal responsibility for the direct emissions of others, but rather that indirect emissions be explicitly considered as part of the neutrality process.
This may seem overly geeky to some, but it's nothing less than Gospel to those who have been grappling with such issues, and CACP and the Forum deserve our thanks for having placed a stake in the ground on this important topic.
It's a fairly typical list — albeit, with a U.K. perspective — and the report offers brief case studies for each of the ten categories.
ADL's survey of 99 publicly listed, large Nordic companies — widely regarded as among the most environmentally responsible of corporate citizens — found some surprising things, for example, that sustainability reporting is varied and not standardized and, as a result, not transparent; that there is little comparability even within industries, since companies tend to focus on their own, absolute measures; that few companies have quantified targets, or relate targets for improved sustainability to business objectives; and that few companies have clearly articulated strategies, and even fewer follow up or report on how they perform against their own targets.
The report offers sage advice for companies in any region:
Any company that wants to realise the opportunities presented by sustainability needs to develop an effective strategy for sustainable business development and performance reporting. This includes companies that may be tempted to complacency by an existing reputation for good corporate citizenship. Where some form of environmental reporting is already in place, companies need consider whether they really do meet the standards of international best practice, whether there are still opportunities for improvement, and what they can do to catch up with the world leaders in sustainability and environmental reporting.
In essence, the 10-page report, written by Bill Blackburn, a Conference Board Senior Research Fellow, is an up-to-date primer on green products, from basic definitions to explanations of life cycles to the basics of green marketing. Blackburn knows from where he speaks: The former head of environment at Baxter International, he is author of The Sustainability Handbook, an authoritative reference for environmental managers. Blackburn's insights are complemented by the findings of a research panel, whose members include Aveda, Coca-Cola, J.C. Penney, Xerox, and others.
Among the "best practices" Blackburn suggests: