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First Take: FedEx's Green Fleet Moves, Next-Gen CSR Reporting, and More...

<p>The shipping company move to add more than 4,000 fuel-efficient vehicles to its fleet, the launch of development of the G4 sustainability guidelines, and other stories landed on our radar this morning.</p>

FedEx Doubles Up on EVs, Invests in Cleaner Diesel Deliveries: FedEx is making big moves to improve the efficiency of its fleet, with the addition of 24 new all-electric vehicles (which more than doubles the size of its EV fleet, now at 43 EVs) and adding more than 4,000 new fuel-efficient diesel vehicles. All told, the moves affect over 10 percent of the FedEx fleet.

The Next Generation of CSR Reporting, on the Horizon: The Global Reporting Institute are announcing today that 10 companies -- including Alcoa, GE, Goldman Sachs and Shell -- are the global sponsors of the G4 guidelines, the next generation of sustainability reporting rules. The Big Four accounting firms -- Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC -- are also pledging support for the new rules, which will go into effect in 2013. We'll have a much closer look at this later.

The World's Top Companies for Renewable Energy Purchases: Kohl's and Intel are the two companies that purchase the most renewable energy for operations in the world, according to a study conducted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance on behalf of Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer. Intel bought 1,493 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy in 2010, while Kohl's powered 100 percent of its operations with renewables.

WWF, Kimberly-Clark Partner on Sustainable Forestry: As part of a new partnership, the two groups are teaming up to achieve Kimberly-Clark's goal of having 100 percent of its virgin wood fiber sourced from certified suppliers by 2015, with a preference for FSC-certified fibers.

SC Johnson's Major Emissions Successes: The household cleaning products company, which has long been dedicated to environmental improvement, announced today that it had reduced its absolute GHG emissions by 27.4 percent since 2000. The achievements came in two phases, each more than doubling goals that the company set as part of its work with the EPA's Climate Leaders program. While we might normally suggest that this kind of feat means SCJ is setting its goals too low, that would only be the case if there were other companies also making this level of achievement.

A Twitter for Real-World Problems? The founders of Twitter have announced that they are stepping back from managing operations at the microblogging service to focus on a side project, The Obvious Corporation, which has as its goal to make "systems that help people work together to improve the world." Despite the fundamental information-overload nature of Twitter, let's hope they can bring some of the massive success and impact that the little bird has had to some of our larger environmental and social problems.

Photo CC-licensed by Dan McKay.

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