CorporateResponsibility.Net

The battle between the world’s leading retailers to deliver the deepest cuts in plastic bag use intensified last week when supermarket giant Wal-Mart announced it is to cut plastic shopping bag waste from its stores globally by a third by 2013.

The company, which owns Asda in the UK, said that the move would eliminate more than 135 million lbs of plastic waste a year, cut CO2 emissions by 290,000 tonnes and slash energy consumption to the equivalent of 678,000 barrels of oil.

Announcing the target at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York, Matt Kistler, senior vice president for sustainability of Wal-Mart Stores, said that the company would seek to change its customers’ behaviour by reducing the number of plastic bags it hands out, cutting the cost of reusable bags, and increasing the availability of recycling points. Read more

Source: Business Green

BEIJING, CN — Companies operating in China are to face tough new green legislation after the country’s top legislature passed a package of laws designed to underpin the government’s climate change strategy.

Over the past year, the Chinese government has set out a range of targets designed to shrug off its tag as the world’s largest polluter, including goals to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent, double renewable energy capacity and cut pollution levels 10 percent by 2010 compared to a 2005 baseline.

To support the targets, the Standing Committee of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) approved a raft of new regulations on Friday that are designed to curb carbon emissions and promote adoption of clean technologies. Read more

Source: GreenBiz

ENDS Europe Daily, 27 August 2008 – Management consultancy Accenture looked at 120 large companies in Norway, Denmark Finland and Sweden with a turnover above €80m.  Nine out of ten of the firms had implemented environmental programmes.

Seventy per cent of the firms with green programmes achieved cost reductions, 39 per cent showed revenue growth, and almost half were considered to have gained “revenue protection as a result of enhanced image”, according to the report.

The programmes involved reductions in energy consumption (93 per cent of firms), waste (83 per cent) and direct emissions (67 per cent), reductions or changes in material usage (78 per cent), and the launch of new products or services (60 per cent). Read more

Source: Ends and WBCSD

SAM, the sustainability investment specialist, and Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, have added four additional blue-chip indexes to the family of Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI). The new indexes provide market participants with tools to track sustainability leaders in the U.S., North America and globally.

The methodology for the new indexes applies the same approach as the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability 40 Index and Dow Jones EURO STOXX Sustainability 40 Index. The sustainability scores are derived from a comprehensive annual assessment of general as well as industry-specific criteria covering issues such as corporate governance, risk management, emissions, water and energy consumption, human capital development and stakeholder relations. Read more (pdf) (DJSI)

Source: CSR Europe

Efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of the Chinese economy appear to be paying off, after official figures released yesterday claimed that energy consumption per unit of GDP fell 3.66 per cent in 2007 compared to the previous year.

The government said that the improvements, which show an acceleration in the trend that saw energy consumption per unit of GDP fall 1.79 per cent in 2006, were a result of direct efforts to enhance energy efficiency and cut pollution.

Its claims were supported by figures showing that Beijing, which has been subject to a major energy efficiency and environmental programme ahead of the coming Olympics, recorded the most impressive gains with energy use per unit of GDP falling over six per cent during 2007.

The energy intensity of the Chinese economy remains poor compared to more developed nations – energy consumption per unit of GDP is still many times higher than that in the US and Europe. However, the government said it remained committed to closing large numbers of small scale energy intensive coal power plants as it seeks to meet targets to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 per cent and major pollutant emission by 10 per cent by 2010 based on 2005 levels. Read more

Source: Business Green

Corporate America and major green groups are starting to build ties as companies see the benefit of getting ahead of a trend toward environmental responsibility.

While partnerships have been emerging case-by-case, environmentalists are starting to ramp up their efforts to target money mangers and investors in an attempt to change how corporations do businesses.

The latest entrant: private equity firms that control billions in company assets.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a private equity firm that controls 46 companies, announced a major agreement last week with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Through the deal, EDF will effectively operate as an unpaid consultant, advising KKR on energy consumption, waste output and the carbon emissions of its companies.

“It’s not as if we are trying to resolve an issue,” said Fred Goltz, co-director of KKR’s energy practice. “We’re trying to get ahead of an issue, and potentially set an example in terms of how best to manage, monitor and improve environmental footprints across the portfolio.”

Well before the deal, EDF had already scored what may be its greatest coup in a prior arrangement with KKR. In cooperation with the group, KKR killed plans by TXU — the Dallas electric company the firm was acquiring — to build eight of 11 coal-fired power plants.

The KKR-EDF partnership, proponents say, is an excellent example of the growing influence of the environmental movement over private equity firms and other well-placed investors to influence boardrooms, leading to a broader cultural change by dint of their large stakes in or outright ownership of a multitude of key companies.

“We had a very constructive working relationship with EDF in the context of the TXU transaction,” Goltz said in an interview. “The opportunity to potentially extend the relationship to our broader U.S. portfolio and marry what we consider to be one of our primary skill sets — which is to systemically measure performance financially and within companies — to take that expertise and marry it with EDF’s practical and real environmental expertise. We see that as a real opportunity for our portfolio companies.”

‘We’re still at the beginning’

Launched in 1976 and still operated by its founders, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. held equity investments valued at about $86 billion as of the end of last year. Along with TXU, the firm owns a corporate potpourri that includes big retailers like Toys”R”Us and Sealy, the credit card company First Data and the media research giant Nielsen.

KKR enjoys annual revenues of about $185 billion, and the companies in its portfolio employ roughly 825,000 people worldwide. That footprint makes the agreement with EDF so important, people behind the deal say.

“We want to see [the partner companies] become best practice in the industry sectors where we are working,” said Gwen Ruta, EDF’s vice president of corporate partnerships. “The tools and systems and metrics that we develop with KKR, they will become public and they will be able to be adopted by others in the same industry. So we’re looking for sort of broader change.”

The KKR deal marks the first time EDF has partnered closely with a major investment house that directly controls dozens of companies. Previously, the model was one of working directly with individual brand-name companies, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., an EDF partner.

There is enough promise in the new model that EDF plans to start approaching more private equity firms soon.

“We’re still at the beginning of the learning curve,” Ruta said, “but we definitely will be.”

To be sure, the effort has a long way to go before it is an industry norm. Most private equity firms are still firmly focused on the bottom line, but as new environmental legislation emerges and corporate social responsibility becomes more mainstream, many see a bull market for companies wanting to adopt green practices.

“Perhaps a public company that’s managing from quarter to quarter may have a difficult time justifying [a green] mindset,” KKR’s Goltz said. “For someone like us that’s managing over a much longer term, we just feel like we’d rather be ahead of the curve than behind it.”

Climate measures provide motivation

That KKR approached EDF first is a sign that the environmentalists’ evolving strategy of pursuing cooperative ventures with investors and influencing shareholders is paying off in ways that many had not anticipated. And its impact is growing as Congress moves toward regulating heat-trapping greenhouse gases and taking other steps to address climate change.

“Both sides on that equation are beginning to realize that each has something to offer that the other doesn’t necessarily have,” said Ed Barker, director of corporate partnerships at the Earthwatch Institute.

“Nonprofit organizations are recognizing that they need the scale and influence that the private sector has, and the private sector is recognizing that the environmental organizations have expertise, credibility and in some cases also access that they don’t necessarily have,” he said. “So you’re seeing a real convergence of those two.”

Although waves of green euphoria have infected the corporate world before, the growing government concern over energy scarcity and climate change makes this time fundamentally different and permanent, many experts say.

Consider that some of the largest corporations whose very business model depends on environmental damage are moving away from their core business practices to emphasize sustainability and resource protections, experts say. For example, Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining concerns in the world, has formed a “consortium” with a handful of environmental nonprofits, including Conservation International, to advise the industrial behemoth as it struggles to keep to its pledge of no net loss of biodiversity in its operations.

“Done right, it is a healthy relationship that is both challenging and collaborative,” Barker said. “These partnerships are at their best when they are co-equal partners in which one organization can say to the other, ‘That’s not going to fly, and here’s why.’”

Fewer lawsuits

A rough division of labor seems to be emerging among environmental groups as corporate partnerships evolve.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), for example, says it works closely with companies primarily for drafting legislation, an effort to guarantee that bills moving through Congress and state legislatures won’t meet stiff corporate resistance later. NRDC is using this approach now toward climate legislation in Congress.

“That’s where we think we get the most critical leverage is in that dialogue, especially in this season where we’re in the middle of shaping the biggest environmental legislation that’s ever moved through the Hill,” said Rick Duke, director of NRDC’s Center for Market Innovation.

Others, like EDF, focus on changing corporate culture and internal business practices, without necessarily pushing regulations on companies. And some focus on the development of environmentally friendly products, as in the Sierra Club’s arrangement with Clorox.

The atmosphere is also getting noticeably less litigious, people involved say.

“I think it’s fair to say that the focus of action, on global warming in particular, has shifted from the courtroom to the boardroom,” NRDC’s Duke said. “That said, the litigation aspect of this challenge remains important, and in selective cases, it’s still very relevant.”

But the days when the first conversations between corporate executives and environmental activists would be over lawsuits are fast receding into the past.

“Many organizations have recognized that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar,” Earthwatch’s Barker said. “They haven’t given up on those [legal] tools, but I think they like to avoid using them if they can.”

Source: Greenwire.com