2010’s Greenest Corporations!

Congrats to each and thank you for making a difference!! Hope you inspire many others!! TreeHugger posts Greenopia’s 2010 Greenest Corporations!!

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TreeHugger 2010 Best of Green Results

TreeHugger’s Best of Green slideshow for Technology and Science!  Check out the top companies that are making a difference!

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Jacksonville Strip Mall with Wind Towers and Solar Panels

Discovery Plaza located on Atlantic Boulevard near St. Johns Bluff is appropriately named!  With an estimated 4 years for a return on their investment, they’ve discovered alternative energy options with wind towers and solar panels.  Some of the tenants report increased foot traffic from curious bypassers.

Click here for the full story from Jacksonville.com!

WILL DICKEY/The Times-Union

Safa M. Mansouri (left), property manager of Discovery Plaza at Atlantic Boulevard and St. Johns Bluff Road, and Frank Erickson, president of Erickson Energy, stand near one of the two 30-foot-tall spinning wind spires.

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TreeHugger 2010 Best of Green VOTE!

Please join in on the 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards for Best of Green presented by TreeHugger.  Cast your vote today!!  More than 8 categories and 50 prize categories.  Awesome stuff.

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2009 Green Business Awards

Winners were just posted!  Congrats to the following!

Lunapads International – a first-ever “Shining Light” Award!
ReusableBags.com –  “People’s Longtime Leadership” Award!  A two-time winner.
Care2.com – “People’s Choice for Green Business of the Year” Award

Thanks for providing great info, great services and products so we can make a difference in our environment!  Your leadership should have a grand round of applause!

Green America has posted the Top 10 nominees for the People’s Choice Awards for the Green Business of The Year.  All of them are worthy of the award by their contributions and inspirations that we can make a difference.

Please take the time before  October 11, 2009  to vote for one of the following green companies!   You can check out the companies and their websites below.

1)  Blue Summit 
2)  Care 2 
3)  Golden Path Alchemy
4)  Grounds for Change
5)  Hazelnut Kids
6)  Lunapads International
7)  Reusable Bags
8)  Stay Vocal
9)  To-Go Ware
10)  UsedCardboardBoxes

 

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Environmentally Preferable Lighting Solutions

Sylvania’s new products have passed the Federal TCLP – Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure.  Longer life, super efficacy and RoHS compliant!  Found out the details of the energy savings and environmental benefits!!

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Wal-Mart -“Green” Ratings!

As reported on Alliance to Save Energy July 16, 2009:

Wal-Mart to Assign New ‘Green’ Ratings Jul 16, 2009 Wall Street Journal Wal-Mart to Assign New ‘Green’ Ratings By MIGUEL BUSTILLO Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unveiled an environmental labeling program for the products it carries, in a step that could redefine the design and makeup of consumer goods sold around the globe but also boost costs for suppliers and customers.  

Wal-Mart Thursday will tell suppliers they must calculate and disclose the full environmental costs of making their products, then allow Wal-Mart to distill the information into a rating system that shoppers will see alongside prices for everything from T-shirts to televisions.

 The world’s largest retailer by revenue, once disparaged by environmental groups, said the new initiative represents a bold new step in its efforts to reduce energy consumption, cut waste and introduce sustainable products. It will take years to fully take form. Some of its earlier efforts have had wide-ranging impact — from selling more than 100 million low-energy fluorescent bulbs to the creation of concentrated detergents that use less packaging and water.

 Consumers are not likely to see the first labels for years. The company estimated it could take a half decade or longer, although outside experts involved in the project said it could start sooner, perhaps as early as 2011. What the labels will look like and exactly what they will attempt to illustrate has yet to be determined.

 Wal-Mart’s Image Moves From Demon to Darling What ‘Green’ Labels Can Tell Us Environmental Capital: Wal-Mart’s Big Green Push The most immediate impact of Wal-Mart’s latest drive will be felt by its 100,000 suppliers, which will bear the costs of the company’s environmental mandates, at a time in which many are struggling economically. Wal-Mart said it was premature to estimate the cost to suppliers. Outdoor clothing maker Patagonia Inc., which has been an early pioneer in reducing the environmental footprint of its products, declined to disclose figures, but said its efforts had been costly.

 Wal-Mart insisted there will be no exemptions. Asked what relationship Wal-Mart would maintain with suppliers that don’t supply the data, Chief Merchandising Officer John Fleming said bluntly, “We probably don’t have one.”

 Similar pioneering efforts to convey environmental information to consumers have proved controversial, with even supporters of the idea complaining that the resulting “eco-babble” was of little practical use.

 Len Sauers, Procter & Gamble Co.’s global vice president for sustainability, said the labels would need to be scientifically accurate, yet understandable to consumers. He said similar efforts in Europe “have been quite difficult, because they have not really provided the consumer with information that makes sense.”

 Sustainability Index: Supplier Assessment Questions

Energy and Climate

Reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions

 1. Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions? (Y/N)

 2. Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)? (Y/N)

 3. What are your total greenhouse gas emissions reported in your most recently completed report? (Enter total metric tons CO2e, e.g. CDP6 Questionnaire, Section 2b — Scope 1 and 2 emissions)

 4. Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total metric tons and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)

 Material Efficiency

Reduce waste and enhance quality

 Scores will be automatically calculated based on your participation in the Packaging Scorecard in addition to the following:

 5. If measured, please report total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart Inc for the most recent year measured. (Enter total lbs)

 6. Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total lbs and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)

 7. If measured, please report total water use from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart Inc for the most recent year measured. (Enter total gallons)

 8. Have you set publically available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total gallons and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)

 Natural Resources

High quality, responsibly sourced raw materials

 9. Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices, and product/ingredient safety? (Y/N)

 10. Have you obtained 3rd party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Walmart? If so, from the list of certifications below, please select those for which any of your products are, or utilize materials that are, currently certified.

 People and Community

Responsible and ethical production

 11. Do you know the location of 100% of the facilities that produce your product(s)? (Y/N)

 12. Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate their quality of production and capacity for production? (Y/N)

 13. Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level? (Y/N)

 14. Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements? (Y/N)

 15. Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within? (Y/N)

Wal-Mart executives said they plan to develop labeling easily understood by consumers. “I envision the day that you look at a piece of apparel, you flip a tag over, and learn about how sustainable it really is,” Mr. Fleming said. “It would be like nutritional labeling is today. But there is some standardization that needs to take place.”

 People familiar with the company’s plans said that Wal-Mart is angling to get ahead of potential U.S. environmental labeling regulations — they’ve already begun appearing in Britain and Japan — and to set a standard on its own terms that the retail industry can adopt to communicate the green hue of goods it sells.

 Wal-Mart disputed that it was seeking to preempt regulations. Mr. Fleming, who is helping lead the effort, said he wanted to improve the quality of the products sold by the discounter, which had $401.2 billion in sales last year.

 Retail industry groups claim Wal-Mart made a political calculation recently when it endorsed employer-mandated health insurance, a key component of President Barack Obama’s plan to expand health-care coverage to nearly all Americans. Wal-Mart said it supports the mandate in part because it could help control rising health costs.

 Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke will formally launch the project on Thursday in a speech to employees and suppliers. He will call for “a new retail standard for the 21st Century,” and ask the company’s largest suppliers to provide details, such as water use and carbon dioxide emissions, by October. All suppliers eventually will have to answer a preliminary, 15-item questionnaire, covering waste generation, resource use and community involvement.

 The company’s goal is to build what it terms a comprehensive sustainability index that measures the environmental impact of each product Wal-Mart sells. For example, an index might flag how much each contributes to global warming and if it contains wood harvested in ways that deplete natural stocks.

 “You can design something that is carbon neutral, that does not contribute to climate change, and yet is still detrimental to human health in other ways,” said Jay Golden, a professor at Arizona State University who will be co-chairman of a consortium that will help Wal-Mart compile the data and design standards. “So you have to look comprehensively at what sustainability really means, and that is what Wal-Mart is trying to do here in a very big way.”

 The index will judge products not only by the environmental cost of producing them, but also by the impact over their life span. Company buyers will be judged in part by whether they improve the ratings of the products they purchase from suppliers over time.

 The information will be available to anyone, Wal-Mart said, including rivals, in hopes it will help mold a standard. Although Wal-Mart advisers envision spot audits and dissections of products to determine what they contain, they say transparency is what will ultimately curb potential cheating by suppliers.

 “A lot of suppliers are scared, but there is an opportunity here for them,” said Michelle Harvey of the Environmental Defense Fund, which has worked with Wal-Mart in the past and is assisting on the project. “I think the most significant improvement will come before the consumer ever sees a score,” she said.

Eventually, through product labels, the experiment will test whether consumers pay more for environmentally superior products. Wal-Mart does not believe consumers now are prepared to pay much more, but it believes that will soon change as those born in the 1980s become the company’s primary customers.

 —Ann Zimmerman contributed to this article.

Write to Miguel Bustillo at miguel.bustillo@wsj.com

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Find a Green Plumber

Want to save a little green when it comes to water?  Check to see if you have any water leaks.  If you do, I’d recommend calling a Green Plumber who is trained in conserving water and energy!!

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Kudos on Going Green!

I started off giving kudos to a company and an individual once a month for Going Green.  But I’m finding that there are so many deserving companies and individuals that I’ll be doing future posts under Kudos On Going Green!  Surely these community leaders should be given credit as soon as I hear about them!  Make a difference in going green!  If you know of a company or person making a difference – let me know.  I’d love to share!

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Go Dell! Update on Company of the Month!

Dell is ahead of schedule in meeting their goal of neutralizing carbon! They did so in less than a year with their aggressive energy efficient campaign, purchasing green energy power, reducing emissions and with renewable energy certificates. Their global headquarters is 100% green energy! Dells’ improvements are already saving them over $3million annually and reduced carbon emissions by 20,000 tons! Dell is also participating in other environmental programs!! WOW!! What a role model!!

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