3p Contributor: Dale Wannen
Recent Articles
Conglomerate Kraft Foods Sets New Standard in Waste Reduction
As the largest packaged food company in America, Kraft Foods has put their trademark on everything from Cool Whip to Shake’N Bake to Nutter Butters. Most recently though, Kraft has surprisingly marked itself as a pioneer in the reduction of manufacturing waste. This $50 billion dollar conglomerate has slashed its waste stream by 30 percent (double their original estimate), recycles or reuses 90 percent of its waste and sends zero waste to landfills from 9 of its major facilities.
How’d They Do It? Kraft’s main challenge according to GreenBiz, was simply to find other uses for their garbage. In their Melbourne, Australia plant the company eliminated over 100 tons of filler and label waste by making its assembly line on their peanut butter more efficient. In China, they determined that they could send excess sugar from its Tang plant to another facility that makes Halls cough drops. Even here in the states, they sent over 5 million pounds of mustard seed hulls from its production of Grey Poupon to a local farm to be used as cow feed, hence diverting this from the landfills it usually ends up at.
Want a Bonus for Greening Your Company?
Well, it’s about time. Bonuses strictly related to quarterly profits may become a thing of the past as the corporate image of BP and its dubious sustainability measures have wreaked havoc on their stock price; rather, rewards based on a deeper measurement of sustainability may start to pay off.
In fact, the recently published Roadmap to Sustainability developed by Ceres, a Boston based network of institutional investors, shows that increased attention by upper level management on sustainability is forcing companies to change. It’s important to note that Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a group of more than 70 leading institutional investors with collective assets of more than $7 trillion.
Does the Cream in Your Coffee Lead to Environmental Detriment?
Every morning I pour myself a beautifully crafted, french-pressed cup of coffee. After it neatly descends into my cup, I pour a fair amount of milk into it. Apparently, hot beverages comprise quite a bit of our collective carbon footprints. It’s recently been noted that before you even head out into the car to commute to work, you’re increasing your carbon footprint considerably by adding cream to your coffee.
According to a recent article in The Guardian, the carbon footprint of the milk in a cup of coffee creates more CO2 than boiling the water and farming the beans combined. In fact, if you drink three large lattes each day for a year, you’ve used as much energy as flying half way across the continent of Europe. Now, sipping on three milk-infused lattes per day may be extreme, but the point is that a latte puts out about 16 times more grams of carbon than a simple black cup of coffee. The reason behind all of this is the large amount of methane being released by the cows who produce the milk.
Coulomb Technologies to Bring 5000 Electric Car Charging Stations to US
Mad Max, meet the Jetsons. Imagine pulling your electric car into a charging station not worrying about the dozen or so gallons of gas being poured into the back of your car. Imagine there being enough of these charging stations that you need not worry about losing your charge while cruising down an interstate, miles beyond your car’s range.
Well, imagine no more. Northern California-based Coulomb Technologies has announced its plan to install almost 5,000 stations across the U.S. by next year. Yes, 5,000! Being partly supported by the US Department of Energy and Ford Motor Company, these stations will be placed in nine metropolitan areas throughout the country. The company’s branded Smartlet stations are targeted to parking lot owners and municipalities and can be installed in numerous areas like apartment and workplace parking lots and along public streets. The stations are linked together on a network and are tied into municipal electrical grids; drivers pay for access to this power through memberships and by simply swiping a card.
Lawsuits Start to Surface From Unclear Green Labeling
My conscious weighs on me as I stare at the selection of colorful shampoos in aisle five of Whole Foods. Should I pay the extra $1.49 for the one made from organic lavender or save some cash and opt for the one containing the ever-so healthy sodium lauryl sulfite? According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Green Goods, Red Flags, 17% of American consumers agree with me and are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products, which is up from 10% last year. But are these products as “environmentally friendly” as labeled?
Consumers are becoming more hip to the fact that some of these labels are actually created by the marketing department of the company, not a third party regulator. SC Johnson’s Greenlist label on their Shout and Windex bottles were actually created by the company itself, similar to when mom used to make her delicious “homemade” macaroni and cheese, while you later open the trash can you see boxes of Stouffers tucked below. Just as it’s upsetting to me, this false labeling is upsetting consumers. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently stepped in as four consumer lawsuits have been filed since 2007 due to a failure to follow the well documented FTC Green Guide.
Accounting for the Next Debt Crisis
It wasn’t so long ago that the Enron scandal emerged and “cooking the books” became a common expression. Some corporations did almost anything to beat their competitors and as big banks were caught being leveraged more than 30 to 1, we witnessed another failed regulatory accounting method which has led to the current debt crisis. As we claw our way out of this recession, numerous variations of how to account for such downfalls are emerging. And this time the game is changing.
This past week over 1200 people from almost 80 countries and organizations, from Hess to Harvard, merged at the Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to brainstorm on the issues of sustainable reporting and disclosure. At a time when corporate greed seems to still waft in the air, full-cost accounting was the topic of choice. Mark Gunther’s recent article The Next Debt Crisis Will Be Ecological seamlessly explains how we are living beyond our means. Speakers at the GRI conference reported we are currently using, on an annual basis, 130% to 140% of the earth’s biocapacity or basically an additional 40% on top of what the atmosphere is capable of chewing up and spitting back out all cleaned up.
Exxon Shareholders Call for Risk Disclosure on Canadian Oil Sands
Given the current horrifying disaster in the Gulf, it is quickly becoming fashionable to highlight alternative means of extracting oil. As we all know and as President Obama once pointed out “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” The same holds true in the oil extraction business as various methods of extraction are coming to the forefront, but the issue remains: dirty oil. While BP searches for ways to plug this leak, pressure from shareholders is mounting, as well.
On a bright and sunny morning in Dallas this past Wednesday morning, executives with Exxon Mobil Corp were confronted with the first-ever shareholder resolution demanding more disclosure about the oil giant’s involvement in Canadian oil sands. This shareholder resolution, led by Boston-based Green Century Capital Management and supported by pension fund California State Teachers Retirement Fund (CalSTRS), received a surprisingly high vote of 26.4% of investors’ support. The resolution called for Exxon to generate a report describing the risks involved with oil sands projects.
Crowd Funding: A New Way to Finance Your Startup
Amidst the chaos of a global financial meltdown, it can be easy to overlook certain aspects of banking that are less urgent. VC funding seems to have flown under the radar as of late, however, it makes a big difference for entrepreneurs who are looking for funding to jumpstart their new businesses. Sadly, it’s now at its lowest point in 10 years. Even with 2010′s first quarter $4.71 billion wagered on venture opportunities, the outlook isn’t rosy.
Enter Crowd Funding. Crowd Funding or “crowd financing” basically uses the power of the Internet to fund startup organizations. An entrepreneur who is searching for funding could seek pledges of small amounts to support the growth of her venture. Whereas traditional venture financing is generally limited to wealthy or “accredited” investors (think Caddyshack country club members making deals on the golf course), crowdfunding allows the average person to partake in the potential growth of a startup and at the same time benefit a small business.
What the Frack is Going On?
Hydraulic fracturing. Sounds like something the guy next door did to his souped up Toyota Corolla’s suspension system. Well, it’s actually far worse. Hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) is a process in which water, chemicals and other particles are injected into the ground, anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 feet below the surface, in order to stimulate more production of oil and natural gas. This process (picture a highly pressurized hose going down into the earth and actually breaking apart the rock in order to get to more natural gas) has been used since the 1940s, however, only recently has it gained in popularity in the public eye because of its unhealthy side effects finally showing up after years of uncertainty and even the EPA is now showing concern.
Shareholders of natural gas companies are starting to voice concern as well. At the recent shareholder meetings of Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation and EOG Resources Inc., a third of the shareholders at both companies voted in favor supporting resolutions asking these companies to be more transparent in their disclosure of environmental hazards of natural gas production and what they are doing to minimize the risks. Keep in mind, a third of all shareholders between these two companies represents hundreds of millions of voting shares.
Asleep at the Wheel: What BP, Goldman Sachs and Massey Have in Common
With an array of disasters occurring around the world as we speak, it is tempting to take a step back and think about how we have ended up in such a lovely state. Ah yes, the delight of disaster due to corporate greed. Robert Reich’s recent article “Bring Back Regulation” does a great job demonstrating how all of these problems are mainly due to the lack of regulation by big brother who was supposed to be keeping an eye on things. Well, it seems as if big brother was out on one too many smoke breaks recently.
BP’s dirty oil
Every 10 years we face a major oil spill of some kind. The current spill, courtesy of BP, could be the worst ever as thousands of barrels of oil continue to spill into the Gulf every day. The Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service was supposed to be the big brother in this case. Clearly it hasn’t done its job as there isn’t even a technology known that can stop oil from leaking at 5,000 feet below the surface (though in the last day we have learned quickly). Keep in mind this is the same federal service that takes in about $10 billion in royalties every year and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue besides taxes. With all of that said, BP will be slapped with a billion dollar bill on this one, but for a $160 billion dollar company, that’s hardly a drop in the bucket.
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