Green Team

Underlying the general excitement of 700,000 fans that populate the two-week 2009 US Open – Elite Athlete Eye Candy! Unseeded Player Dreams! Open Seating Options! – is the USTA’s ongoing, long-term commitment to greening its enterprise. What’s the sweet spot? According to Rita Garza, Senior Director of Corporate Relations, USTA, “Outdoor tennis and a concern [...]

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Driving sustainability into the operations of a company is an oft-stated goal for sustainability departments. How many times have you heard (or said!): “My vision is that one day our department will go away…and sustainability will be just part of everyday business, and the sustainability department will be out of a job.”  But how do [...]

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We all know what we need to do to make our companies more environmentally friendly: use less energy, water, and paper, travel less and make less garbage. But yeah, it’s easier said than done especially if you’re in a carbon intensive business like manufacturing or energy production. What’s the company without a lot of time [...]

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I ask a simple gut-check question when reading a sustainability report:  “What does [insert “green” initiative here] have to do with this company’s operations?” The connection should be obvious. While “One Million Acts of Green” are admirable, it makes more sense to inventory impacts and make reductions where they matter most.  (Can I leave my [...]

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Nike and Creative Commons are not two organizations you’d typically hear in the same sentence. And especially not working together. Try, “…a project of Nike, Creative Commons, and Best Buy.” That’s what GreenXchange is. Here’s a video laying the groundwork: GreenXchange is a part of CC’s Science Commons project. As in other Creative Commons efforts, [...]

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Esurance was founded in 1999 during the peak of the dot com boom. It was the first auto insurer to offer its services exclusively online, from quotes to purchasing to communications to policy documents. As the company capitalized on a technological revolution, it helped create an innovative new business model, one that is inherently greener [...]

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Founded in 1976, Genentech, a wholly owned member of the Roche Group since March 2009, is a biotech company with more than 11,000 employees. While generally viewed as a founder of the biotechnology industry, Genentech isn’t necessarily one of the first brand names that come to mind when people think of corporate sustainability. The pioneering [...]

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When Tod Arbogast, Dell’s Director of Sustainability, was interviewing for his current position, he posed a question to Michael Dell, the iconic namesake of the PC giant: “If I got this job, what would you expect of me first and foremost?” Dell replied, simply and profoundly: “Courage.” Arbogast needed courage to carry forward issues that [...]

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When talking about Coca-Cola, you’re talking about 300 different companies in over 200 countries with over 1 million employees. You’re talking about a balance sheet larger than most nations’ GDPs. It is a massive organism, and when things start changing at a place like that, the ripple effects can be powerful and many. From hokey [...]

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I’m typically skeptical when big corporations launch “green” initiatives, automatically assuming that their newfound eco-consciousness stance is an attempt to grab today’s earth-minded consumer, and elevate their brand in the process. And more often than not, that’s unfortunately the case, using causes and environmental issues to create the perception of social responsibility, while their commitment [...]

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Net Impact’s new report Making Your Impact at Work: A Practical Guide to Changing the World From Inside Any Company offers fresh ideas for greening your job without finding a new one. And it reinforces a commonplace among career counselors: Volunteering and taking the initiative to do what you’re passionate about is one of the [...]

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John Donahoe, the CEO of eBay, stood underneath a pop-up tent on a rainy Friday in San Jose. He had on running shoes, old jeans, and wore an eBay Green Team tee over a long-sleeved, button-up shirt. For being the head of one of the most well-known names in Silicon Valley, he was refreshingly approachable [...]

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The Evolution of a Responsible Enterprise The sustainability guru, Bob Willard, developed the very useful Sustainability Continuum to describe the five stages companies go through as they evolve and integrate sustainability initiatives into their business operations. After speaking with Cecily Joseph, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Symantec, who provided the detail below, I would say [...]

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In a down economy, everyone has to be ready to prove the value of their contribution. Heck, even in a good economy, it’s essential to demonstrate the return on our work. But for those of us working in sustainability, the challenge is doubly important: not only do we have to create sustainable change, we often [...]

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The eBay Green Team started over a pizza pie. In 2007, 40 eBay employees got together, driven by a common goal – to make environmental and green issues a priority within the company. Fast forward two years and over 1,000 employees across 18 different countries are currently part of the Green Team. And yesterday marked [...]

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