A newly-released Pew Center report “From Shop Floor to Top Floor: Best Business Practices in Energy Efficiency,” documents that US companies are increasingly pursuing innovative energy efficiency strategies to boost productivity and cost savings, while reducing their carbon footprint.
Sustainable Brands ’10 Power of ANDSustainable Life Media is kicking off Sustainable Brands 2010 in Monterey, CA on June 7-10, 2010 with the “#powerofAND” online campaign, a search for stories that combine two ideas to create a powerful concept with AND.
Corporate- Responsibility Salary SurveyThe Corporate Responsibility Salary Survey, now in its third year, for the first time, has a global emphasis. The results show a rising prominence of climate change and carbon as top priority for corporate social responsibility professionals. Other trends revealed in the study are increasing salaries for middle-level professionals, a growing sense of job security and a new generation of CSR professionals who are for the first time, have not transitioned from other occupations, but have worked exclusively in CSR field.
As part of Sustainable Life Media’s mission to be a bridge to better brands, they are presenting the second annual Sustainable Brands Innovation Open, an early stage business competition focused on connecting the existing global brands and socially responsible investor communities to the most innovative new product and service solutions being brought to market by today’s social and eco-entrepreneurs.
It may seem like big businesses are the only companies getting buzz for going green, but for small and medium-sized enterprises, there are countless ways to reap rewards by adopting sustainable practices.
The idea sounds simple enough. Create a team of volunteers from existing employees. Have them focus on ways to green the business and culture. In turn, create cost savings, attract top talent due to an improvement in brand recognition, and increase market share from the newfound brand image, possibly even innovative product and services. The idea and the goal sound simple, while the execution and plan of attack seem a bit more complex. How can an individual or company go about implementing this team of sustainability focused volunteers? Resources and guides may be abundant and abound. The report, “Green Teams: Engaging Employees in Sustainability,” released by GreenBiz.com and Green Impact, provides a good starting point that captures the business case for these green teams, how to get started, four key areas behind best practices, and a breakdown of 10 best practices in developing green teams.
According to the report released by independent research firm, Verdantix, increasing oil and electricity prices, the hidden cost of carbon, growing risks from energy supply disruption and board-level climate change compliance issues make energy efficiency a new imperative for the CFO.
We should engage employees because they are a key stakeholder group. They have the primary impact on the performance of the company in any particular corporate responsibility pillar and they have an impact through their actions outside of the workplace. We will look at employee engagement by harnessing and building momentum, and integrating sustainability with the business.
