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Compliance regulations are tightening for highly polluting industries such as utilities, energy, chemicals and pharmacy manufacturing and distribution niches. Gathering and managing data on compliance and prevention of environmental impact is challenging and requires tested "best practices" that can be updated to keep pace with innovations, changes in regulations and changes in operations. Online software applications can provide this 24/7 reporting platform and help companies gather and refine and manage their internal best operational practices.
The online compliance reporting system developed by Enviance System allows consulting and engineering (C&E) firms to expand service areas with consistent solutions for areas ranging from corporate compliance to health and safety.
Instead of starting from scratch on every project, Enviance System users begin work with designated best practice models already in the Enviance System and configure them according to a client's processes and needs.
Below is a snapshot view of a few applications that the Enviance System helps companies manage — for clients as well as for internal company needs:
The Enviance System is a comprehensive compliance management software platform that provides:
2386 Faraday Avenue, Suite 220
Carlsbad, CA 92008
PH: 760.496.0200
www.enviance.com
The online compliance reporting system developed by Enviance System allows consulting and engineering (C&E) firms to expand service areas with consistent solutions for areas ranging from corporate compliance to health and safety.
Instead of starting from scratch on every project, Enviance System users begin work with designated best practice models already in the Enviance System and configure them according to a client's processes and needs.
Below is a snapshot view of a few applications that the Enviance System helps companies manage — for clients as well as for internal company needs:
The Enviance System is a comprehensive compliance management software platform that provides:
- Environmental managers new confidence in their compliance assurance and information management efforts
- Dramatically reduces the time, costs, and risks associated with environmental compliance and management information systems
- Establishes consistent institutional knowledge management standards that protect your company or business and eliminate environmental compliance guesswork down the road
- Improves EHS regulatory management performance
- Delivers these benefits faster and more efficiently than site-based software technology solutions.
2386 Faraday Avenue, Suite 220
Carlsbad, CA 92008
PH: 760.496.0200
www.enviance.com
Wal-Mart sustainability scorecard standards | |
| 15% | will be based on Greenhouse Gas (GHG)/CO2 per ton of Production |
| 15% | will be based on Material Value |
| 15% | will be based on Product/Package Ratio |
| 15% | will be based on Cube Utilization |
| 10% | will be based on Transportation |
| 10% | will be based on Recycled Content |
| 10% | will be based on Recovery Value |
| 5% | will be based on Renewable Energy |
| 5% | will be based on Innovation |
Sustainability Planning Resources:
Design Guidelines Available Online
- SPC – Design Guideline
- Association of Post Consumer Plastics has a design for recyclability guideline
-
FTC Guidelines
|
Sustainable packaging:
The criteria presented here blend broad sustainability objectives with business considerations and strategies that address the environmental concerns related to the life cycle of packaging. These criteria relate to the activities of our membership and define the areas in which we actively seek to encourage transformation, innovation and optimization. We believe that by successfully addressing these criteria, packaging can be transformed into a cradle to cradle flow of packaging materials in a system that is economically robust and provides benefit throughout the life cycle—a sustainable packaging system. SOURCE: Sustainable Packaging Coalition |
Whether it's called sustainable packaging, green packaging, biodegradable packaging, or natural packaging,
there is a growing consumer demand for sustainable products. There is
also a growing sense of urgency from product manufacturers - especially
consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) - to develop sustainable
business practices based on the increasingly limited availability of
traditional packaging materials.
In spite of sustainable packaging becoming more mainstream (i.e. more major brand owners using sustainable materials for their packaging), finding sustainable solutions to meet consumer demands and corporate citizenship objectives is still a daunting challenge for packaging professionals.
The Packaging Summit Expo and Conference
May 13-15, 2008
Donald Stephens Convention Center,
Rosemont, IL
262-782-1900
www.pkgsummit.com
Green Marketing Doesn't Stop with the Sale...
Stop Single-Use Bag Waste with CHICOBAG
- The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year.
- If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth not once, but 760 times!
- According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees to be cut down.
- Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo-degrade—breaking down into small toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food-chain when mistaken for zooplankton or jellyfish.
The ChicoBag Company
48 Losse Way
Chico, CA 95926
530.313.5252
888.496.6166
530.267.5434 fax
info@chicobag.com
CHICOBAG
Green Car Institute, a non-profit research and educational organization, has conducted a major study of
the market for neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs).The study measures the potential for NEVs, focusing on their primary consumer market, master planned communities.
Green Car Institute’s background includes the landmark study of the electric vehicle market in California presented to the California Air Resources Board in September 2000: The Current & Future Market for Electric Vehicles. The study remains the most thorough publicly available research quantifying the market potential of, and analyzing obstacles to, the mass marketing of battery electric vehicles.
A number of electric vehicle marketing studies for NEVs are available on the Green Cars Institute website at www.greencars.org/studies.html
"Messaging" is about finding the right motivator FIRST, then finding the right wording, offer and channels for sharing the message.IN 1994, PHILIPS LAUNCHED "EARTHLIGHT," an energy-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb with a clumsy shape that was incompatible with most conventional lamps, sold in a confusing package and carrying a $15 price tag compared to 75 cents for the incandescent bulbs. Sales languished.
Philips re-introduced the product in 2000 under the name "Marathon" to emphasize the bulb's five-year life. A new design offered the look and versatility of incandescent bulbs. Communications promised $20 in cost savings over the life of the bulbs, and an Energy Star seal emblazoned on a redesigned package front provided credibility. This new value proposition triggered sales growth of 12% in a flat market.
Philips' experience provides a valuable lesson in how to avoid the common pitfall of "green marketing myopia." While noble, the environmental positioning of the original EarthLight product appealed to only the deepest green of consumers. Inevitably, mainstream consumers ask, "If I use 'green' products, what's in it for me?"
Structuring your message to meet the highest priorities of the customer starts with the product itself...and that's something many green companies avoid because they don't value marketing as PART OF THE PRODUCT. First comes science, then engineering...and after the world doesn't beat a pathway to their door, they find a marketer to spruce it up and create an overnight miracle! It's sad, but the world just doesn't work that way. True marketing is part of a dialog between the customer and the inventor...and then between the customer and the manufacturer. And THEN, after the core is in alignment -- between the marketer and the customer.
Read the rest of this article at CaliforniaGreenSolutions.com
"Be the most effective you can be" -- that is the heart of sustainability.
Business still believes it HAS TO GROW. And investors want HIGH growth. Like invasive species. It's a governance dilemma to balance growth pressure on one side, and the realization that environmental damage caused by high growth is increasing long term environmental risks that can damage the company.
How do you evaluate executives on a corporate teeter-totter of growth and social responsibility?
In recent years / and months -- higher margin products were acceptable to well educated, higher income customers. Wal-Mart's aggressive and huge impact in the marketplace is changing that equation, slightly. They are pricing products for the average consumer to give them access to making better choices -- Wal-Mart is working to bring Waste Reduced products to the middle and lower income markets.
At the Eco-nomics conference in March 2008, Lee Scott of Wal-Mart talked about bottled water as a metaphor for balancing staying in business to serve customer demands with the business strategy of reducing costs and creating less of an environmental impact -- to be the most effective you can be, more environmentally effective.
Waste is the issue of our decade. And the solution is to reduce waste for numerous reasons: staying competitive in the global marketplace, increasing product ROI, reducing climate change risks and their growing costs, protecting our customers, families and neighbors from toxic health dangers, compliance with tightening regulations... and ... survival.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
Business still believes it HAS TO GROW. And investors want HIGH growth. Like invasive species. It's a governance dilemma to balance growth pressure on one side, and the realization that environmental damage caused by high growth is increasing long term environmental risks that can damage the company.
How do you evaluate executives on a corporate teeter-totter of growth and social responsibility?
In recent years / and months -- higher margin products were acceptable to well educated, higher income customers. Wal-Mart's aggressive and huge impact in the marketplace is changing that equation, slightly. They are pricing products for the average consumer to give them access to making better choices -- Wal-Mart is working to bring Waste Reduced products to the middle and lower income markets.
At the Eco-nomics conference in March 2008, Lee Scott of Wal-Mart talked about bottled water as a metaphor for balancing staying in business to serve customer demands with the business strategy of reducing costs and creating less of an environmental impact -- to be the most effective you can be, more environmentally effective.
Scott admits that their main motivation is to reduce waste -- which is equivalent to reducing costs. In the greater scheme of business, reducing waste also reduces stress and strain on the planet that provides the raw materials in the first place. Facing reality is a good thing. A prudent thing. A responsible approach to long term risk-management.
Among other steps, Scott said the company is working with its thousands of
suppliers to reduce the amount of cardboard and other plastic packaging
in its products. The company is also looking into ways to reduce the
amount of plastic in bottled water and transportation emissions and fuel use. The impetus for the
company in doing all this isn’t just to please environmentalists, he
said, but more to save money.
“It really is about how you take cost out, which is waste,” he said.
Waste is a huge problem in the US. Landfills are growing daily -- and the side effect is the methane they spew into the air. The largest -- the Number One Export -- out of the Southern California ports is waste materials -- waste paper, waste plastic and waste metal. We're losing our recycled content to the international market and buying it back in cheaper incarnations.Waste is the issue of our decade. And the solution is to reduce waste for numerous reasons: staying competitive in the global marketplace, increasing product ROI, reducing climate change risks and their growing costs, protecting our customers, families and neighbors from toxic health dangers, compliance with tightening regulations... and ... survival.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
Peapod's new proprietary software program has the antidote to food selection that has nasty habits like anaphylaxis, intestinal damage and cardiac arrest.
NutriFilter scans the nutritional information for the online grocer's 10,000 SKUs and shows shoppers what fits their profile.
Specific dietary needs coded into the product include gluten-free, organic, peanut-free, low-fat and Kosher. Other common diets will be added in the future.
This online technology will clearly empower consumers to use online research to a greater degree for grocery and other products. Peapod shoppers already were able to view nutritional information per SKU by clicking on product images, but initial reactions to the new capabilities may move even shoppers to healthier diets.
Shoppers can go into Peapod's well designed tool and click on low sodium and low fat. Families can even create and store multiple NutriFilter profiles, specific to the desired food attributes of each member.
While the online grocery shopping model has not been widely viewed as a success, new Web 2.0 interactivity and ease of customization with pre-scored customer needs can add a true benefit without incremental cost.
Launching the new free service focuses on email to Peapod's 300,000 regular users in Chicago, Milwaukee and East Coast markets. Since Peapd's online nutrients product is designed to make it easier and faster to select products that meet specific consumer needs, they have not sought nonprofit groups' endorsements, but believe that the quality of the service will attract a number of endorsements.
They are adding Weight Watchers points to each inventory item and may provide SKU-level information for popular diets such as the South beach and Zone diets in the future.
Given the broad-scale epidemic of obesity in America, there are many tie-ins with diet and nutrition programs that could help provide consumers with easy access to customized diet planning. As consumers become more aware of the product nutritional information in their daily shopping, Peapod believes that food companies will have to start relying on simpler, whole ingredients and reducing or eliminating artificial ingredients.
SOURCE: Mediapost.com April, 2008
Peapod
1-800-5-PEAPOD
http://www.peapod.com
NutriFilter scans the nutritional information for the online grocer's 10,000 SKUs and shows shoppers what fits their profile.
Specific dietary needs coded into the product include gluten-free, organic, peanut-free, low-fat and Kosher. Other common diets will be added in the future.
This online technology will clearly empower consumers to use online research to a greater degree for grocery and other products. Peapod shoppers already were able to view nutritional information per SKU by clicking on product images, but initial reactions to the new capabilities may move even shoppers to healthier diets.
Shoppers can go into Peapod's well designed tool and click on low sodium and low fat. Families can even create and store multiple NutriFilter profiles, specific to the desired food attributes of each member.
While the online grocery shopping model has not been widely viewed as a success, new Web 2.0 interactivity and ease of customization with pre-scored customer needs can add a true benefit without incremental cost.
Launching the new free service focuses on email to Peapod's 300,000 regular users in Chicago, Milwaukee and East Coast markets. Since Peapd's online nutrients product is designed to make it easier and faster to select products that meet specific consumer needs, they have not sought nonprofit groups' endorsements, but believe that the quality of the service will attract a number of endorsements.
They are adding Weight Watchers points to each inventory item and may provide SKU-level information for popular diets such as the South beach and Zone diets in the future.
Given the broad-scale epidemic of obesity in America, there are many tie-ins with diet and nutrition programs that could help provide consumers with easy access to customized diet planning. As consumers become more aware of the product nutritional information in their daily shopping, Peapod believes that food companies will have to start relying on simpler, whole ingredients and reducing or eliminating artificial ingredients.
SOURCE: Mediapost.com April, 2008
Peapod
1-800-5-PEAPOD
http://www.peapod.com
Sustainability is an emerging opportunity for the food industry, and
FMI's sustainability task force is developing the tools and resources
most needed to frame this issue and begin to develop and implement
sustainability strategies. The task force has defined sustainability as
"Business practices and strategies that promote the long term
well-being of the environment, society and the bottom-line".
The Sustainability Opportunity for Retail and Wholesale Executives - A powerpoint presentation for use in company to present the business case -- the "what" and "why" for sustainability.
FMI's Sustainability Starter Kit - Executive Summary - A strategic framework to help companies review and analyze what sustainability means as a business issue for them and practical tips and advice on how to get started in developing and executing their own approach to sustainability.
Sustainability and Recycling in the Food Industry - A report that explores shopper practices and attitudes and how the industry is responding.
The Hartman Group Sustainable Consumer Research - A powerpoint presentation which outlines findings of the new research focusing on consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding sustainability.
New custom research developed specifically for FMI by Catalina Marketing that focuses on the actual shopping behaviors of customers, the value of the "green market basket", and the loyalty of green consumers. Sustainability Resource List - FMI has compiled this listing of resources to help your company identify and connect to some of the key sustainability resources - including organizations, publications, conferences, and experts.
BBMG Meets the Conscious Consumer - New research report by socially responsible branding and marketing firm BBMG uncovers the attitudes and beliefs that are defining conscious consumers, shaping their priorities, and driving their purchase decisions. Read the white paper.
NEW Research Report from IRI - reporting that sustainability is an increasingly important decision factor among American consumers regarding both the products they purchase as well as the stores at which they purchase them.
Research Report from IRI - The Forum For the Future report Retail Futures offers a glimpse of what the retail experience of 2022 might involve. Through four radically different and detailed scenarios, Retail Futures 2022 explores many of the issues the retail sector will have to face in the years to come.
Sustainability Task Force Contact
FMI has begun to assemble some key tools, research and resources on this site. If you are interested in learning more or being engaged with the task force, contact Jeanne von Zastrow, Senior Director, FMI, by email or call 435-259-3342.
http://www.fmi.org/sustainability/
The Sustainability Opportunity for Retail and Wholesale Executives - A powerpoint presentation for use in company to present the business case -- the "what" and "why" for sustainability.
FMI's Sustainability Starter Kit - Executive Summary - A strategic framework to help companies review and analyze what sustainability means as a business issue for them and practical tips and advice on how to get started in developing and executing their own approach to sustainability.
Sustainability and Recycling in the Food Industry - A report that explores shopper practices and attitudes and how the industry is responding.
The Hartman Group Sustainable Consumer Research - A powerpoint presentation which outlines findings of the new research focusing on consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding sustainability.
New custom research developed specifically for FMI by Catalina Marketing that focuses on the actual shopping behaviors of customers, the value of the "green market basket", and the loyalty of green consumers. Sustainability Resource List - FMI has compiled this listing of resources to help your company identify and connect to some of the key sustainability resources - including organizations, publications, conferences, and experts.
BBMG Meets the Conscious Consumer - New research report by socially responsible branding and marketing firm BBMG uncovers the attitudes and beliefs that are defining conscious consumers, shaping their priorities, and driving their purchase decisions. Read the white paper.
NEW Research Report from IRI - reporting that sustainability is an increasingly important decision factor among American consumers regarding both the products they purchase as well as the stores at which they purchase them.
Research Report from IRI - The Forum For the Future report Retail Futures offers a glimpse of what the retail experience of 2022 might involve. Through four radically different and detailed scenarios, Retail Futures 2022 explores many of the issues the retail sector will have to face in the years to come.
Sustainability Task Force Contact
FMI has begun to assemble some key tools, research and resources on this site. If you are interested in learning more or being engaged with the task force, contact Jeanne von Zastrow, Senior Director, FMI, by email or call 435-259-3342.
http://www.fmi.org/sustainability/
