People. Planet. Profit

A company's true commitment to sustainability requires not only reducing the negative impacts from its operations, but more importantly, changing its products and services to be more sustainable and help address environmental and social challenges.

Dow Chemical Co. has had a long commitment to sustainability -- which I've been fortunate to see in action through Dow's engagement with my organization, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. But when I heard Rose Perkins' recent presentation during my Green Innovation class at the Carroll School of Management, it became clear just how much Dow has changed its strategies and product portfolio in the last few years.

A couple of weeks ago I posted the press release we issued on this year's Eco Pulse study, the focus of which was on the finding that "made in America" tested really well in several questions and categories -- trumping many other sustainability features (and, until now, I think most of us weren't thinking of "made in America" as a sustainability feature).

Investing in broadband to develop robust and high speed communications networks will help grow the world's economy without also growing greenhouse gas emissions.

New laws take effect in Vermont and Virginia today, giving ethical business a boost. If Vermont's law had been around 11 years ago, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield might not have had to sell their ice cream company.

The U.S. Green Building Council's streamlined LEED certification for large groups of existing buildings graduated from pilot phase to official status this week after five years in development, and some of its early adopters are already reporting strong energy and water savings from the program.

Water scarcity is already presenting challenges to the operations of companies in water-intensive industries, as a new report from EIRIS points out.

According to the report, entitled A drought in your portfolio: are global companies responding to water scarcity? [PDF], examples include the abandonment by Nestle Waters in 2009 of a plan to build the USA's largest bottling plant in California; severe rationing of electricity during droughts in France and Brazil; and the loss for three years of Coca Cola's license to operate in India. EIRIS cites several more such examples of water scarcity impacting business operations already, but clearly the worst by far is yet to come. As the CDP Water Disclosure project states, "Demand for water is projected to outstrip supply by a staggering 40 percent by 2030, and an estimated half the world's population are likely to live in areas of high water stress by the same year."

Last fall, Unilever announced the impressive goals of its Sustainable Living Plan: cutting environmental impacts in half by 2020, sourcing 100 percent of agricultural materials sustainably, and helping more than one billion people improve their health and well-being.

For as long as companies have been communicating their CSR efforts, analysts and investors -- and concerned individuals, of course -- have been asking whether stronger reports lead to better companies. In the course of a recent study we conducted at CSRHUB, we think we've found a conclusive answer.

Vehicles that report where they are and their speed at all times. Vending machines that tell you exactly what needs to be refilled. Car chargers, smart meters and other devices that work with the grid to pull energy at optimal times.

These technologies are all part of the growing market for machine-to-machine technologies. 

IBM has saved $50 million in the past two years through thousands of energy and efficiency projects around the world, the company says in its 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report.

Efficient lighting, better operating schedules for building systems and cloud computing are among the efforts that pushed IBM over a couple of its energy goals.