In this “as good as it gets” economic recovery, companies are intent on growing the top line while minimizing costs. Corporate staffs are shrinking or disappearing entirely, and the traditional EHS role faces internal competition from other groups that are taking on parts of the broader sustainability agenda. In this context, EHS VPs who keep their heads down and do their jobs well may be highly skilled, highly valuable, highly overworked—and highly likely to be headed to extinction. In contrast, entrepreneurial EHS leaders are keeping and expanding their roles by moving beyond their traditional comfort zones . . . .

Boston’s Logan International Airport, New England’s largest transportation center, serves more than 20 million passengers per year and employs 12,000 people. Despite its size, Boston Logan is one of the nation’s most environmentally advanced transportation hubs.  In 2008, the airport won the Environmental Management Award presented by the Airports Council International–North America (ACI-NA), in large
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By now, it is pretty obvious that India has a booming economy, which has helped numerous individuals and families have a far better quality of life than could have been previously imagined. However, is it fair to say that poverty is close to eradication in India?  The clear answer is no. By most estimates, for more
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For years, those of us in the environmental and sustainability (E&S) profession have sought credible metrics to quantify the economic value of our efforts.  Studies dating back to the late 1980s attempted to demonstrate “E&S value.”  Most of these studies either showed rather tenuous links between E&S initiatives and valuation or used pseudofinancial metrics not
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SAM, the investment boutique focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing, and Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, announced on September 8th the 2011 results of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) annual review. 729 companies participated in the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment, a 40% increase since 2007. 41 companies will be added to the
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In November of 2006, Gartner Group, a leading information technology (IT) research firm, released a study that shocked the industry. Gartner predicted that by 2008, half of the world’s data centers would have insufficient power and cooling capacity to meet demand.1 Data center energy consumption, which accounts for approximately 1.5 percent of electricity consumption in
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How much greenhouse gas a company produces has a significant effect on the value of the company’s stock, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California (UC), Davis; UC, Berkeley; and University of Otago in New Zealand. The greater the carbon emissions, the lower a company’s stock, all other factors being
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Since 2004, members of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) have been required to implement MAC’s Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative. This initiative requires member companies to implement programs to meet requirements under the following performance indicators: Tailings Management Energy Use and GHG Emissions Management Crisis Management Planning External Outreach Many mining companies are applying
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In our role as environmental and business consultants who assist global companies in developing and implementing sustainability strategies, we’ve noticed three important trends in sustainability programs: expanded transparency and reporting; enhanced importance of ratings, rankings and standards; and whole systems life cycle thinking. [...]

With the increased focus on sustainability in the marketplace, consumers have the choice between sustainable and traditional alternatives in a growing number of product categories. Despite this growth in the number of alternatives available, not all consumers are buying sustainable products. In fact, the success of sustainable products differs by product category: for example, sustainable
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