Tag Archives: sustainability
Wal-Mart and an Analysis of Sustainability Index Hiccups
Some time ago, Wal-Mart announced its attempt to lead the creation of a sustainability index. The idea was to provide consumers with clear guidance on the impact of what they bought. Instead of wondering why one product cost a buck more than a different brand, they would have some information on why. Along the way, it was hoped that such transparency would lead to greater competition between firms to drive costs out of the system in a responsible fashion. So how’s that all going? According to Fortune (Jul 13), not so well,… Read More →
Managers paying more attention to sustainability (outside the green industry, that is)
How much are top managers paying attention to sustainability questions? According to respondents to the second annual Sustainability & Innovation Global Executive Study — a collaboration between MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group — the answer depends on how much they know about it. The more they know, the more they pay attention. People who identify themselves as sustainability “experts” are more than two times as likely as sustainability “novices” to say that sustainability is “already a permanent fixture and core strategic consideration.” The Question:… Read More →
"If you're not informed, it's your own fault."
ANLA and SAF have done a yeoman’s job of keeping green industry firms informed of what is happening in Washington in terms of the effects of mid-term elections and the critical regulatory and legislative issues facing nursery/floral businesses today. Be sure to check out the Washington Impact section (click here) of the ANLA Knowledge Center and the latest SAF analysis of the effects of mid-term elections on your business (click here). As the saying goes, what you don’t know, can hurt you.
An all-too-familiar container problem…
Will we ever come to bury the single-use paper cup? Environmentalists of all stripes feel some combination of guilt, confusion, and even indifference when they stop to think about paper cups. Many times those cups are used for less than a minute before they enter the long cycle of becoming either landfill waste, pulp that’s recycled into a new material or compost. The question is a particular headache for Starbucks. According to author Anya Kamenetz, “an astonishing 3 billion of the nation’s 200 billion-plus paper cups thrown into… Read More →
Should suppliers be leading sustainability?
Below is a re-post from the Open for Discussion blog hosted by McDonald’s. This example is obviously not from the green industry, but the question and subsequent answer is pertinent to most industries: “We are a supplier to McDonald’s and are proud of that. We attended the Supplier Sustainability Summit that McDonald’s recently convened. We share your interest in moving along the sustainability agenda. I am curious how you see the customer/supplier relationship. Who should be leading the sustainability agenda? The consumer? The customer? The supplier? Should we… Read More →
Bill Gates on Sustainability at TED 2010
One of the day’s strongest talks at the most recent TED conference was by Bill Gates. He’s spoken at TED previously on a variety of topics, among them education and malaria (last year he set free some mosquitoes from the stage to make a point about the latter). This time he directed his mind toward energy and climate; in particular how to get CO2 levels to zero. He presented an equation in which: Total CO2 = People x Services Per Person x Energy Per Service x CO2 per… Read More →
Sustainable Sites Initiative releases landscape guidelines
The Sustainable Sites Initiative has released the nation’s first rating system for the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings. It was developed through a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden. The initiative’s rating system represents 4 years of work by the country’s leading sustainability experts, scientists and design professionals, as well as public input. “While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings, sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm… Read More →
Make sustainability a core part of your business
From today’s Management Tip of the Day from the Harvard Business School: Sustainability is here to stay. Yet too many organizations treat sustainability as a temporary compliance issue. Use these three tips to make sustainability central to your business: Elevate responsibility for sustainability to the C-suite. Everyone at the top of the organization should be focused on sustainability, but ultimately, responsibility should lie with one person. Establish a Chief Sustainability Officer and fill the position with someone who has the expertise and power to make it an influential… Read More →
Factors Affecting Growers’ Willingness to Adopt Sustainable Floriculture Practices
From the August 2009 issue of HortScience by Tanya Hall (Purdue University) et al: In June to Oct. 2008, a U.S. floriculture survey was conducted to examine the factors affecting growers’ willingness to adopt sustainable practices. The factors affecting adoption of sustainable practices were evaluated in five areas: environmental regulations, customer value, growers’ attitudes toward sustainability, age, and operation size. A logistic regression model was used to examine factors affecting growers’ adoption of sustainable practices. Nearly two-thirds (65.2%) of respondents thought sustainability was very important to the environment…. Read More →
