Packaging and paper products manufacturer Boise has cut CO2 emissions by 60 percent by switching from road to rail and packing its products more efficiently in rail containers, says a case study from Environmental Defense Fund.
HP is using a railroad to ship electronics manufactured in China to European markets, cutting its travel time, costs and carbon footprint in the process.
Half of the UK's leading soft drink producers and suppliers,including Coca-Cola and Britvic, have signed onto the Soft Drinks Sustainability Roadmap, a supply chain study that aims to reduce the environment footprint of the industry's products.
BASF, Dow, DuPont, Honeywell and the rest of the American Chemistry Council's member companies have pledged to implement 11 industry best practices to evaluate and improve their product safety performance.
United Airlines has set a goal to save 85 million gallons of fuel in 2013. The airline says this savings will equal 828,750 metric tons of CO2 or about $275m at current fuel prices.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Del Monte Foods and MGM Resorts are among some 25 companies that have joined an Ecodesk campaign to improve supply chain efficiency and transparency, and make it easier for businesses to measure so-called Scope 3 emissions.
While more than half (53 percent) of all companies in the S&P 500 Index and Fortune 500 published sustainability reports in 2011 "” up from 19 percent the year before "” companies in the U.S. are less likely to obtain third-party assurance than their global peers, according to a report by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Assurance refers to third-party validation of a sustainability report's contents.
Two thirds of consumers in six countries recognize the need to consume less and purchase products that are good for the environment and society, according to an online survey.
Despite the embattled state of the global economy and resulting lack of political enthusiasm for tackling environmental and climate change issues, the $866bn global environmental market managed 4-percent growth in 2011, according to research by Environmental Business Journal.
