Category Archives: Energy Reduction Plan

United States Carbon: Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility

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No longer is the term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ a novel idea amongst businesses. A 2011 sustainability study by MIT showed that sustainability, in the US at least, now plays a permanent part in 70% of corporate agendas.

Organisations such as Unilever haven’t simply been championing sustainable business as a form of corporate philanthropy. Since implementing their Sustainable Living Plan, they have increased growth and profits. Quite simply, doing good is good for business.

How have Unilever achieved this growth? By being a responsible, sustainable business, they have saved money (energy, packaging etc.), won over consumers, fostered innovation and have managed to inspire and engage their people.

Benefits of corporate social responsibility

The Unilever success story is well publicised, but it can be hard to identify with a business of such size. However, the great news is that even the smallest of organisations benefit when putting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the heart of their business.

Whilst profit may be the end goal for any business, responsible businesses have managed to attract more investors, reduced their risks and addressed stakeholder concerns. With there barely being a day in the news where a business hasn’t made an embarrassing error of judgement, more interest is being show in business demonstrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The benefits from adopting CSR can be less obvious than say, helping the environment. For example, a survey from Net Impact found that 53% of workers said that “a job where I can make an impact” was important to their happiness. Interestingly, 35% would take a pay cut to work for a company committed to CSR.

Examples of corporate social responsibility

CSR isn’t about giving money to charity, or just asking people not to print emails for the sake of Mother Earth! First and foremost, businesses exist to make profit, and this isn’t meant to change as a goal. The reality is that no organisation operates in isolation; there is interaction with employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders. CSR is about managing these relationships to produce an overall positive impact on society, whilst making money.

So how do you put CSR into action? Below are a few examples of what businesses around the World are doing.

Making ‘green’ fashionable: The Body Shop

The Body Shop forged a reputation as a responsible business long before it became fashionable. They were one of the first companies to publish a full report on their CSR initiatives thanks to founder Anita Roddick’s passionate beliefs of environmental protection, animal rights, community trade and human rights. The company has gone so far as to start The Body Shop Foundation, which supports fellow pioneers who would normally struggle to get funding.

Over 20 years ago the company set up a fair trade programme, well before the term ‘Fair Trade’ started to become popular on supermarket shelves. Of course, The Body Shop is famous for its anti-animal testing stance. Whilst this makes testing their products more difficult, especially in markets such as the USA and Japan, their position has created a loyal customer base. The results? From opening her first store in 1976, 30 years later Annit Roddick’s empire was taken over by L’Oreal for £652m, where it has continued to make annual profits of over £40m.

Putting the fun into CSR: Walt Disney

Moving beyond making cartoons, today the Walt Disney Company additionally owns the ESPN and ABC networks, holiday resorts and publishing businesses to name a few. The result is a lot of social and environmental impact, as well as the ability to influence a huge amount of people.

Importantly, Disney recognised that you can’t entertain a family on the one hand and then disregard the world and circumstances in which they live. Acting responsibly gives the company credibility and authenticity. Accordingly, they have set themselves strict environmental targets and disclose their figures in the Global Reporting Initiative which provides a comprehensive set of indicators covering the economic, environmental and ethical impacts of a company’s performance

Setting ambitious financial targets together with environmental performance targets may sound like an oxymoron, but Disney has managed to do this with initiatives such as running Disneyland trains on biodiesel made with cooking oil from the resort’s hotels. They also created the ‘Green standard’ to engage and motivate employees in reducing their environmental impact when working, having meetings, travelling and eating lunch. With more than 60,000 staff, the results are enormous when everyone is pulling in the same direction.

A clear example of financially benefiting from reducing environmental impact is made with this simply statistic: a 10% reduction in the corporation’s electricity use is enough to power the annual consumption of 3 of their theme parks. Whilst their CSR efforts may have taken a great deal of organisation, dedication and investment, 2012 was a record year for Disney’s profits.

Haagen-Dazs and honeybees

This might sound odd at first, but honeybees are an important part of the global food chain as they pollinate one-third of all the food we eat! With numbers lower than ever, this is bad news for companies such as Haagen-Dazs and their all-natural ice creams. To raise awareness, they created a website, started a social media campaign and donated a portion of proceedings to research.

As you can see, a campaign like works fantastically from a number of different angles. Not only is it helping society as a whole, in keeping with the company’s CSR goals, it helps to show a human side to consumers, which can’t hurt sales. In fact, research shows consumers are more likely to pay a premium for a product linked to a charity donation.

How can CSR translate to a smaller business? The issues are the same, just on a smaller scale. The key is to start by conducting a review of what impacts your business has. This could be from environmental issues (energy use, waste etc.), to how your employees are treated, your supply chain and the local community. Below is a look at some examples a small business would recognise, and could act on.

The environment

Even the smallest of office-based businesses can make big changes when it comes to the environment. When you consider an average office worker can use up to 11 sheets of paper a day, are you really reusing and recycling as much as you could?

A common lapse is forgetting to turn off your PC’s monitor come home time. Left on overnight, that is the equivalent of printing 800 A4 pages! Multiply that by the varying IT equipment in your office and you’re looking at a lot of unnecessary energy use.

The above examples ideally illustrate how thinking sustainability isn’t just good for the environment; it saves overheads and helps the bottom-line too.

Staff welfare

For a smaller business, extravagances can be hard to justify. However, happier staff doesn’t simply mean bonuses and pay rises.

What employees value is participation: do they get a fair say? Keeping staff updated on the business and inviting opinions keeps them motivated and loyal. Investing in them with internal and external training helps them do a better job and helps in retraining them, too. Would you rather invest less and have a poor performing, unmotivated team with a high attrition rate instead?

Community

You can incorporate your staff welfare plans with your aims to boost community relationships too. If you’d like to support a local charity, why not let your staff vote for their favourite? It’s now common for businesses to allocate charity days where staff get hands-on with their chosen charity, the effects going far further than monetary donation.

In uncertain financial times, employment rates are always an issue. Could your business offer part-time work or training to those in long-term employment, or students looking for their first work experience?

Finally, there’s the supply chain. Do you have a policy to purchase locally? With the internet opening up the world, it’s surprising how far away some suppliers are. Not only could sourcing locally boost the local economy, you’re helping the environment by avoiding unnecessary travel and consequent emissions.

It’s surprising when you break down your organisation’s activities to see how many people are affected by it. It’s also clear that CSR isn’t a cynical marketing ploy for big businesses; there are tangible benefits to be had by all. The key is not to treat CSR as an ‘initiative’, but to simply view it as the way you do business. Applying CSR is just redefining aspects of what you’re already doing; it needn’t be exotic or costly. Instead, start small and gain momentum.

To learn more about United States Carbon and our energy reduction technology that will help you become greener, cleaner, and more socially responsible please contact us at (855) 393-7555 or visit our website: www.unitedstatescarbon.com

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United States Carbon: Smart Power Opens Minds, Opens Markets

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“Why give money to people that don’t like us?”

“We’re broke at home, so how can we afford to send money to people abroad?”

These are the two most oft-repeated objections heard by many US senators and congressmen to spending money on international affairs programs. So why would the US Chamber of Commerce and the US Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC), a coalition of over four hundred businesses and non-governmental organizations along with over one hundred thirty retired generals and admirals, call on Congress this week to do exactly that?

It’s just smart business.

A senior sales executive at a major US company recently told me, “We’re the best in the world at designing the next generation of products in [our industry]. But we’re terrible at figuring out the next generation market for those products.” For many American companies, from aviation to pharmaceuticals, the lead-time for product development can take decades. According to this executive, “As a company, we need to be in these developing markets now…investing through our corporate responsibility and citizenship programs,” she said. “That’s why we need partnerships with NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and folks like USAID…they’ve got intimate knowledge, on the ground in developing nations and can help us build trust in those countries now so we don’t show up late to the party after the Chinese beat us to the punch.”

Programs funded by the International Affairs Budget create enabling environments for American businesses to succeed in overseas markets today.   

Unlike many of our counterparts in Europe and Asia, American businesses don’t always think about export markets.

That has to change. “Outside our borders are markets that represent 80 percent of the world’s purchasing power, 92 percent of its economic growth, and 95 percent of its consumers,” testified John Murphy, Vice President of International Affairs for the US Chamber of Commerce, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday.

As these data indicate, the American economy simply can’t afford to ignore export markets any more. In fact, according to Murphy, many American businesses already grasp this reality and take advantage of it, “One in three manufacturing jobs depends on exports, and one in three acres on American farms is planted for hungry consumers overseas. Nearly 300,000 small and medium-sized businesses export, accounting for more than one-third of all merchandise exports.”

The most forward-looking companies increasingly use their own “smart power” partnerships with international development agencies and NGOs as a way of opening markets. While a country uses smart power when it intelligently combines hard military power with soft – diplomatic, development, economic – power, companies combine their hard power – revenues, contracts, supply chains – with their soft power – brand, corporate citizenship, public-private partnership, philanthropy. A senior corporate responsibility officer at a major US corporation recently described the use of, “CSR and philanthropy in the ‘pre-competitive’ stage,” as a way of investing in new markets before his products and those of his competitors have reached developing countries in order to build both trust and purchasing capacity. These smart power partnerships are another way the international affairs budget pays dividends for American companies.

In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bill Lane, head of Caterpillar‘s Washington Office and Co-President of the USGLC, pointed out that many developing countries have limited ability buy American products and services today. “In these countries the road to development – and the investment, commerce, and trade that follow –may begin (literally) with a road,” testified Lane, “referring to the basic infrastructure that must be improved and, in some cases, created from scratch using machinery and expertise often supplied by companies like Caterpillar.”

Lane said businesses need, “conditions where there are stable governments, transparency, predictability, adequate financial infrastructure, free market economic policies that allow for competition, and rule of law.” Lane voiced the collective conviction of USGLC’s four hundred business and NGO members that, “…programs funded in the International Affairs Budget are vitally important for America’s economic future, national security, and global influence.”

Both Lane and Murphy urged America not “unilaterally disarm,” in the face of growing competition from Chinese and other potential competitors. In their view, the smart power combinations of American businesses, NGOs, and government agencies can level the playing field abroad and expand the economy at home. For firms like Caterpillar, the math is simple, according to Lane, “The more trucks and tractors we sell overseas, the more jobs… in places like Peoria where those vehicles are manufactured.”

Modest investments – the international affairs budget represents just over one percent of the federal budget – can pay big rewards for shareholders, America, and the world. After all, as Bill Gates has said, “Investing in the world’s poorest people is the smartest way our government spends money.”

To learn more about United States Carbon and our energy reduction technology that will help you become greener, cleaner, and more socially responsible please contact us at (855) 393-7555 or visit our website: www.unitedstatescarbon.com

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United States Carbon: A Republican Case for Climate Action

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EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.

There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.

The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”

A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington. Dealing with this political reality, President Obama’s June climate action plan lays out achievable actions that would deliver real progress. He will use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants and spur increased investment in clean energy technology, which is inarguably the path we must follow to ensure a strong economy along with a livable climate.

The president also plans to use his regulatory power to limit the powerful warming chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons and encourage the United States to join with other nations to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase out these chemicals. The landmark international treaty, which took effect in 1989, already has been hugely successful in solving the ozone problem.

Rather than argue against his proposals, our leaders in Congress should endorse them and start the overdue debate about what bigger steps are needed and how to achieve them — domestically and internationally.

As administrators of the E.P.A under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush, we held fast to common-sense conservative principles — protecting the health of the American people, working with the best technology available and trusting in the innovation of American business and in the market to find the best solutions for the least cost.

That approach helped us tackle major environmental challenges to our nation and the world: the pollution of our rivers, dramatized when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire in 1969; the hole in the ozone layer; and the devastation wrought by acid rain.

The solutions we supported worked, although more must be done. Our rivers no longer burn, and their health continues to improve. The United States led the world when nations came together to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. Acid rain diminishes each year, thanks to a pioneering, market-based emissions-trading system adopted under the first President Bush in 1990. And despite critics’ warnings, our economy has continued to grow.

Climate change puts all our progress and our successes at risk. If we could articulate one framework for successful governance, perhaps it should be this: When confronted by a problem, deal with it. Look at the facts, cut through the extraneous, devise a workable solution and get it done.

We can have both a strong economy and a livable climate. All parties know that we need both. The rest of the discussion is either detail, which we can resolve, or purposeful delay, which we should not tolerate.

Mr. Obama’s plan is just a start. More will be required. But we must continue efforts to reduce the climate-altering pollutants that threaten our planet. The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.

To learn more about United States Carbon and our energy reduction technology that will help you become greener, cleaner, and more socially responsible please contact us at (855) 393-7555 or visit our website: www.unitedstatescarbon.com

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United States Carbon Mission Statement

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All great advancements in the human experience has changed the lives of the world in positive ways. The ability to create fire for the use of warmth changed countless lives for millenniums. The invention of the wheel has gave man the ability of transportation. The advancements in construction techniques has given man superior shelter capabilities giving us the ability to build cities. These early advancements were simple in relations to the technological wonders modern populations enjoy today. Now, technological advancements, the mega-corpo- rations and the global phenomenon of consumer based societies exist the world over. Advancements that generations of only 50 years ago had no idea, no dream, no comprehension that theses modern wonders would ever exist.

Mankind’s early advancements did not injure the environment. TIMES HAVE CHANGED DRAMATICALLY NOW. We must now take responsibility of the damage we have caused with our insatiable need of consumerism, that will undeniably further affect our natural environment in a negative way. We can no longer hide our head in the sand, thinking the problem will go away. We must acknowledging a problem exists The writing is clearly on the wall. United States Carbon was created with this thought in mind, it is time to take responsibility. We at United States Carbon have accepted the challenge to reverse the negative impact of using more and more natural energy in the form of electricity, water, natural gas, oil and waste. The status quo is no longer good enough. We have assembled a group of successful and talented business executives, from various industries, that have made it their goal to change this negative trend. We can not continue to go down the same irresponsible path anymore. Our goal is to help corporations develop an energy reduction plan (ERP), which will not only have a positive effect on the environment , but on corporate profits as well. United States Carbon…Benefitting People, Planet and Profits.

To learn more about United States Carbon and our energy reduction technology that will help you become greener, cleaner, and more socially responsible please contact us at (855) 393-7555 or visit our website: www.unitedstatescarbon.com

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