Alfred music moves towards green

Alfred Music Publishing, an educational music print publisher, has launched its “Alfred Cares” initiative, aimed at reducing the company’s carbon footprint. The program centers on decreasing the company’s natural resource consumption, recycling waste and reusing materials in the production processes.

Airbus starts building XWB

European planemaker Airbus on Tuesday began building the first parts of its new A350 XWB, a wide-bodied airliner designed to compete with US rival Boeing's much anticipated B787 Dreamliner.

B9 Coal propose new carbon capture

A new entrant has applied to the government competition to fund a carbon capture and storage plant, relying on a different form of the technology from other applicants.B9 Coal is proposing to build a 500MW plant at the Rio Tinto Alcan plant at Lynemouth, in Northumberland, where the carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion would be captured and then stored underground.

Beware imaginary friends

An interesting trend that Im seeing emerge is companies developing their own little catch phrases or fancy names for their environmental activities.

Samsung has PlanetFirst (more like profit first), and FedEx has EarthSmart, Tesco has GreenLiving.

This is a dangerous progression. There is no external audit to prove any of the claims. Indeed a recent study by Which? in the EU indicated that Samsung PlanetFirst devices use only slighly less resources that the main stream ones... but cost more.

Companies need to stop making things up. They need to engage with real third parties like UNEP, Icharter or UNESCO and meet real standards.

Where BP went wrong

BP's reputation is in shreds. During the Gulf oil leak the company staggered from one PR disaster to another (interestingly their head of PR is the former head of PR for Lehman brothers!).

It failed to accept the magnitude of the situation, but even worse it failed to understand how its responses would be perceived.

The company is actually one of the better oil companies when it comes to the environment, but it does underline a growing problem. These companies place profit before all else, including the environment.

Sure they issue fancy sustainability reports, and sponsor all sorts of things, BP even went so far as to brand itself as Beyond Petroleum. The problem is that it didn't change deep down. it was still the same company, willing to do anything to make a dollar.

Companies need to release that change needs to be deep deep thing, it needs to be something that comes from within. Companies need to re-engineer their processes, their need to look at what they are doing and ask how they can do it better. A great example of this is FedEx, just today I read about how they are slowly phasing in hybrid vehicles and in some places non carbon emitting tricycles. Change is slow and sometimes painful, but necessary.

That probably why FedEx was awarded Committed to the Environment by the international charter, and BP isnt.

Mazda releases sustainability info

Mazda Motor Corporation today issued the Mazda Sustainability Report 2010 in Japanese. It outlines Mazda's corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as well as achievements for the fiscal year ended March 2010 (April 2009 to March 2010). The English version of the Sustainability Report 2010 will be published at the end of September.

Mazda announced its Framework for Medium- and Long-Term Initiatives in April 2010. A special section in the Annual Report 2010 explains this framework and its five pillars: Brand Value, Monotsukuri Innovation, Environmental and Safety Technologies, Emerging Markets and Ford Synergies

FedEx using electric tricycles

An electric, non-carbon tricycle for adults is way more exciting than it sounds, especially when an international company like FedEx Corp. uses the bikes to deliver packages across the city of Paris.FedEx now has four tricycles making mail deliveries in Paris – 12 by the end of the summer – that run on a 250-watt electric motor supplemented with pedal power. The company partnered with Urban Cab, a transportation service with 22 pedal-powered “rickshaws” around the city.The tricycles require manual pedaling to start the motor. Although slightly bulky, there’s a tall, removable storage container that sits between the back two wheels. The vehicles can travel at a speed of around 20 kilometers per hour and are welcome traffic in Paris’ pedestrian-only areas and many bike lanes.