Corporate social responsibility: partners for progress

World development report 2010: development and climate change

Workshop Proceedings: Assessing the Benefits of Avoided Climate Change: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Beyond

This report from Pew Center on Climate Change, conveys the proceedings of an expert workshop on the economic benefits of avoided climate change. Drawing from the environmental economics, impacts and vulnerability, and risk analysis communities, the workshop sought to glean insights on how to better quantify the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Summary Report (pdf)
Full Workshop Proceedings and Expert Papers

From Shop Floor to Top Floor: Best Business Practices in Energy Efficiency

New Pew Center Report Documents Best Practices in Corporate Energy Efficiency

 Pew Center on Global Climate Change recently published a report documenting best management practices in Corporate Energy Efficiency. According to Pew Center's press release, "The report was developed over nearly two years of effort, including a detailed survey of the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC) members and other leading companies, in-depth case studies of six companies, a series of workshops on key energy efficiency topics, broader research in the corporate energy field, and development of a full-featured Web portal to provide a platform for highlighting and updating key findings from the project as well as providing tools, resources, and other important information. The project was funded with generous support from Toyota."

Case studies for following corporations are included in this report:

1. Dow Chemicals,
2. United Technologies Corporations
3. IBM
4. Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America 
5. Pepsico
6. Best Buy

Royal Dutch Shell Sustainability Report 2009

Royal Dutch Shell has published their sustainability report for 2009 according to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. GRI has various report application levels from C to A+, where A+ represents externally assured and GRI checked reporting.

In this report Royal Dutch Shell commits to address challenges of climate change as well as present needs of the world energy and fuel demands.

According to Royal Dutch, following procedure was followed while reporting environmental sustainability:

• STEP 1: Ask readers what matters most to them, using surveys, interviews and media reviews. Also take account of topics that are important for society but attract less media attention.
• STEP 2: Use our internal risk management systems to determine which environmental and social issues most affect our business strategy.
• STEP 3: Combine the results. Allowing for legal restrictions, we include all the highest-priority topics in our report. Those at the next level of importance are covered on our website.
• STEP 4: Check with stakeholders, and our External Review Committee, that our coverage of those topics is balanced and complete. We then map the identified topics into a matrix based upon their level of impact on society and their impact on Shell strategy.

Complete Report Link; Summary Report Link.

Sab Miller Sustainable Development report 2009

In 2009 Sustainable Development Report, SabMiller committed to improve our water efficiency, create new, affordable products for low-income consumers using locally-grown crops, and improve awareness of the importance of responsible drinking.

 

This report also discusses to reduce fossil fuel emissions from energy use on SABMiller sites by 50% per liter of beer by 2020.  For the first time, demonstrating the company’s commitment to transparency, it is publishing the detailed information of its sustainable development performance by operating company, from Nile Breweries in Uganda to Bavaria in Colombia. The data measured from Sustainability Assessment Matrix is available on the SABMiller website in an interactive scorecard at this website.

Sabmiller portfolio of brands includes premium international beers such as Pilsner Urquell, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Miller Genuine Draft and Grolsch along with leading local brands such as Aguila, Castle, Miller Lite, Snow and Tyskie. Six of our brands are among the top 50 in the world. In a number of our African markets we brew sorghum-based traditional beers. They are also one of the largest bottlers for Coca-Cola products.

Applied Materials Releases 2009 Citizenship Report

Recently, Applied Materials Inc. released its 2009 Citizenship Report. This report highlights their corporate social responsibility activities ranging from energy saving products and contribution to social, environmental and the economy. 

The report details key achievements made in Applied’s fiscal 2009 in the areas of “green construction,” information technology sustainability, solar and clean energy solutions, environmental awareness, education, philanthropy, and employee volunteering. Notable highlights of the report include:

• Progress made toward Applied’s goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 20% by 2012 over a 2006 baseline, which includes the following milestones:
  
  • Obtained 9.5% of power from renewable sources.
  • Decreased worldwide electric usage by 14%.
  • Decreased natural gas usage by 22%.
  • Reduced worldwide water use by 17%.
• An investment of more than $4 million by Applied and the Applied Materials Foundation in educational programs to improve student academic achievement.
• Contributions to local non-profit organizations totaling $1.5 million in Austin, TX, and Northern California’s Silicon Valley to provide rent, utility assistance and other basic services for urgent community needs.
• Launch of the Company’s Clean Tech, Applied blog, a global discussion about the ideas, actions and products shaping a cleaner, brighter future.

For more information visit Applied Materials' website.