Archive for Corporate Responsibility
Earth Friendly Business Apple Releases iPad
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Unless you have been hiding under a rock you have probably heard about Apple’s latest product the iPad. The excitement tends to revolve not around the new tablet but the fact that Apple unveiled the new A4 chip as the main processor that has pushed out both of the market leaders Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. Many believe that this chip will make itself invaluable to Apple, as it may soon be found in other products like the iPhone or iPod touch. Apple has also continued their commitment to being an earth friendly business. How have they done this?
Apple has designed the iPad with many of the features Apple has been known for which reduce their environmental impact and cement themselves as an earth friendly business like arsenic-free display glass. Apple has also made the iPad both free of brominated flame retardants (BFR) and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC). As with many of their other popular products the iPad also boasts a Mercury-free LCD display. Beyond that they have branched off the success of the recyclable body of the MacBook and have created the iPad with a recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure.
Being an earth friendly business shows their commitment to remaining enviro-socially aware. Having an environmental policy that brings about a better product will always increase the bottom line and in recent years no one could say that Apple is not a thriving business. Moreover the creation of the A4 chip, which completely incapacitated their need for their former partners turned competition shows the shrewd business savvy of Apple head genius Steve Jobs.
Innovation has been what has allowed Apple to sore to the heights they have reached in recent years, and being an earth friendly business industry leader has been part of that. In every aspect of their business Apple has been a leader in their field overhauling the MP3 players, cell phones, computers and also setting a standard when it came to being socially and environmentally responsible. When the iPad goes on sale in March 2010 it is likely to be another strong seller in a tight economy. Here is hoping that as their success continues Apple constantly strives to find new ways to develop on the earth friendly business they have built.
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The Climate Killers - Part One
Posted by: | CommentsRolling Stone magazine has never been one to mince words whether it is about the latest CD or taking a political stand, so it should be no surprise when their political columnist Tim Dickinson penned the list entitled “The Climate Killers: Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming”. Let us take an ecofriendly multi part look at the list and weigh public perception vs. his finding.
The very first offender marked by the list is noted philanthropist Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is known for two things of late one being this extreme generosity, he decided to give away a reported 85% of his stock in Berkshire to a number of charities the most well known being the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The second is being a top advisor to United States President Barack Obama during the latest finical crisis. Dickinson claims that Buffett is standing in the way of an ecofriendly future for a host of reasons, the first being his critique of Obama’s climate bill, the article states that “Buffett says, the [climate bill] would mean “very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for their electricity.” Never mind that the bill, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would actually save Americans with the lowest incomes about $40 a year.”
Read More→
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Waste Paper? Meet your destiny….”White Goat”
Posted by: | CommentsThis has to be seen to be believed and fortunately I have a video to include so that you know it’s not just a fanciful idea. I used to work at an 
office where over 600 employees occupied 3 buildings on a corporate campus, regrettably (and as recently as 2006) it was an environment that created an obscene amount of waste paper. We used to have training classes with 60 page staff manuals on paper, I’d attend meetings where in addition to the powerpoint presentation 15 or 20 of us might be watching we would each be handed a twenty page ‘deck’ so we could follow through the presentation from paper on our laps simultaneously! Sadly there were a high number of employees who were very ‘old school’ and emails containing policy or updates just didn’t exist to them unless the clicked their print button, hiked over to the printer and grabbed a paper copy to hide within a draw at their desk. It’s not real unless I can touch it seemed to the mentality.
Within the office they gradually moved to a situation where every 50 feet or so a giant blue paper recycling bin for paper would stand sentinel hoping that a small percentage of the forests destroyed in the name of profit might find their way back to paper mill for reproduction. To be fair some people even asked what these five foot tall plastic receptacles were for, as the months rolled on some people even started adding paper into them. Unfortunately just as many people filled their desk side trash cans on a daily basis with scraps and memos that never needed to be printed in the first place.
I won’t name the company for fear of causing outrage, let’s just say it’s a large and well known company who really should have enforced stricter recycling policy. By the time I left the company, when used to worked later in the evening I would see the cleaning crew come in and empty those recycling bins and would be pleased to see that ‘participation’ rates were beginning to improve. I wish that this product existed 5 years ago as I would have written to our executive board insisting it was considered for our office as well as the dozens of other equally large facilities throughout the world. It’s called White Goat and is named very appropriately.
In short it is a paper shredder designed specifically for large offices that create a significant amount of waste paper. That with water will pulp all waste paper and remarkably turn it into toilet paper. All of this from the same unit! It only takes 40 sheets of A4 paper to make one roll of toilet paper. The manufacturer estimates that ‘running costs’ will equate to about $0.10 per roll of paper. I believe that the company are only accepting pre-orders presently as the product was only recently unveiled at a Japanese ‘eco-trade’ fair late last year.
Watch out for staples!!!
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Green Gazette (Issue 37) G.E. gets renewable, using your green loaf and solar fencing
Posted by: | CommentsHello again, February already would you believe? For those of you in colder climes don’t worry the worst of Winter will soon be behind you and the Spring thaws will start before you know it. It’s been a topsy turvy Winter with traditionally mild places being snowed in and colder regions experiencing warmer weather than usual. The ostriches say ’so much for global warming’ whereas the informed among us know the difference between climate change and weather change. These things are measured in 50 year increments so seasonal deviation means nothing really, what does mean something is weather in general being more unsettled as occurrences of drought and flooding are changing rapidly due to a complete change in the ferocity/frequency of storms around the planet. However I’ve gone on a tangent for I am here to bring you some eco-news for the latest Green Gazette so let me do just that.
General Electric (G.E.) have announced their intent by dedicating a brand new $45 billion facility in Schenectday New York as their “Renewable Energy Global Headquarters”. Such a statement of change sends a very positive message from the corporate giant, you can have any number of new and smaller alternate energy companies start at the grassroots level but when the muscle of G.E. is getting behind the drive toward renewable energy we’ll find that we reach our destination that much quicker. The building itself is of course a model of green efficiency and it creates 650 new jobs and was completed a year ahead of schedule. To learn more the building and the corporation’s growing commitment to renewable energy please visit this Business Wire story.
“The dedication of our new, state-of-the-art global headquarters represents our ongoing mission to provide renewable energy solutions that will help meet both the world’s energy and environmental needs,”
Victor Abate, VP of renewable energy for GE Power & Water
I’m always amazed (impressed) by the fact that almost every type of industry can make a difference in environmental matters by moving toward sustainable practices. The more I read and research the fuller my understanding of the fact that applications that can have a positive impact 
exist almost everywhere and at the heart of much of the needed change will remain consumer awareness. Sara Lee are yet another example of a company that have baked up a good idea. The bread giant announced this week that they are trying to capture a slice of the green market with a new ‘eco-wheat’. The new green loaf will hinge on more than just a concept as a new ‘eco-grain’ has been specifically developed by Cargill and CHS for Sara Lee. The wheat will be grown using farming practices that reduce fertilizer and it requires less land than organic farming. Best news of all is that you don’t have to be from the upper crust to try the new product as it will be priced equivalently to the company’s existing product line. I’m not buttering up the fact that I hope sales will bring in extra dough versus the non green competition. Look for the bread to be in stores this spring.
Solar Fence
I wanted to close with another example of remarkable innovation. Solar energy seems to be usually associated with rooftops and solar farms but here is one avenue I wouldn’t have considered although you may well see it around a farm or indeed a homestead. A solar fence (but of course!) has been developed by a company called Earth Sure out of New Jersey. The fence is fully functional as a…well as a fence but also collects the suns rays from dawn until dusk and then transforms the solar rays into energy for your home. It’s a natural idea in my books and wins the Gazette award as green innovation of the week. Learn more about the solar fencing here. At last a legal fencing operation that will pay for itself in little time.
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