Getting your business across the green line

If there is a simple takeaway message for business, it’s this: managing environmental impacts is not about warm fuzzy feelings.

It’s about protecting the company bottom line.

At the end of January 2008 , the Ministry for the Environment released its latest report, Environment New Zealand 2007.

This follows up on a 1997 report, The State of New Zealand’s Environment.

It looks at progress in four key areas initially identified as ‘pressures on the environment’: household consumption, energy, transport and waste.

Each brings challenges for business.

Household consumption

Responsibility for household consumption ultimately rests with the consumer.

But the new MfE report outlines the need for business to produce goods and services more efficiently.

The report also outlines consumer desire to reduce the impact of their shopping habits on the environment.

They are choosing products that are more durable, have less packaging or have a managed life-cycle.

The Warehouse’s sustainability manager Trevor Johnston sees evidence of this over the past few years.

Many suppliers and major retail brands are implementing sustainable policies around ethical sourcing, packaging and energy efficiency standards.

A 2007 Nielsen Research survey found 81 percent of 1,000 respondents saw themselves as ‘green consumers’.

Similarly, in a 2007 New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development poll, 80 percent of respondents agreed that businesses should be responsible for the environmental impacts of their products from ‘cradle to grave’.

Figures like these make a compelling case for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to evaluate and manage the environmental impacts of their products.

Initiatives include eco-labelling such as the Environmental Choice New Zealand scheme and Energy Star, and Landcare Research’s carboNZero programme.

CarboNZero works with companies to help them reduce their carbon footprint or greenhouse gas emissions.

Organic food company Pitango this year released a range of carboNZero certified meals.

Pitango founder Yasmin Shenhav says the certification requires companies to commit to measuring, managing and mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions.

The company offsets its emissions by purchasing verified carbon credits from renewable energy projects managed by Landcare Research.

“We see this as a way of bringing support of the environment down to a really personal level,” says Shenhav.

Energy

Business may find energy efficiency one of the easiest environmental pressures to tackle.

It has the added incentive of saving costs and contributing to secure electricity supply for the country.

Mike Bourke, account manager with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), says better energy efficiency and a better business model require the same basic strategy.

“It’s about making more widgets but making them with less energy.

“The environmental payoff from energy audits does not have much traction.

“But we have found the cost-saving benefits are very attractive to New Zealand managers.”

Bourke notes a significant increase in the number of companies commissioning energy audits in the past two years.

Ports of Auckland, a recipient of an EECA grant, worked with Genesis Energy and energy consultant Energy Solutions to determine where it could make power savings.

Following an energy audit, the company invested $900,000 to replace 1,300 floodlights with 650 new ones.

The upgrade has cut Ports of Auckland’s energy use by 10-15 percent.