Transparency is crucial to sustainability practices, according to Ernesta Ballard, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Weyerhaeuser Co. (WY), a global forest products company based in Federal Way, Wash. Pioneering companies in the green movement devote extensive space on their Websites and in their annual reports to detailing their goals in areas as varied as energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, recycling and job-site safety, consultants say. For example, Mitch Jackson, Fedex Corp.’s (FDX) director of environmental affairs and sustainability, writes often about environmental issues on the company’s citizenship blog (blog.fedex.com). Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) recently created a stand-alone site (kraftfoodsbetterworld.com) that vividly charts the company’s approach to sustainability and the progress it’s made so far.
Weyerhaeuser has gone so far as to post a “sustainability dashboard” on its Website. In each of seven categories (which include environmental footprint, product responsibility and governance), visitors can find the company’s goals, its results from 2007 and 2008 and a color-coded performance rating (green for “exceeds,” yellow for “achieves,” orange for “below”). For example, Weyerhaeuser gave itself an orange rating in greenhouse gas emissions for 2008 because the company generated only 10 percent less than it did in 2000 — off target from its stated goal of a 40 percent reduction from 2000 levels by 2020. By clicking through for an explanation, readers learn that Weyerhaeuser’s underperformance resulted from a small operating profile and inefficiencies at company mills running at reduced capacity because of the economic downturn.
Ballard says that the company, the only building materials producer in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, considers such transparency essential. “We don’t believe we can maintain a license to operate — which means we don’t believe we can continue to attract the support of those who would regulate our future, who would buy our products, who would joint-venture with us on the development of something new — if we can’t demonstrate that we are thoughtful in our relationship to the physical world and equally thoughtful in the role we play in our civil world,” she explains.
As companies promote their green initiatives, experts say they would do well to take advantage of the goodwill that such efforts can foster internally. “This is where sustainability is unique — it goes directly to what people care about personally at home, what their kids say to them, what their neighbors say to them, what their spouses say to them,” says Ram Nidumolu, founder and CEO of InnovaStrat, a California-based firm that assists companies in developing and carrying out business strategies based on sustainability. But to convert goodwill into business results, he says, management and employees need to design and implement a consistent strategy and a compelling story in which sustainability becomes integral to the business. Only then can they thrive in the emerging low-carbon economy, Nidumolu adds.
Kraft Foods offers an example of how to develop and marshal employee support. The company says it has established “green teams” — employee-led volunteer groups that work to integrate sustainability into daily office and manufacturing operations — at its headquarters and many of its other locations around the world. They brainstorm about ways to reduce paper waste, increase recycling and maintain buildings and grounds more ecologically, says Steve Yucknut, the company’s vice president for sustainability. Green team members raise environmental awareness among their colleagues, he adds, and build grassroots supports for the company’s larger sustainability efforts.
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