July 2010 | Leverage the Power of Green with Green Edge Workshops and Consulting Services

Small Companies like Brooklyn's IceStone Achieve Big Success with Climate-Change-Inspired Innovation

Even if you're not a Fortune 100 company with billions in annual revenues, carbon footprint reduction strategies can point the way to success. Take IceStone for example. Based in Brooklyn, NY, the company was founded in 2003 after its owners noticed an eviction sign on the door of a glass recycling company. They bought the company and set out to create sustainable residential and commercial surface materials.

IceStone's Durable Surface Made of Recycled Glass and Concrete

According to Bloomberg Business Week, IceStone generates millions of dollars in annual revenues with a line of products fashioned from recycled glass and concrete. Fully 50% of their power is generated by wind. They recycle water and divert waste from landfill. Clients include NASA and Disney World, Whole Foods and Wells Fargo.

IceStone's Brooklyn, NY Factory

The moral of this story: as the market and government increasingly demand sustainability,
companies that develop their Green Edge Advantage will be rewarded. In this case, the company was formed to promote and facilitate sustainability. Remaining true to this, IceStone not only develops products which provide its customers with climate change solutions, it also manufactures those products in an environmentally responsible way.

In our opinion, IceStone's commanding Green Edge Advantage has enabled it to gain market share, inspire customer loyalty, create brand value and generate significant revenues in a relatively short time, catapulting over more traditional competitors.

Great job IceStone!

HP, Ranked The Greenest Company in America, Harnesses the Wind and Manure

HP, a global IT company headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, earned the title of the greenest company in America from Newsweek in its 2009 Green Rankings Report for policies and initiatives that range from reduced packaging and aggressive recycling of e-waste to designing data centers that harness wind power and animal waste to create energy.

HP's UK Wynyard Data Center Photos Courtesy of HP

From our point of view, HP is another great example of a company with a Green Edge Advantage. As an already established Fortune 100 company with a global reach, HP has made great strides as it continuously looks for both innovative and straight forward ways to reduce its carbon footprint.

According to HP, dairy farms and data centers may appear to be unexpected partners, but the specific needs and challenges of both can be aligned to create a sustainable life cycle, using technologies readily available today. The heat generated by data centers can be used to increase the efficiency of the anaerobic digestion of animal waste. This results in the production of methane, which can be used to generate power for the data center. The result: the waste problems faced by dairy farms and the energy demands of the modern data center can be aligned resulting in significant carbon footprint reductions.

Moving from dairy farms to the ocean in Northern England, HP is cooling its new Trade Data Center in Wynyard with cool North Sea air, aided by 7.5 foot wide fans. The first ever wind-cooled data center, the Wynyard facility is expected to achieve a 40% reduction in energy consumption while saving HP between $7 and $15M annually.

Overall, HP recently announced that its sustainability goals for the near-term include reducing its GHG emissions from HP-owned and leased facilities by 20% from 2005 levels by the end of 2013 and doubling its renewable energy purchases to 8% by 2012.

For more information about HP's sustainability initiatives, see HP's Global Citizenship Report and HP.com.

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We Look Forward to Hearing from You

If you have questions about anything you've read in this newsletter or if you are wondering how to meet your own green challenges, contact me and I will be happy to respond via email.

Warmly,

Ellen Sinreich

President

greenedgeworkshops.com
ellen@greenedgellc.com
212 828 3840

Ellen Sinreich is President of Green Edge, LLC, which helps organizations leverage the power of green through Green Edge Workshops and Green Edge Consulting.

Ranking the World's Greenest Companies: How Is It Really Done?

Ellen Sinreich, Green Edge Founder and President, recently attended Newsweek's first Green Rankings Research Workshop, where Newsweek and its partners in ranking the environmental performance of America's largest companies gathered with representatives of these companies to discuss their methodology and the upcoming 2010 rankings.

Sustainable Business

The rankings are based on data from the companies being ranked as well as a myriad of other public and private sources.

Here's a brief summary of how the rankings are generated:

Over 700 variables are evaluated in order to quantify each company's environmental impact.
To determine the extent to which a company is managing climate change risks and taking advantage of climate change opportunities, over 80 factors are considered.
Each company's sustainable reputation is assessed by polling over 13,000 "environmentally focused" individuals.

Stay tuned as Green Edge delves further into the murky, unchartered waters of green comany ranking systems in future issues of the Green Edge Newsletter.

Energy is a Top Concern of Most Americans According to NY Times

According to a recent poll by the New York Times, NY Times Energy Poll, most Americans think that alternative forms of energy will replace oil in the next 25 years and that the nation needs to overhaul its current energy policies:

59% think it is somewhat to very likely that in 25 years the US will develop an alternative to oil.
89% think that fundamental changes to current energy policies are required or that a complete overhaul is necessary.

Source: New York Times

The Green Edge Newsletter

Our newsletter is another way we reach out to you (our clients, colleagues and friends) to encourage, motivate and facilitate the greening of organizations.

This July 2010 issue is a first look at how companies are being ranked and rewarded for developing their Green Edge Advantage. Future issues will continue to highlight green ranking systems, as well as green certifications and strategies for greening supply chains, transportation, distribution and general organizational activities that defy categorization. We will also cover how companies are branding, communicating and marketing green initiatives.

If you'd like your company to be featured in one of the next issues of the Green Edge Newsletter, we'd love to hear from you. We are always looking for great green stories to share with our community of clients, colleagues and friends.

If you missed our June issue, link to our archives home page or our blog.

Contact us for more information and to join our mailing list.
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