Enterprise Rent-A-Car added hybrids to its fleet. Nike launched a policy to source raw materials as local as possible. Supermarket chain Wegman's started an organic farm. Italian power company Eni raised its thermostats by one degree Celsius. And they all saved money!
These examples are just a handful of the businesses profiled in the latest issue of Fast Company magazine. Its massive list of 50 ways to green your business uses real-world examples to show how companies large and small have made improvements large and small and saved serious cash while helping the environment.
Projects include those mentioned above, as well as ambitious additions like IBM's billion-dollar Project Big Green, Tesco's plan to add carbon labels to all 70,000 of its products, BofA's LEED Platinum new headquarters in New York City, and Sun Microsystem's Open Work program.
Smaller projects and companies also made the list, including a new line of PVC-free wetsuits from Patagonia, Steelcase's cradle-to-cradle certified modular office wall system, and GreenBiz partners the Presidio School of Management's Sustainable MBA program.
Also Unilever, a recent player in the un-supersize movement, reconfigured the plastic bottles for its billion-dollar Suave shampoo brand, saving plastic equivalent to some 15 million bottles a year. Another player, General Electric, raises the game with its Evolution locomotives, diesel engines launched in 2005 that cut fuel consumption by 5% and emissions by 40% compared to locomotives built just a year earlier. Not to be outdone in the freight game is Wal-Mart. They are providing funding to the biggest truck manufacturers to develop the first heavy-duty diesel-hybrid 18-wheeler.
The full article, "50 ways you can green your business ... and boost your bottom line" is available online at FastCompany.com.
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