Companies looking to go green now have another resource to consult. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change unveiled the Corporate Energy Efficiency Web Portal on Tuesday, which aims to provide research and information for companies looking to improve their sustainability or learn from others that have.
This is part of a larger project that the Pew Center has begun to promote corporate energy efficiency. In April of 2010, the Center will release a report of corporate case studies and best practices on different experiences and information based on a year and a half of research. The Web site will communicate some of Pew’s findings prior to the report’s release, and also offer more interactive tools, such as a searchable database of energy efficiency projects from the 45 companies in the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council.
Members to this council include PG&E, Hewlett-Packard Company and Bank of America. The project has been funded by a $1.4 million grant from another member of the Leadership Council, Toyota.
"What we think we can provide is showing, in as much detail as possible, what leading companies have done on energy efficiency," says Andre de Fontaine, markets and business strategy fellow for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "We can provide real tangible examples where we say, ‘by putting in a new data management system, company x was able to find new opportunities in their major furnaces and they saved this much energy.’"
As part of the announcement of the new site, Pew released research on current corporate sustainability practices. Drawing on the responses of 48 companies (ranging in size from $8 billion to $99 billion in revenue), Pew found that 81 percent report having modified their products and services to offer increased energy efficiency performance in order to take advantage of the growing consumer demand. The data also showed that the three main reasons companies undertook energy efficiency strategies were to reduce their carbon footprint, respond to rising energy prices and demonstrate their commitment to corporate social responsibility.
The survey looked at the frequency of a number of practices that companies engage in with their employees and suppliers. It found that 21 percent set up a measuring and reporting system for the energy and carbon performance of their suppliers, and that 44 percent provided suppliers with information on energy efficiency programs from third-party sources. Twelve percent changed suppliers due to finding others with superior energy or carbon efficient performance.
As far as employee engagement, 89 percent of companies said that engaging their workforce (beyond just the core leadership) was a formal element in their energy efforts. While 33 percent of companies used newsletters or emails to connect with employees, 23 percent offer formal education or training, while 17 percent created some kind of green team or employee-run committee to take on the challenge.
The full April report, written with ICF International, will include six case studies of companies that have done particularly strong corporate energy efficiency efforts—such as Best Buy’s marketing efforts for energy efficient products. The portal currently offers interview clips from leaders at PepsiCo, Dow Chemical and Toyota, speaking about their energy efficient practices at Pew’s recent workshop on best practices in sustainability.
According to de Fontaine, the information in the report and on the Web Portal is meant for a range of decision-makers at the company.
"Our target are the senior people who are able to influence decisions—so we are targeting those C-level folks," says de Fontaine. "But we also think that this is going to be relevant for folks that manage the facilities at companies, and we also think that policy makers can learn to see that it is possible today to reduce emissions and do it while getting financial savings."
