What Big Business is Doing To Go Green
As climate change increasingly shows its effects on our planet, it becomes clear that we should all do our part to help the environment. While our individual efforts are important, the shifts made by Big Business are even more so because of their reach. It is evident that when a corporation makes a green shift, the world will feel it. Fortunately, many multi-nationals are doing their part with recycling programs, reductions in waste, energy and water and even compostable packaging. In this video, WatchMojo.com profiles a few multi-national corporations to find out what they are doing to reduce their overall impact on the planet.
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What Big Business is Doing To Go Green
What Big Business is Doing To Go Green
Protecting the environment is everyone’s responsibility. However, when a major corporation such as Frito-Lay, Nike, Dell or Staples takes steps to reduce its carbon foot print, the impact is not only significant, but measurable. We explore different green practices being implemented at several multi-national corporations and across multiple industries.
There are a variety of innovative solutions being implemented by companies big and small, local and global, in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. An obvious effort by car companies is the popularization of hybrid and electric vehicles, which both reduce emissions into our atmosphere.
Energy savings
Conserving energy is one important step towards sustainability. Staples Business Depot, the retail office-supply chain, was able to cut down on energy consumption in their stores by implementing a program called Lights Out starting in 2007. During hot summer months, the lighting in their stores is moderated, and as a result the building is kept cooler with less air conditioning. Their resulting energy savings, from only one year of the program, was enough to power 90 homes for one year.
Green packaging
However, packaging is one of today’s biggest concerns with consumer products. Attempts to reduce or eliminate packaging altogether are not always cost effective or practical.
The PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay has done its part by introducing a 100 per cent compostable bag for its SunChips brand. After four years of development, the bag was introduced in 2010. The first packaging of its kind in the snack food world, this bag is made primarily from plant-based, renewable materials derived from starch. This allows it to break down in active compost in roughly 14 weeks. The bag was even certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute, which is the only internationally-recognized labeling program. Highlighting the importance of composting, this initiative was encouragement for the entire snack food industry to develop and apply ecologically-friendly practices.
Along with their efforts in sustainable packaging, Frito-Lay has also reduced waste, water and energy consumption, and emissions in their manufacturing and distribution processes. Since 1999, the company has managed to save 5.4 billion liters of water. They have also put in place a program that sees their shipping cartons reused five or six times before being recycled, with over 40 million cartons being recycled to date.
The bottled water industry is one that is constantly working to improve their effects on the environment with regards to packaging. Biodegradable bottles made from corn break down if they end up in a landfill. Another packaging effort made by PepsiCo is their Eco-Fina bottle for their Aquafina water. This bottle uses half as much plastic as their previous models. Launched in 2009, this switch saves the company 75 million pounds of plastic annually.
Recycling programs
Computer equipment is notoriously difficult and expensive to dispose of. In 2006 Dell was the first company in the industry to offer a recycling program for their old products. The program has expanded, and used, working computers can be donated to non-profit organizations.
Green products
Textile production is also infamously rough on the environment. As a huge corporation, Nike recognized their impact on the planet. Because of this, they created a shoe made from factory scraps. Brought to market in 2008, the sole of the Trash Talk Shoe was ground-up rubber from a shoe recycling program they had previously implemented. Reuse-A-Shoe, started in 1993, is a program that recovers old shoes and re-purposes them into playgrounds, basketball courts, running tracks and other sports surfaces.
From simply shutting off the lights, to creating a product that requires less packaging, to reducing carbon output, the efforts made by the world’s biggest corporations can have an immense effect on the future of the planet.
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