| Local Policy Description: | The Climate Neutral Network
Some visionary companies nationwide are starting to take their climate protection efforts to a new level by working on “climate neutral” products, processes or facilities. Stonyfield Farm Inc. of New Hampshire is one example of a New England firm that has made an early commitment to energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Starting with a facility assessment in 1996, Stonyfield Farm has reduced the amount of energy required to produce a pound of yogurt by 9 percent, and subsequent CO2 emissions by 15 percent.
The company has also supported a reforestation project in Oregon, in an effort to fully offset 100 percent of the Stonyfield production facility’s carbon emissions. When fully implemented, this investment in off-site reductions will result in the production of climate neutral yogurt.
To facilitate this type of activity, the U.S. EPA has established a Climate Neutral Network under the Climate Wise program. The network is a group of industrial companies dedicated to examining a growing number of ways to develop, support and market climate neutral products.
Close to home, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation and Ben & Jerry’s are developing and plan to pilot-test a Climate Neutral Association fuel card with Sunoco Oil Company. When consumers use this card to buy Sunoco gasoline, they will receive a small direct rebate from Sunoco. Sunoco will also make a monthly contribution to a statewide Climate Neutral fund, based on the association’s total monthly purchases. All proceeds will be invested in emission reduction projects in Vermont.
The pilot project is first being implemented for the Ben & Jerry’s sales force and senior management. If it succeeds, the concept will be offered to other Vermont companies and organizations, and Ben & Jerry’s will expand its program to both their fleets and employees nationwide.
Procurement and Office Equipment
Office equipment, paper supplies and appliances used in staff rooms all provide further opportunities for firms to make purchasing decisions that will reduce climate change impacts. Firms can make it a regular practice to purchase office equipment and appliances that meet Energy Star labeling requirements. Office equipment included in the Energy Star program includes computers and monitors, copiers, fax machines, printers and scanners.
Extended Product Responsibility
Remanufacturing is the process of disassembly, component refurbishing and reassembly of products to meet original performance specifications. Compared with production based on the extraction, processing and manufacture of new raw materials, the remanufacturing process has tremendous potential benefits—economic, environmental and social. Consider, for example, the extremely low concentration of some elements in nature, such as mercury, versus their concentration in finished products, such as energy-efficient fluorescent lighting. In many cases, it makes sense to “mine” and reuse resources from the manufactured product base as an alternative to the virgin-material-to finished-product chain. Significant levels of remanufacturing have already been achieved by a number of industries—including those that make automobiles, compressors, electrical appliances, industrial valves, copiers and personal computers. Extended product responsibility is the principle by which manufacturers take into account the environmental impacts of a product’s entire lifecycle, from material suppliers to manufacturers to consumers. Profit or regulatory forces can drive closer associations between each stage of a product’s lifecycle with the product’s environmental impacts.
Solid Waste
There are two main impacts on climate change from the generation of solid waste, one direct and one indirect. The direct impact is due to the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste, which produces the greenhouse gas methane. Businesses that produce significant amounts of organic waste, such as food and paper waste, can help reduce this by composting (in the case of food waste) and simple waste reduction measures such as printing double-sided copies.3
The indirect link to climate change has to do with embodied energy, which is the energy (and subsequent CO2) needed to produce the raw materials required to manufacture a product. By recycling, and by purchasing products with high recycled content, a business can cut down on this embodied energy.
Recycled products can reduce by as much as 75 percent the amount of energy required to produce a product. One conservative estimate is that every ton of recycled waste prevents 1,000 pounds of CO2.
Adopting management policies that require green or climate friendly purchasing wherever possible, encourage the conscientious use of office supplies, and promote waste reduction in the lunchroom (providing recycling bins and reusable dishware), can also lead to significant reductions.
A recent study performed by Tellus Institute for the Environmental Protection Agency identifies several categories for manufacturer extended product responsibility in the United States. The concepts of remanufacturing and extended product responsibility provide new models for business managers, consumers and policy makers who seek to maintain economic vitality while moving toward patterns of production and consumption that reduce global warming and other environmental impacts. These concepts can help forward-thinking companies to generate new business strategies to develop products and markets with long-lasting value.
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