Category Archives: sustainability

February 14, 2013 · 11:22 pm

Incorporating Biomimicry Into Innovation Infrastructure

By Taryn Mead

Following my previous post, I’d like to dive deeper into the use of biomimicry within corporate innovation. Many companies that seek consultants in biomimicry “want to do biomimicry” or “be a biomimetic company” with only a cursory understanding of what this means. One way framing this conversation is to understand the sustainable innovation infrastructure of a company and how it can be leveraged for biomimetic breakthroughs.

The innovation infrastructure of a company is the processes by which new ideas make it to consumers. Add “sustainable” to that and it is the process by which new ideas that supports values of sustainability make it to consumers. After several years of consulting with companies from various sectors, I have noticed a general blurriness around internal innovation processes, making it difficult to recognize where new innovations are most possible and most likely. One of my primary goals as a biomimicry consultant is to bring some clarity and definition to a company’s sustainable innovation infrastructure where biological strategies can provide insights.

When approached with the question “How can we do biomimicry?” the team must first analyze where biomimicry can possibly play a role. By defining the scope of the problem and the potential scope of the solutions, we can have a productive conversation about what we are trying to accomplish and what limitations there are to our progress. The leverage points, as Donella Meadows put it, must be at least partially defined as a team. Is the entire team trying to solve the same problem? And if so, what are the collective goals?

It can be very helpful to visually map the options for biomimicry to move through the product development process as the engagement begins. Perhaps nature’s strategies can inform material development and selection or the form and function of a new product. Perhaps it will lead to advances in the production process or the creation of a waste-to-raw-material network with partner organizations.

Each company will have a unique pathway for assimilating biomimicry and sustainability within their existing processes and environmental criteria and it is best that is best defined at the outset of an engagement with the entire project team engaged. And at the end of the process, with new innovations in hand, team members can tell the story of the day that nature helped them see things differently.

Taryn Mead is a biologist, sustainability strategist and Certified Biomimicry Professional who has consulted with over 30 corporate, municipal and nonprofit clients using biomimicry as a tool for innovation and sustainability. She is the founder of Symbiosis, a biomimicry consultancy.

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February 5, 2013 · 10:18 pm

Biomimicry: An Increasingly Popular Sustainability Strategy

By Taryn Mead

First in a series

Companies that are trying to improve their environmental performance and create greener products are increasingly exploring biomimicry, also called bio-inspired design, biomimetics or bionics.

Biomimicry is the study of biological models, processes, systems and chemistries that can be emulated for sustainable solutions to human design challenges. The premise of biomimicry is that the other 30-100 million species that live on planet earth have been adapting to thrive here for 3.85 billion years and there is an immense amount that humans can learn from these other organisms. In light of the environmental challenges that lie before us, the rise of biomimicry as a design and innovation framework is timely.

So what does this mean, in practice? It’s really quite simple. People notice patterns in biological systems and then apply those patterns to a human system. The most frequently cited example is Velcro which was developed by an engineer named George de Mestral. Legend has it that he was out for a walk in the Swiss Alps when he noticed the structure of the seeds of the burdock plant as they stuck to his dog’s fur. Upon further examination with a hand lens, he realized that there was a fantastic loop and hook attachment strategy at work. He found a manufacturing partner and the resulting material is Velcro.

A more recent example is product called Ornilux, a insulated structural glass panel. Many bird deaths in urban areas are the result of bird collisions with the glass panels of highrise buildings. Arnold Glas, a German glass manufacturer, sought a solution to this by mimicking the strategy of some species of spiders that incorporate strands of silk that reflect ultraviolet light into their webs. The silk is a warning to birds and other large organisms that may run into the web and destroy it, but are invisible to the spider’s prey and to the human eye.

The examples of biomimicry are endless and date back for centuries. As we move into the future, this process of listening to natural systems is merging with our use of technology to produce some very interesting results. Stay tuned for more on what this means for companies seeking innovation strategies for sustainability.

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September 30, 2012 · 1:42 pm

Book Review: Creating a Sustainable Organization

I am finally getting around to posting a review of Creating a Sustainable Organization, by Peter Soyka. I apologize for the delay to my readers and to Peter. The book is well worthwhile.

An effective sustainability strategy is not crafted or executed in a silo. Sustainability strategy must have strong ties to corporate strategy; sustainability practice must be integrated into the full range of company processes. It is this perspective, forged in the author’s many years of experience, that makes this book’s treatment of corporate sustainability distinctive and valuable. I highly recommend it to sustainability practitioners and executives alike.

Books on sustainability can often seem to be written on a blank slate, as if the concept is a new one. This book, by contrast, is rich with historical perspective and insights gained from practical experience. Indeed, the author’s introduction states that his approach “is firmly grounded in the practices that have been developed within and by the EHS profession during the past 15 years or so.” The book also has a valuable review of the history of environmental, health and safety and social equity laws and regulations, which should be enlightening to those who have not studied this history before.

I have read dozens of books on corporate sustainability in recent years. None has done as good a job rooting the topic in the real-world context of corporate environment, health and safety practices; the finance function; and the perspective of institutional investors. Sustainability practitioners who understand this context will have an edge when it comes to developing strategy, defining programs, and communicating with the diverse set of parties who claim a stake in a company’s mission, its performance and its sustainability stance.

One weakness of the book is its rather heavy, pedantic style. It is common to find whole paragraphs composed almost entirely sentences 25 or more words long. But that didn’t prevent me from reading the book cover to cover.

The book is especially valuable to relative newcomers to the field of sustainability. But I expect that even experienced professionals will find the book helpful in crystallizing and articulating the insights they’ve accumulated along the way.

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September 14, 2012 · 10:54 am

Yogurt Maker’s Sustainability Approach Has a Different Flavor

Yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm recently revealed that it had calculated the carbon footprint of 150 of its products, three quarters of the items it sells. (Disclosure: some of those items are in my refrigerator right now.) If you are interested in how companies account for and manage their environmental impacts, you should take a look at Stonyfield Farm. Here are three things worth noting:

Over half of the carbon footprint comes from milk production. That means cows passing gas and cow manure. In other words, the biggest source of emissions are verdant pastures, happy bovines, not belching factories. Research is underway to reduce the footprint of milk production. But my point is that most people don’t think of basic agricultural processes can have such a big environmental impact. They can.

Data is updated daily. Most companies that calculate their carbon footprints do so yearly. That’s because the processes most companies use are very labor intensive. There is still little automation of carbon accounting. The system Stonyfield Farm uses calculates product footprints daily and allows continuous monitoring of the company’s performance versus its goals. That should give the firm an edge in meeting its targets by enabling it to make mid-course corrections and improvements as it learns.

Focus on greenhouse gases rather than energy consumption. Many companies that talk about reducing their carbon emissions are actually focused on reducing their energy consumption. There are two reasons for this. First, consumption of non-renewable energy is a pretty good proxy in many cases for greenhouse gas emissions: the more you consume, the greater your emissions. And second, and more importantly, energy costs money while emitting carbon is still free in much of the world. So companies manage energy consumption, aiming for cost reductions and reaping emissions reductions as an added benefit. Stonyfield Farm focuses on greenhouse gas emissions rather than energy partly because a lot of their emissions don’t come from energy use (they come from cows) and they don’t come from their own operations (only 13% of the footprint is attributable to manufacturing).The link between costs and greenhouse gas emissions is much looser for them. So they are directly managing for environmental benefits, not just cost.

Stonyfield Farm has long staked out a leadership position in its commitment to environmental stewardship and its use of that commitment to boost brand value. The company’s approach to managing and tracking its carbon footprint is part of that tradition.

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July 31, 2012 · 2:13 pm

Why AT&T’s Eco-Rating System Is off the Mark

AT&T has launched its eco-rating system in stores, allowing customers to compare cell phones’ environmental impacts. The system rates handsets on 15 criteria, granting a point for each environmentally preferable criterion the handset possesses. Phones with 14-15 points will get 5 stars; phones with 5 or fewer points will get no stars. AT&T expects most phones it sells will fall somewhere in the middle.

AT&T has articulated the following goals for this new green labeling scheme:

Engage consumers and respond to growing interest
Drive industry improvement on sustainability
Help set the agenda for more sustainable products
Anticipate regulations
Demonstrate AT&T leadership

As our recent research shows, a growing number of companies are beginning to take responsibility for the environmental impacts in their supply chains. AT&T’s initiative is not an example of this. Rather than stipulating sustainability standards itself, AT&T puts the onus on consumers to determine the relative importance of the environmental performance of the handsets and the manufacturers that make them.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But here’s what is: AT&T has just created the world’s 434th ecolabel (if you believe the tally of the Ecolabel Index).

Does the world really need another green label? Perhaps. But what it doesn’t need is the continued proliferation of brand-specific labeling. The more labels that cover the same product categories the more confusion and likely consumer indifference.

Last year AT&T competitor Sprint led the development of a standard for “environmentally preferred mobile devices” with UL Environment and has committed to certifying all handsets it sells with that standard. The AT&T labeling scheme uses some of the criteria from that standard, and blends in some others. The result is a proprietary set of hoops its suppliers need to jump through that are different from the hoops that may be set by other carriers.

Why is this a problem? Because suppliers are becoming overloaded with sustainability information requests and lack standard measures of environmental performance. In our research, we asked sustainability executives at manufacturers and retailers about the biggest challenges they faced in obtaining environmental sustainability information from their supply chains. The top answer? A lack of standard ways of measuring environmental performance, a lament shared by 62 percent of the respondents to our survey. The introduction of proprietary product rating standards only going makes this worse, and could well hamper rather than help the cause of driving sustainability in the supply chain.

AT&T said it introduced the eco-rating system in part because it wanted to show leadership. Going it alone, though, is an outdated mode of leadership, especially in this arena. A better model is the one embodied in the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. In that organization, dozens of manufacturers and retailers, including direct competitors, came together to develop a single sustainability measurement standard for their entire industry. The coalition unveiled version 1.0 of that standard just this month. They’ve deferred the possible development of a consumer-facing label to a later date.

AT&T can’t really say for sure what impact the new labeling scheme will have on its supply chain. But it is hopeful that it will be good for the top line. According to market researcher NMI, which AT&T hired to help understand the marketing benefits of ecolabels and green seals, “seals increase purchase intent.”

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· 12:53 pm

Free Webinar: Sustainability in the Supply Chain

Green Research is hosting a free webinar to share highlights of its latest research on the best practices, latest trends, and new tools for managing and improving sustainability in the supply chain.

Please register for “Sustainability in the Supply Chain: Tools, Trends & Best Practices? on Aug 9, 2012 11:30 AM EDT at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1670708262142123520

The research was conducted over three months and drew on executive interviews, a global survey of sustainability executives, briefings with technology providers, and a review of public documents outline corporations’ sustainability initiatives. Green Research recently published the complete results of the study in a report available for purchase and immediate download here.

Key questions answered by the research include:

Can companies improve sustainability in their supply chains without compromising their business goals?
What are leading corporate practices for improving sustainability in the supply chain?
How should companies assess supply chain sustainability management vendor solutions?

Who should attend?

Sustainability executives and practitioners
Supply chain and procurement executives
Corporate leaders
Sustainability and strategy consultants
Vendors of IT solutions
Non-governmental environmental organizations
Universities and sustainability research centers
Sustainability public relations and marketing agencies

Attendance is limited. Priority will be given to to retailers, manufacturers and their agencies.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

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Tagged as research, Supply chain, sustainability

July 24, 2012 · 8:30 am

Focusing on Sustainability, Companies to Collect More Data from Suppliers

Executives See Path to Significant Sustainability Gains

New York City (July 24, 2012) – Green Research, a New York-based corporate sustainability research and advisory firm, today released a new study of corporate environmental sustainability practices and trends. The study finds efforts to improve sustainability in corporate supply chains are hindered by poor data quality and a lack of measurement standards. In a survey of 30 senior sustainability and procurement executives at major companies globally, 62 percent of executives said their efforts to track supply chain sustainability performance are impaired by a lack of measurement standards. For suppliers already beleaguered by numerous information requests, things will get worse before they get better: 81 percent of companies plan to ask suppliers for more information in the coming year.

Executives Believe Gains Are Possible without Compromising Business Goals

Despite the challenges, executives are optimistic about the prospects for significantly improving sustainability in their supply chains. “Companies often lack direct control over their suppliers and sub-suppliers,” said David Schatsky, principal analyst and founder of Green Research. “But new tools and management practices are empowering companies to drive improvements in supply chain sustainability.” Sixty-four percent of executives surveyed said their companies can have significant influence on their top suppliers’ sustainability performance. Eighty-four percent believe their companies can obtain much better environmental performance from suppliers without compromising their companies’ business goals.

New Management Practices Profiled

Supply chain sustainability improvements will be made possible in part by the adoption of new green technologies throughout the supply chain but also by new management practices, Green Research found. The company conducted a series of exclusive executive interviews coupled with an analysis of public company disclosures to identify 10 supply chain sustainability best practices. These include setting specific goals; educating and supporting suppliers; and leveraging emerging standards to collect and analyze sustainability data from the supply chain.

Report Offers Vendor Assessment Guidance

The study also finds that a wide range of technology vendors and service providers have entered the market with solutions for helping companies collect, track and manage supply chain sustainability performance data. The study presents profiles of a dozen such vendors representing a range of approaches for addressing supply chain sustainability issues, along with a Vendor Assessment Framework companies can use to help them select an appropriate vendor. Nearly 40 percent of executives surveyed in the study said their companies were somewhat likely or very likely to acquire a new IT system to help with supplier sustainability information over the next 12 months.

The supply chain sustainability study is available for purchase online at greenresearch.com.

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July 5, 2012 · 9:30 am

The Biggest Story Coming Out of Rio

You might have read about a mammoth conference held in Rio de Janeiro last month. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, was a gathering of world leaders, government representatives, corporations, NGOs and others to establish agreements to help “reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection.” There were tens of thousands of attendees, including 57 heads of state; hundreds of separate events; and a blizzard of press releases and punditry.

I know few people who were optimistic that the event would yield inter-governmental agreements of any significance, and fewer still who think it delivered. Globally, politics and policy these days seem not to be equal to the pressing challenges facing society. I prefer to see this as a slump in the civic sphere rather than some political terminal illness. But just because our politics don’t always work doesn’t mean that society can’t make progress.

That’s because policy isn’t the only force that changes society. The forces that are going to lead to a sustainable future are mutually interactive: Policy influences public behavior as well as attitudes; people influence policy and set expectations for the businesses that serve them; and business, of course, influences policy and people.

The biggest story coming out of Rio was the numerous commitments, many by corporations or corporate groups, to work toward sustainable economic development. Many corporations are in the game despite the lack of an adequate policy framework. The UN Council on Sustainable Development counts more than “$513 billion mobilized in commitments for sustainable development, including in the areas of energy, transport, green economy, disaster reduction, desertification, water, forests and agriculture and a total of 692 voluntary commitments for sustainable development registered by governments, business, civil society groups, universities and others. ” The Natural Resources Defense Council has created a searchable and interactive summary of them here.

My problem with a lot of the commitments is that they are expressed in monetary terms, when the real challenges are better expressed in terms of carbon, joules, tons, or lives. Nonetheless, it is heartening to see all of this activity.

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April 25, 2012 · 5:50 pm

Which Looks More Sustainable?

On a recent GreenBiz webinar, Jeff Rice, director of sustainability at Walmart, gave a compelling presentation of is company’s approach to sustainability. This slide caught my eye. It illustrates what Walmart calls its “productivity loop”:

Source: Walmart

Walmart has been a real sustainability leader in recent years and deserves lots of credit for it. But to my mind, this picture has nothing to do with its sustainability leadership nor, for that matter with sustainability. Indeed, to me it depicts an inherently unsustainable dynamic: prices the spiral endlessly downward while sales continue to rise. I am pretty sure there is a lower limit on prices, and an upper limit on sales for that matter.

Contrast Walmart’s “loop” with this depiction of the “Circular Economy,”, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation:

This is a vision of a truly sustainable system.

Now, the comparison isn’t exactly fair, because Walmart is an enterprise, and its “productivity loop” depicts its own operating model, while “The Circular Economy” depicted above is an entire economy. But it is worth thinking about what the future of sustainability demands of a retailer like Walmart, after it has wrung environmental and economic inefficiencies from its own operations and from its suppliers. How will it need to adapt its model to fit with and support a sustainable economic ecosystem?

Any thoughts?

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April 4, 2012 · 8:30 am

In Medical Equipment Industry, Waste Management is Focus of Sustainability Goals and New Revenue Opportunities

Waste Goals Outnumber Greenhouse Gas Goals; Supply Chain Gets Little Attention

New York City (April 4, 2012) – Green Research, a New York-based corporate sustainability research and advisory firm, today released its latest benchmark of corporate environmental sustainability goals, this one analyzing the medical equipment and supplies industry, a large and profitable industry where the top 10 companies generate over $100 billion in revenue annually. The study found that sustainability in this industry focuses to an exceptional degree on waste management. While only a minority of firms in the industry set public, quantitative sustainability goals, more of those goals are focused on waste management than on any other objective, more even than reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which tops the list in most other industries. “Reducing waste and diverting waste from landfills is a key imperative in this industry,” said David Schatsky, principal analyst and founder of Green Research. “It has even emerged as a new revenue opportunity.” The report highlights two companies, Stryker and BD, that have created businesses that reclaim, reprocess, recycle or remanufacture used medical products, helping hospitals reduce their own waste burden and creating a new revenue stream in the process. But companies are still missing significant opportunities.

The study found that just four of the 10 largest manufacturers of medical equipment and supplies have announced any public environmental sustainability goals at all. It also found that while these companies’ sustainability, citizenship or social responsibility programs are generally concerned not only with environmental issues but also social, ethical and other issues as well, when it comes to setting and disclosing specific, time-bound, quantitative goals, they tend to limit themselves to environmental goals. In the environmental dimension as well as the social dimensions, companies in this industry could go further in setting and declaring specific goals for themselves. The companies covered in the study are Baxter International, BD, Boston Scientific, Covidien, Medtronic, Smith & Nephew, St. Jude Medical, Stryker, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Zimmer Holdings.

Among the other findings: As in many industries, significant environmental impacts in this industry occur outside a company’s four walls, in its supply chain or in customer use or product end of life. Eight-seven percent of the sustainability goals companies have set, however, are focused on internal operations. Setting supply chain sustainability goals is a missed opportunity in this industry. Green Research also benchmarked how the medical equipment makers present information about their sustainability programs on their corporate websites, focusing on six communication elements including the use of the corporate website homepage, sustainability contact information and reporting of key data. Of the measures tracked, Baxter and Medtronic provided the most comprehensive information. Baxter provided all six elements, while Medtronic provided all but one: it did not engage a third-party assurance provider.

The medical equipment and supplies sustainability goals benchmarking research is available online at greenresearch.com. To learn more about the research, please visit greenresearch.com or contact David Schatsky at 646-783-8337 or info@greenresearch.com.

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March 20, 2012 · 10:46 am

Are Sustainability Consultants Underemployed?

The study of the sustainability consulting business we recently released has been very popular. Some key findings are that consultants are upbeat about their business prospects , and that the field has grown with an influx of lots of new consultants over the last three years.

The data allows us to construct a profile of sustainability consultants, with information about consultants’ educational and professional backgrounds, the industries they are working for most, what types of projects are most popular and so on. The report is useful for consultants and the companies that hire them. The data is also very relevant to recruiters, organizations offering education, training and certification to sustainability consultants, and media companies and event producers who are targeting these folks. (You can download a free copy here.)

Misreading the Data

The study got some nice coverage in the media, but some of that coverage took a perspective that may be misleading. One piece, for instance, led off with this statement: “Some 49 percent of sustainability consultants believe business conditions are somewhat or very strong today even though just 26 percent of them work full-time in sustainability, according to a survey by Green Research.” This statement seems to suggest that sustainability consultants are underemployed—only a quarter are really working full time, after all. That’s not my reading of the data, however.

If you’ve worked as a consultant you know that it’s rare to spend 100 percent of your time doing billable work for clients. Senior consultants and managing consultants especially tend to spend a large share of their time on business development. Most consulting companies track the “utilization rate” of their consultants, and successful ones tend to achieve average utilization rates of around 80 percent. In our survey, just 20 percent of respondents reported a utilization rate at their company of 80 percent or more.

Consultants Spend Non Billable Time on Business Development and Internal Projects

How Consultants Spend Non-billable Time

When consultants are not consulting for clients, what are they doing? We asked that question, actually. A majority are working on business development or on internal projects. Some are in training or catching up with administrative work. That’s typical and healthy.

The consulting business is challenged by the fact that clients are often lacking budget, needing education and slow to make decisions. But a growing number of companies are getting serious about defining strategies and are starting to work on improving their environmental performance. This will be create demand for good sustainability consultants for years to come.

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Tagged as business, research

March 1, 2012 · 10:43 am

How Can We Make Money Encouraging People to Consume Less?

This was the question someone posted on Quora. In case you are unfamiliar with Quora, it’s a site where people post and answer questions. Sounds simple, but the standards of quality are high and the experience is often very good. I highly recommend you invest a little time getting to know the site.

In any case, that question—”How can we make money encouraging people to consume less?”—caught my eye. It has the ring of despair, doesn’t it? How are we going to save the planet? To do so we have to consume less, but how in the world are we going to do that in a market economy that is driven by increasing consumption?

There’s no need for despair, although some of the answers that people posted were pretty negative. take this one, for instance:

Consumption is all about triggering dopamine. The problem is that multiple psychological factors (including childhood abuse, bullying, chronic stress) predispose certain types to any number of addictive behaviors…

Some folks posted some pretty interesting theoretical comments too. But I felt I had to jump in with some specific, real-world examples of how companies are making money while reducing consumption. Some of them are poster children for “sustainable/collaborative consumption.” Readers of this blog may be already familiar with these examples, but in case you’re not, I’ve reposted them below. If you have other examples or additional thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

ZipCar and other car sharing services make vehicles available to us for just the hours we need them, and not a whole day. We “consume” less of the car; they make money.

Interface carpet recovers and recycles worn out carpet tiles into new carpet tiles. We get our floors covered, but consume less material in the process. Interface makes money. Armstrong World Industries has a similar story featuring ceiling tiles.

Procter & Gamble is an interesting case, for two reasons. They claim to have formulated Tide so that it works as well in cold water as hot water. They are working to persuade consumers to wash more in cold water–and to do it with Tide. Consumption of fossil fuels goes down, profits to P&G go up. At the urging of Walmart, they are offering an expanded set of concentrated formulations that contain less water. Water consumption goes down, P&G makes money.

My final examples predates the use of the term “sustainability.” Fancy food, tiny portions, less consumption, more profit. High fashion, tiny bikini, less consumption, more profit.

My point is that it’s not that hard to imagine low-consumption ways of making money. But it may be a challenge for companies wedded to wasteful business models.

Other thoughts or examples?

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February 24, 2012 · 1:59 pm

Sustainability and the Hospitality Sector: The Case for Pillows

By Jennifer Moon

As hotels continue to expand their sustainability practices, numerous sustainability products have entered the market. Many have been embraced by the hospitality industry over the years, such as ozone laundry machines, eco-key cards for guestrooms and bath/tissue products made from bagasse (a byproduct of sugarcane). More are on the way. Successful products will deliver both cost savings and increased sustainability for hotels in the long run.

The Pillow-Vac® machine from Harris Pillow Supply is such a product. It allows hotels to renovate rather than replace pillows, at significant savings in cost and environmental impact. Already hotels like the Hilton Concord hotel in San Francisco and the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs have taken to this product. I wanted to see how the Pillow-Vac® would fair based on factors in New York City union hotels.

Based on my own research into how often pillows get changed out for NY hotels, I was able to calculate a realistic ROI & payback period between small to large scale hotels. The price of the pillow was set at $23.00, based on competitive vendor rates at wholesale value. The number of pillows that need to be replaced per year was estimated based on the sample I took from my own workplace at the InterContinental New York Barclay. Given those assumptions, mid to larger scale hotels would benefit most from investing in a pillow renovation product. Your payback period could potentially range from 1.5-3 years with an ROI ranging between 33%-66%.

There are always other factors beyond the cost benefit calculation that should be taken into consideration, especially for hospitality operations.

Operational Factors

It is not easy to pinpoint how soon pillow renovations occur in a hotel. The typical system in place to change out pillows is simply on an as-needed basis. For instance at my current workplace, the InterContinental New York Barclay, we replaced roughly 108 pillows in 2011. But, only 72 pillows were feather-based, the rest were foam. Our estimated costs for purchasing new feather pillows came out to $1220. With PillowVac® we would have realized a savings of roughly $503 in 2011. If we were to assume that we change out less than 100 pillows annually, then our payback period would extend as long as 5 years. Operationally, this would not be ideal for our use. However, there are other circumstances where the PillowVac® would be most useful and should be considered for purchase by a property of our size and use—room renovations. Renovations occur every 7 or so years. If hotels are able to budget for this type of investment during the year the renovation is planned, than the savings can be realized much sooner and would reflect closer to the numbers calculated in the original cost-benefit analysis.

Externalities

This is where New York City hotels differ from many other hotel markets. If pillow renovations now get incorporated as a standard operating procedure (SOP) then a new system gets established within the duties of the housekeeping department. Management has to consider the possibility that this could change union labor clauses to an employee’s job description; potentially slowing down the process of being able to renovate pillows. Some questions to consider—Who will operate this machine? Will the duties fall onto a union or non-union staff member? How many people will learn how to operate this machine? These are the factors to consider that will determine if your investment will be successfully implemented and integrated into your operation. Considering the externalities will also help you determine if this is the right investment to make. Every hotel is unique and has very different operating climates. If you have a team that’s very sensitive to change, then introducing a new technology can be perceived negatively so should be approached with much more caution. Knowing the heart of your operation can alleviate these potential roadblocks. Holding conversations with staff and management beforehand is a great method to prepare, engage and encourage departments for change. This type of additional planning can ensure a more successful launch of an investment.

Conclusion

The environmental benefits of reducing our waste sent to landfills make for a great case to invest in products like the PillowVac®. At the same time, we have to make sure that when we invest in new products it will make sense for our operation. Considering carefully how you will implement a new approach like this from start to finish. For hotels, walking through the logistics of implementation can ensure you achieve the return on investment you expect.

Jennifer Moon is currently pursuing a M.S. of Sustainability Management at Columbia University and holds a B.S. in Hotel Administration from Cornell University. She is currently the Sustainability Management intern at the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel.

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February 15, 2012 · 8:30 am

Green Research Launches First-Ever Global Study of Sustainability Consulting

Promotion Support from Partners Worldwide

New York City (February 15, 2012) – Green Research, the New York-based corporate sustainability research and advisory firm, today launched the world’s first global study to profile consultants working in sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The study utilizes an online survey distributed in conjunction with media partners globally and will examine the business practices, focus areas, and attitudes of independent consultants as well as consultants who work for larger firms. “There are a handful of well-known large firms with global footprints such as PwC, KPMG, Accenture and McKinsey,” said David Schatsky, principal analyst and founder at Green Research. “But there are thousands of smaller consultancies and sole practitioners that are lesser known that will drive sustainability among middle-tier companies over the coming years.”

The Green Research global sustainability consulting study is intended to support the market for sustainability consulting and help drive progress in sustainability globally. The survey asks about the backgrounds of the consultants; the demographics of their firms (for example, the age of the firms, number of employees and geographic distribution); the areas of greatest demand for consulting services; fees and revenues; partnership patterns; and the outlook for the consulting business in the coming year. “Both consulting firms and the companies that hire them will find the results of the study valuable,” said Schatsky.

Media companies and other partners globally are promoting the survey in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. The International Society of Sustainability Professionals, the world’s leading professional association of sustainability practitioners, is promoting the survey to its members as well.

The results of the survey will be published in April of this year. The survey can be taken in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese and takes about 10 minutes to complete. All responses are anonymous.

Consultants are invited to begin taking the survey today here. [Survey is now closed.]

To learn more about this ongoing research, contact David Schatsky at +1 646-783-8337 or info@greenresearch.com.

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December 23, 2011 · 9:00 am

Hospitality Industry Needs to Expand Sustainability Program Participation

By Jennifer Moon

The largest hotel companies have all launched sustainability or corporate responsibility programs. The programs feature significant similarities and differences. This post provides an overview of how the programs of the top firms compare.

The top five hotel companies (by number of hotel rooms) are Intercontinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Wyndham Worldwide, Hilton Worldwide and Accor. Combined these hotel groups represent over 23,000 hotels (about 3 million hotel rooms) worldwide—suggesting the large potential impact the global hospitality industry can make. The table below summarizes how these hotel companies have structured their sustainability programs.

Hotel sustainability/responsibility programs have two principal pillars: social and environmental.

Social. Why should hotel companies care about developing social components to their sustainability strategies? Hotels are social hubs that bring people to destinations. This makes hotels responsible for the impact they have on surrounding communities. Hotel brands tend to place importance on supporting economies of developing countries within which their hotels are located. All five companies have invested in education and training programs for their associates. In addition, IHG and Wyndham both offer degree programs for hospitality management studies. IHG, Hilton and Accor also emphasize the importance of ethics and preserving cultures through their philanthropic aid programs. Accor stands out from the group with the broadest social program, one that supports several human rights campaigns. Hotel companies seem to take the ”social” aspect of the triple bottom line strategy quite seriously. I was impressed to find that these hotel companies offer such robust support of social initiatives.

Environmental. Environmental programs are at the forefront of hotel sustainability. Aiming to reduce a hotel’s ecological footprint is at the heart of all environmental sustainability efforts for hotel companies. With the exception of Hilton, all of the other companies engage in sustainability reporting. Accor was the first in the group to issue a sustainability report, starting in 2006. Most hotel sustainability reports provide sustainability metrics that assess the environmental impact of the company’s hotels— by measuring energy, water and waste. IHG, Wyndham and Hilton have developed proprietary systems that help measure and report environmental footprint data, but requires data input from individual hotels in order to be used as an effective sustainability measurement tool.

Sustainability and Franchising

Not all the properties under these brands actually participate in the brands’ sustainability programs. Why not? The answer can be found in the operating structure of the hotel business. Many hotels that bear the name of a brand are often franchised. In the event a property is franchised but managed by the hotel brand then participation can be widespread. However, when a property is solely franchised it gets increasingly more difficult to mandate participation in reporting programs. Wyndham, for example, where 99.6% of the properties are franchised (based on 2010), is positioning their investments in the right direction by engaging stakeholders through establishing the Green Franchisee Advisory Board. I strongly believe that as sustainability practices get more refined, the next frontier for hotel companies to tackle will be 100% participation from their franchised properties.

Jennifer Moon is currently pursuing a M.S. of Sustainability Management at Columbia University and holds a B.S. in Hotel Administration from Cornell University. She works in hotel operations at The New York Palace hotel.

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