One of the main tenets of corporate social responsibility is environmental sustainability.

It’s pretty clear that the green revolution is well upon us. What is quickly becoming clearer, as we examine CSR more closely, is that there is an expectation that business will play a leading role in helping move our communities and economies to greener pastures.

Developing green strategies, policies, and practices can be mutually beneficial for your business and the planet. Consider the costs to business of a plague such as pollution. Smog days in Toronto cost Canadian businesses millions of dollars in employee absenteeism. Undoubtedly, that increased cost is driving thousands of corporate customers to do more than reduce, reuse, and recycle. 

In Ontario, Bullfrog Power is the first 100% green electricity retailer in the province. Customers have switched because they know that choosing carbon-free power is good for the environment and for business. Brand management also plays an important role in moving companies to greener pastures. Most are reluctant to end up on the wrong side of public opinion, and these days, of investor opinion. 

Only four years old, the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) now represents a $3-trillion alliance of investors who strive to promote a better understanding of the risks and opportunities posed by climate change among institutional investors. Risk management is certainly something companies are familiar with. Thinking about the corporate environmental footprint probably hasn’t been on the radar outside of resource-based companies until recently. Now that investors are demanding that companies report on their sustainability practices, all business sectors are being affected. 

The Conference Board of Canada released its 2006 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) report last October. The CDP provides an opportunity for the world’s largest institutional investors to collaborate on the business implications of climate change. CDP members collectively signed a single global request for the disclosure of information on greenhouse gas emissions. More than 1,000 large corporations report on their emissions through the CDP. 

Like the voluntary CDP, the UN Global Compact is the world’s largest voluntary CSR initiative that unites companies with UN agencies, labour, and non-profits to support universal environmental and social principles. The compact has three of 10 principles that deal specifically with the environment. The first is that businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges. The second says that companies should undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility. And the final says that businesses should encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies. Currently, 3,800 participants have signed the Global Compact. 

Most of us can buy into the need to reduce our environmental footprint and understand that we must find ways to use more renewable resources and less non-renewable ones. Carbon credits are becoming a legitimate currency, and some Atlantic Canadian organizations, such as Dartmouth–based Jacques Whitford, an environmental-engineering company with more than 40 offices around the world, are determined to become carbon neutral. 

“We can’t or shouldn’t sell what we don’t do,” says Marty Janowitz, Jacques Whitford’s vice-president of sustainability. “We will also learn a lot by experimenting on ourselves. Ultimately, organizations of every type need to rethink their relationship to society and the environment.” Janowitz sees sustainability as not only good for the planet but also good for business. (The carbon neutral initiative underway at Jacques Whitford really deserves some more ink. My next column will look at it, and at what other businesses can learn from it, in more detail.) 

Another example of an organization that has been able to creatively encourage its customers to go green is the Saint John Energy Commission. Last fall it held a conservation fair featuring the giveaway of 90,000 light bulbs that will not only help its customers conserve energy and save a collective $3.2 million over the life of the bulbs but also helps the Energy Commission reach its conservation goal and grant it the increasingly important social licence to operate. Conserve Nova Scotia has recently partnered with Home Depot on a similar initiative in that province.

Besides risk and brand management, there are other benefits to business, including new economic policies that reward clean companies through taxes, charges, or trade permits. Employees are happier to work for clean companies and probably have better health records. Plus, customers want to do their part and will reward companies that are good to the environment.