Who's really a climate leader?

There seem to be hundreds of
manufacturing enterprises that profess to be stewards of the
environment with strong sustainability programs. But how can you
really tell if a company can back that up?

One program that helps shed light on
a company’s level of sustainability commitment is the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program.
The program focuses on the development of climate protection and
change strategies by companies who volunteer to be part of
it.

Companies pledge to completing a
corporate wide inventory of their emissions and report progress to
the EPA, but the program doesn’t rate its members. On the
other hand, for anyone looking for ideas on corporate
sustainability programs, or to find out what companies are
committed enough to report progress to the EPA, the Climate Leaders
program is worth checking out.

I recently interviewed Susan
Wickwire, chief of the EPA branch that oversees the Climate Leaders
program. Wickwire says the program grew 50 percent the past year,
and numbered about 250 companies at the end of 2008, up from the
dozen charter members that EPA started the program with in
2002.

Wickwire attributes the leap in
membership to several factors, including interest in internal
efficiency and cost savings, but also the realization that
consumers and corporate buyers are interested in products from
companies with a track record for sustainability. “There is
growing awareness of the interested group of purchasers who want to
do more for our climate and incorporate that into their [buying]
strategies,” Wickwire says.

Much of the focus for program
members, says Wickwire, is the exchange of information and best
practices. Member companies such as Cisco Systems have even
developed simple reporting tools for tracking emissions and energy
use, as detailed in this Climate Leaders’
presentation. By visiting this
Cisco blog and using the comment feature, I was able to
eventually gain access to this Environmental Data Tool, or EDT. The
tool is based on Microsoft Access, and Cisco’s intent is to freely
share the EDT with others interested in tracking environmental
data.

The fact that a company is in the
Climate Leaders program doesn’t necessarily mean it’s
best-in-class for sustainability in its industry. Organizations
such as Ceres, which recently
released a ranking of consumer and tech companies on their climate
change strategies (Wal-Mart ranked well among retailers), are
taking aim at this sort of green ranking. But if you are looking
for ideas, and a possible program for peer information exchange,
the EPA’s Climate Leaders program is certainly something to
be aware of.