Top 10 Green Corporate Initiatives of 2006

Posted: 03-Jan-2007; Updated: 26-Mar-2007

In 2006, businesses across the country made bold moves to adopt "green" practices and technologies that also helped  their bottom line. Here we share our very first "Top 10 Green Corporate Initiatives" highlighting companies that we've been working with over the year.

• Yahoo! Autos and Environmental Defense teamed up to create Green Ratings for cars, giving consumers easy-to-use environmental information about their car choices. We provided Yahoo! with a methodology to calculate a "Green Rating" that accounts for both the global warming and smog impacts of any car. (Read the news release.)
• Cisco Systems, Inc. pledged $20 million for technology that will cut company travel and carbon emissions. As a result, Cisco anticipates a dramatic reduction in air travel in 2007 with a reduction of carbon emissions by a minimum of 10%. 
• Wal-Mart committed to sell sustainable fish in its North American stores. The company will source all of its wild-caught fresh and frozen fish for the North American market from fisheries that meet the MSC's independent environmental standard for sustainable and well-managed fisheries. We have been working with Wal-Mart throughout 2006 on a number of sustainability initiatives, and are actively recruiting for a manager to be based in Bentonville, Arkansas — Wal-Mart's home office — to lead these collaborative efforts. (More on the new positon and our work with Wal-Mart.)
• PHH Arval and Environmental Defense announced North America's first fleet management program designed to cut emissions and costs. PHH Arval is the second largest fleet management company in the country. The new climate-neutral program, PHH GreenFleet, helps clients measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption from their fleets and then offset the remaining emissions. (Find out more.)
• Entergy agreed to use offsets and reductions to keep greenhouse gas emissions  at 20 percent below 2000 levels, even as the company grows. Five years ago, Entergy was the first U.S. electric company to commit to cutting global warming pollution in an agreement with Environmental Defense. Entergy will join us in pushing for federal legislation that places a firm cap on greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors. 
• Xcel Energy announced plans to build an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant in Colorado. The project will be the first coal plant in America to reduce global warming pollution through the capture and underground storage of greenhouse gases. Xcel also acquired 775 megawatts of new wind power in Colorado — making it one of the nation's largest utility purchasers of wind energy. 
• The supermarket chain Wegmans and the food-services company Bon Appétit announced purchasing standards for farmed salmon. The standards require fish farms to strictly limit contaminants like PCBs, reduce water pollution, and lessen the chances of farmed fish escaping and spreading disease to wild populations.  (Read more about the purchasing standards.)
• We worked with the Ad Council to generate the first ever public advertising campaign addressing the threat of global warming. The ads were produced pro bono by the advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, and the campaign depends on donated time from TV stations and other media. (Watch the ads.)
• Random House, Inc. — the world's largest trade book publisher — announced a new initiative to increase its use of recycled fiber tenfold by 2010, from 3 percent  to 30 percent of paper volume. Random House used Environmental Defense's Paper Calculator to understand the environmental benefits that could be achieved by meeting the goal, including conserving 550,000 trees a year. 
• Our partnership with FedEx, which launched the first commercially-available hybrid trucks in 2005, spurred many other companies to follow suit. For example, UPS purchased 50 new hybrid trucks and with Environmental Protection Agency launched the first diesel hydraulic hybrid (energy from braking is stored in the hydraulic fluid rather than in a battery). The U.S. Postal Service, Purolator Courier, liquor distributor Charmer Sunbelt, Frito-Lay, and Florida Power & Light are some of the companies enjoying these fuel-saving new trucks. (More on our partnership with FedEx.)