Find your company mentioned on the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index? Want to document your environmental credentials without hiring costly consultants to confirm your sound eco-practices? Need to instill some sobriety and practicality into your green practice so that you can communicate it more effectively and credibly? Consider the Climate Leaders program offered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In case you thought otherwise, the EPA still exists and environmental scientists and policy experts within it are doing the best they can under current political conditions.
Climate Leaders has been around since 2002 and recently enrolled its 172nd "partner," so this program is not for the masses. But if you're serious about it, Climate Leaders helps you define realistic goals to reduce your organization's greenhouse emissions and develop practical approaches to mitigate its environmental impact. A process is in place to report your results regularly to the EPA and share them with the broader community. Here's what the EPA's program managers list as benefits of participation:
- Reduce impact on the global environment.
- Develop a credible GHG inventory and Inventory Management Plan.
- Set a comprehensive corporate-wide GHG reduction goal.
- Better manage GHG emissions and associated risks.
- Realize cost savings through energy efficiency.
- Receive expert EPA technical assistance on inventories and reporting.
- Participate in national public recognition campaigns.
- Engage with other partner companies demonstrating climate leadership.
- Access the latest GHG tools, technologies and protocols.
- Improve understanding of critical policy discussions.
- Integrate climate change strategies with state, regional, and international GHG accounting schemes.
Participants can receive up to 60 hours of free assistance from EPA resources, and no fee is associated with joining. EPA shares a list of program partners and their environmental goals. Note the absence of certain marquee names and the fact that goals are still under development for many of the companies. But you can observe some measurable, meaningful commitments. For example, Oracle "pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 6 percent per square foot from 2003 to 2010 for all non-data center space and to purchase 5 percent green power for data centers."
If you want to learn more about how companies are pursuing their green goals, take a look at the case studies. The many downloadable files, mostly PDFs based on presentations, amount to a concise director of environmental best industry practices. In many instances, you will need to think actively along and use your creative imagination to make sense of the content. I predict that, if you spend 15 minutes reviewing the documentation from the participating companies, you will come away with at least one good idea for environmental marketing and green practice in your own organization.
A while ago, I asked EPA how a smaller service organization that doesn't manufacture anything, does not have control of its physical location, and does not purchase its own energy, could participate in Climate Leaders. The response was that EPA was about to offer such a "Leaders Lite" program around May 20 and one should keep checking the site for updates. I'll stay tuned for that channel to open, because it will be of interest to lots of companies.
Elsewhere, the EPA offers excellent environmental reference materials that could be of great value as you educate your employees, customers, and other stakeholders. And, if you want environmental news from any of the country's regions, the free service is quite good. Click on the map on the homepage to see a list of news items from the region you care about, say, 10.
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