The Food Scout

I sigh when I see neighbors and friends sorting their garbage. It’s a noble effort, but it’s like telling yourself you can save the Amazon rainforests by watering a tree in your backyard. The impact of the effort on the problem is just too small, even if you could convince everyone to do the same thing. And so it is with energy savings and global warming.

But when Big Business makes a change, the impact is instantly substantial and measurable. And companies are discovering that “being green” doesn’t have to cost more money; in fact, a concerted effort to reduce emissions and waste can save millions of dollars a year.

British Petroleum offers 5 years of nonfinancial data on its website regarding CO2 emissions and other factors impacting the environment. From 2005 to 2006, the company reduced its emissions by 19 percent, or about 13 million tons. Meanwhile it increased shareholder dividends by 22% that year. (In case you’re wondering why The Food Scout is talking about petroleum companies and not food, we’ll get there.)

Similarly, Wal-Mart, has jumped on the sustainability bandwagon and its website proudly promotes of all the savings that environmental consciousness can bring. Since the company launched its Sustainability 360 program this past February, Wal-Mart has calculated savings of things like 67 million gallons of diesel fuel and 324,000 tones of coal per year through packaging reduction, alternative energy sources, new technologies, and efficiency improvements. In the store, consumers will be buying food packaging that uses biodegradable corn-based materials instead of petroleum, lighter water bottles, and rotisserie chicken distributed in recyclable boxes. Other subtle, but high-volume, improvements in-store will be shrimp, seafood and coffee that is sourced by companies who meet certain sustainability requirements. And Wal-Mart is not content to clean up only its own act. It also is looking to its suppliers to make sustainability-focused improvements that will ultimately benefit Wal-Mart, its customers, and the environment, as well.

Food behemoth McDonald’s Corp. also has gone far beyond the food packaging changes it made in the early 1990s. Several years ago, it implemented an “environmental scorecard” program with key suppliers to encourage them to reduce water use, energy consumption, solid waste production, and air emissions. In the program’s first year, water use declined by 23% among the participating suppliers, according to a September article in Restaurants & Institutions magazine.

Don’t expect consumer praise right away, however. According to a recent R&I poll of more than 2,500 consumers, only just over half of them correctly identified “what the term ‘green’ means.” So while sustainability and carbon emissions are definitely growing concerns, the average consumer is still getting their arms around this concept.