Forest stewardship council

Because glass can be endlessly recycled back into its original forms and uses, the glass industry benefits from substantial sustainability benefits, such as minimized raw material use, lowered energy demand, lowered CO2 emissions, heightened manufacturing efficiencies, and lowered eventual product costs. With expansive recycling efforts nationwide, America’s glass container industry is now at the point of fully 50% recycled content in its annual production.

There are currently numerous systems or protocols in use for measuring the performance of a particular building or its component materials, products, assemblies, systems or appliances. The LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program of United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is perhaps the best and most widely recognized. Others include Green Globes, Green Seal, Green-e, Green Advantage, the EPA’s energy star program, the EPA’s WaterSense Program, the Sustainable Forest Initiative of the forest stewardship council (FSC), and many others.

It is for this reason that there has been increasing pressure placed on retailing giants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Macy's, and Kohl's to manage the carbon emissions of their supply chain. As the buyers that fund the manufacturing sector, their regulations and terms of business carry much more weight than government sanctions do or would.

Most of these measuring and rating systems score points for common ‘sustainability’ practices: fuel and energy reduction, water conservation, waste reduction, carbon footprint reduction, indoor air quality improvement, increase in insulative qualities, increase in air-tightness, use of daylighting, use of rapidly renewable resources, local sourcing of materials, and so on.

AT&T Internet Data Centers are 28 percent more efficient than the industry average, made possible by best practices in cooling system design, advanced airflow, high- efficiency lighting, data center automation and more. Additionally, AT&T is a contributing member in the Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.

At level 3, there is a clearer understanding and awareness of what sustainability really means to the organization. A detailed action plan has been created and communicated to employees, customers, and all other stakeholders. Larger projects within the initiatives are beginning to get traction and see results.

Composting can also be the first stage toward more sophisticated waste processing technologies such as Anaerobic Digestion, and take us toward a much more sustainable carbon economy which many see as the intermediate step civilisation needs to go through before entering the age of the hydrogen economy.

As if often the case, financial innovation is as game changing as technological advancement. We may have the smart boxes to revolutionize the way we use energy, but if utilities and consumers can’t pay for them, they offer little good. The solar energy sector provides a good example. For years we saw little installation of solar panels on commercial buildings, despite enormous information produced by the industry about solar’s value.