How some companies are putting CER into practice

There are obviously many companies in Australia and around the world that are acting responsibly to some degree, by trying to make their production processes and products more sustainable. But of course, from the discussion raised in earlier chapters, it is obvious that there are many more, or perhaps even subsidiaries of those same responsible companies, that are doing nothing or very little, and are following the ‘business as usual’ edict, a point taken up by Howes (2005); Vogel (2005); Hay et al, 2005; and Lowe, 2005). The actual environmental performance of selected companies will be looked at in Chapter 5.

All the business leaders interviewed were only too willing to discuss the good things they were doing. This section includes a selection of some of the environmentally responsible actions that some of the companies are taking to minimize the negative environmental impacts of their production processes and products. This thesis makes no attempt here to verify their claims, nor to comment on the appropriateness or effectiveness of their actions, that discussion is left for the following chapter.

As argued in Chapters 1 & 3, global warming is undoubtedly the most serious environmental problem confronting the planet and humankind, and is understandably the ‘hottest’

environmental topic of debate. It is therefore appropriate to look firstly at what some interviewees told me their companies were doing to address the problem.

Interviewee 7 (former CEO, Energy) claimed:

In 1997 our global CEO talked about global warming in a public speech and committed the company to do a number of things – measure our emissions;

control our emissions; be in the public debate on global warming; grow our solar business; and start an emissions trading program.

139

1997 was the year of the first climate change meeting in Kyoto from which the Kyoto Protocol was named and arose. Kyoto was the impetus for some global companies to look at their contributions to global warming.

We recognised global warming as an issue. We recognised that the automobile has contributed to that. We’re taking very pro-active steps to reduce the impact our vehicles have on the environment” (interviewee 12, Environmental Manager, automotive).

And according to interviewee 12, they are investing in technologies to reduce vehicle emissions - they are certainly the world leaders in fuel-efficient and alternative fuel vehicles. They had the first hybrid car on the market – and are still the market leader. Interviewee 12 said that the decision to go down this path was not an altruistic one, but was a hard-edge business decision –

“if you don’t then you’re out of business - it’s as simple as that” he asserted.

1997 was also a key date for another major automobile manufacturer, which, according to interviewee 10 (Senior Environmental Manager, automotive) began to certify all of its global sites to ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management (EMS). In 1999 they issued an edict that all ‘first tier’ suppliers were to be ISO 14001 certified by mid-2003.

Two other interviewees highlighted EMS as an important initiative that their companies had taken toward CER. Interviewee 11 (Senior Environmental Manager, automotive) told me all her company’s plants were certified according to ISO 14001, but she stressed that she had made it mandatory for all her companies major component suppliers to become ISO 14001 certified.

Currently 33% of our main component suppliers are EMS certified, that is they have got one or other form of EMS certified, and if they keep to the commitment of the program, 70% of them will be certified by the end of this year. And I actually audit them on their progress (interviewee 11).

Interviewee 5 (Senior Environmental Manager, EEPs) also stressed the importance of her company’s EMS certification as a major way in which they were implementing CER, and also that they had made providing information on EMS a condition in all major tenders. The same company, according to the interviewee, has bi-annual global audits of business controls, including environmental performance, which report to boards.

140

Interviewee 6 (Design Manager, EEPs) said his company has adopted a

lifecycle approach to our products. We integrate all aspects of our products and we focus obviously on the energy consumption during the use phase, and now more and more on the end of life phase.

They are also working through industry associations to encourage all business in the sector to develop databases of the environmental impacts of their products, and that these should be

“joined together to establish an industry data base that is publicly available”.

A number of business leaders talked about waste minimisation, recycling and take back programs. Interview 11 (Senior Environmental Manager, automotive) claimed that their latest series of models is 75% recyclable. She talked about their dismantling facilities, where cars are dismantled “which allows materials to be used in the next generation”. For ease of dismantling and recycling, they now only use 6 different types of plastics, where previously they used up to 110, and these are clipped together rather than glued.

Take-back was a major aspect of interviewee 3 (Recycling Manager, whitegoods)

environmental programs. In New Zealand the company has an extensive take-back scheme in place. Collected appliances go to a recycling facility in their main manufacturing plant. Here

it’s stripped and dismantled. All the ferrous materials and any of the plastics that we can re-use are sorted and sifted. We take all the gases out of the refrigeration units and store that, and that actually comes back here to Australia where it’s recycled.

The company had also conducted a pilot take-back project in NSW and was currently involved in talks with other EEP producers for a broader trial.

According to interviewee 5 (Senior Environmental Manager, EEPs) her company already has an extensive take back program in place for its leased products, the bulk of its market, leased to business, government and institutions. They are about to “announce over the next few months for our large customers, take back for all their products, including their owned products”.

Closing the loop in packaging was a key environmental strategy for interviewee 18 (Beverage company).

We set up our own PET operation here a few years ago. And we were probably the first company to completely close the loop on packaging recycling. Of the 25,000-ton of PET available in Australia we bought 13,000 ton and recycled it

141

back into new bottles; made the new bottles; filled them; distributed them; and then bought them back through the recycling companies.

Interviewee 19 (Production Manager, Aircraft) is responsible for waste minimisation and clean production at the company. He was keen to talk about his company’s strategies for eliminating potentially toxic materials:

Chrome is used extensively in the aircraft industry because of the excellent protection it provides at thirty thousand feet. But it also has a lot of adverse environmental impacts. So they are pouring a lot of money into research, looking for a substitute.

Interviewee 13 (Director, office supplies) described his company’s core business activity, which involved recycling laser printer cartridges. They also recycle computer discs and offer a green office consultancy service.

In the process of manufacturing laser printer cartridges we are re-using a lot of the components of an original laser cartridge which otherwise would be destined for landfill. We re-manufacture approximately 2,000-2,500 laser cartridges a month.

That is saving a perfectly good product from going to landfill at that stage (Interviewee 13).

Production controls and concentrating on environmental design were the two main CER measures that interviewee 10 (Senior Environmental Manager, Automotive) talked about. “As far as facilities are concerned, we have a corporate system called the XXX Production System, which manages the facilities’ environmental performance”. Mostly, as he pointed out, this involved ensuring compliance to government regulatory standards. Perhaps the most exciting, and potentially far-reaching aspect of his company’s environmental strategies is the use of design for the environment. All plastics used are labelled for ease of recycling. “We have design for environment courses for our development and design engineers. Design for disassembly is becoming more of interest.” He went on to say:

One wants to target one of the attributes as environmental impact, so in the very early stages of designing a vehicle program, or setting up a vehicle program, we’d look at what environmental attributes we want that product to have – in terms of recyclability, emissions, or whatever it happens to be. That holds in the whole product development process. Like labeling, design for assembly, design for disassembly, reduction of hazardous material, phasing out of mercury and lead, all those heavy metals.

142 4.9 Conclusion

This chapter analysed interviews from business leaders, academics, corporate analysts and environmentalists, as well as public company information, to develop a picture of what some companies, in Australia and around the world are saying and doing about CER. It discussed what drives companies to at least say the right things, and showed that government policies particularly legislative, and the barriers to CER with a key finding being that a major perceived barrier is government inaction.

143

Chapter 5