Greener World Media published their second annual “State of Green Business 2009” report last week.  The report, written by Joel Makower and the editors of GreenBiz.com, provides a nice overview of the top “green” stories of 2008 (e.g., Water Becomes the New Carbon) and highlights twenty indicators of environmental performance, such as green power use, paper use and recycling, growth of green buildings, and toxics in manufacturing.  Although the report doesn’t delve into supply chain and logistics issues directly or in much detail, it’s a valuable resource nonetheless for anyone interested in this topic.

According to the report, the number of companies that are publishing non-financial reports with environmental information has increased 64 percent between 2004 and 2008.  But this impressive statistic is overshadowed by the fact that only 148 of the companies in the S&P 500 (about 30 percent of the total) published “corporate social responsibility reports” in 2008.  Similarly, only 140 companies in the U.S. responded to the Carbon Disclosure Project survey last year (for a related posting, see “Ryder’s Answers to the Carbon Disclosure Project“). 

This data underscores the findings of a research survey we conducted last year on “The State of Green Supply Chain Management” (in partnership with Dr. Walfried Lassar, Director of the Ryder Center for Supply Chain Management at Florida International University).  Our conclusion: we are still in the early adopter phase, and the leaders are mostly large companies (over $1 billion in revenues) that are focusing their efforts primarily on ‘low hanging fruit’ opportunities to reduce costs, improve the environment, and enhance public relations.  You can download a free copy of our report by clicking here.

In related news, Kellogg Company released its first global Corporate Responsibility Report last month (you can download the report here).  According to the press release, “Kellogg has set a goal of 15 – 20 percent reductions in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water use and waste per metric tonne of food produced by 2015, relative to 2005 baselines.”  There’s no asterisk next to this statement in the press release, but there is one in the report: this goal does not include contract manufacturing partners’ facilities.  This caveat reminds me of the criticism Dell received recently for adopting a narrow carbon footprint definition (see “Defining ‘Carbon Neutrality’“). 

Nonetheless, I think there’s a lot of interesting information in Kellogg’s report.  I particularly like the graphic below, which presents the company’s holistic perspective of “corporate responsibility across the value chain.” 

Source: Kellog Company Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

In the introduction to the State of Green Busines 2009 report, Joel Makower writes: “At the end of the day, the questions remain: Are we moving far enough, fast enough?  Does the ever-growing green activity in the business world represent a true transformation…Or is it merely nibbling at the edges of the problems.  Reasonable minds can justifiably argue both sides.”

I tend to fall in the “nibbling at the edges” camp.  As I argued in my “Inconvenient Truths About Green Supply Chains” piece last February, companies are in business to make money, not lose it.  I certainly don’t want to work for a company that drives itself into bankruptcy and leaves me jobless by undertaking “green” projects without any fiscal discipline. But we must also recognize that there’s a limit to how much progress we can make, and how quickly, if “good for business” is the only litmus test we use.  Eventually, the law of diminishing returns will kick in, and then what will we do?

But that’s my viewpoint.  What’s yours?