Creative Ways to Do Well by Doing Good

As a sustainability consulting firm, we hear about a lot of different corporate sustainability strategies.  Many of these strategies involve following the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) framework, gathering stakeholder feedback and creating a system of goals, objectives and metrics to make operational progress over time.

But one of our favorite parts about sustainability is that it spurs innovation.

We searched high and low for some of the most creative ways that companies are doing well by doing good.  Here are our Top Ten:

• Pepsi Refresh Project

In an effort to support those who generate innovative, optimistic ideas, the Pepsi Refresh Project will award more than $20 million in 2010 to move communities forward.  Individuals can apply for grants to benefit a variety of projects and site visitors can vote for the best ideas for funding.  The Pepsi Refresh Project is an evolution of the Refresh Everything initiative Pepsi launched in 2009, which showed the brand as an optimistic catalyst for idea creation, leading to an ever-refreshing world.   Pepsi will fund projects that make a difference in six categories: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education.

• Tropicana’s Rescue the Rainforest

Tropicana is working with Cool Earth to preserve forest in the Ashaninka Corridor in Peru.  Throughout 2010, Tropicana consumers can redeem their Tropicana Juicy Rewards points to help save endangered rainforest from logging and deforestation. According to the Rescue the Rainforest website, each point redeemed will save 33 1/3 square feet of rainforest.

• IBM’s Smarter Planet

IBM has launched a new initiative, called Smarter Planet, for which it has three primary goals: Instrument the world’s systems, Interconnect them and Make them intelligent.  The overarching goal is to make the planet’s systems more efficient and generally smarter.  Subdivisions of the Smarter Planet initiative include: Smarter Energy, Smarter Banking, Smarter Healthcare and Smarter Cities.  Within these categories, there are a slew of subcategories, such as education, food, water and transportation systems.

How Green Companies are Cashing In (part 1 – Terracycle)

This is the first in a series of posts that will examine how 5 companies–that were highlighted in the recent edition of Fortune Small Business–have focused on sustainable enterprises in surprisingly pragmatic ways in order to weather the economic storm.

The first best practice highlight is of Terracycle:

Entrepreneur Tom Szaky and his company Terracycle have managed to use innovative recycling (spinning trash into consumer goods like Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold) to double their revenue every year since 2004.  Fortune Small Business claims that Terracycle’s sales are likely to hit $15 million in 2009.  In addition to being filmed for their new reality TV show, Garbage Moguls, the recycling firm’s 46 employees dream up ways to re-design and re-purpose the mountains of trash in their 250,000-square-foot warehouse.  A few of their creations include pencil cases from Capri Sun juice pouches, picture frames and clocks from circuit boards, kites from Oreo wrappers, and fertilizer called worm poop in Coke bottles (sold at Home Depot, Target and Whole Foods).