As part of its Earth Week celebration, Carbonfund.org is highlighting some of its business partners who are making a difference in their respective industries by pursuing energy-efficient and sustainable operating practices. Today’s entry highlights SVECONWAY’s green printing and marketing solutions.

SVECONWAY, a full-service, family-owned and operated printer founded in Silver Spring, Md. in 1982, offers convenient, one-stop shopping and a broad range of printing and marketing services, including graphic design, offset printing, digital printing, mailing services, personalized variable printing and no-charge local delivery. Committed to conservation and the environment, SVECONWAY complies with green industry standards, using earth-friendly techniques, papers, inks and energy sources.

At SVECONWAY, ecology is as important as economy.  Stewardship of the environment and printing responsibly has been a key commitment since 2003 when the company began seeking innovative alternatives to offset the effects of energy consumption from daily operations. That's why SVECONWAY joined Carbonfund.org's Million Tree Challenge and now plants one tree for every project they print. It's the same reason that SVECONWAY converted to 100% wind power, uses eco-friendly technology, adheres to the FSC and SFI paper chain of custody standards, and offsets its annual business and product shipping carbon emissions with Carbonfund.org each year.

If you’re looking for a way to green-up your printing and marketing materials, contact SVECONWAY for the expertise and environmental focus your company deserves.

e-academy Inc. is excited to announce that it is offsetting carbon emissions with Carbonfund.org Foundation, the leading nonprofit carbon reduction and climate solutions organization. By joining Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Partner program, e-academy has joined a national movement of businesses and organizations that are leading the fight against global warming.  Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Partner program supports third-party validated renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects in the U.S. and abroad to reduce CO2 emissions and hasten our transition to a clean energy future. 

For many years, e-academy has led the development of green software distribution solutions through electronic software delivery (ESD), allowing the academic community to download software and avoid packaging and shipping, which are detrimental to the environment.  Recent studies have calculated that replacing traditional distribution of DVD/CD disk kit software with ESD can result in at least an 83% reduction in carbon emissions with a typical software application ESD consuming about 0.28kg CO₂e versus 1.68kg CO₂e when calculating the total life cycle emissions. 

“With more than 15 million software downloads every year, we calculate that e-academy has saved more than 21,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions every year versus physical media!”, said Richard White, VP & COO, “That’s something we feel really good about!” 

Now, e-academy is proud to be a partner of the Carbonfund organization and will continue to offset carbon emissions by supporting Reforestation and Forest Preservation projects. These forestry projects absorb carbon emissions now and for years to come. 

e-academy Inc. is the global leader in software delivery solutions for the worldwide education market. Over 60,000 academic institutions and departments trust e-academy to manage and distribute software to their students, faculty and staff. The company distributes software in 195 countries and supports 11 languages.

It’s gotten a lot harder to be “green.”  RetailMeNot.com, the largest online coupon site in the United States, revealed today in this Earth Day–inspired edition of the Shoppers Trend Report that while 46% of respondents are more inclined to buy a product if it is eco-friendly, the majority of respondents (59%) are unwilling to pay more money for that eco-friendly product or service. This Shoppers Trend Report includes data from a survey jointly conducted with Ipsos Public Affairs (http://www.ipsos.com/). 

Additionally, RetailMeNot announced it is working with Carbonfund.org to identify the top green cities where consumers can shop in the United States. Some of these cities include markets like RetailMeNot's hometown, Austin, TX, San Francisco, CA and St. Paul, MN. The cities were tiered according to a number of factors, including renewable electricity usage, air quality, public transportation options and other energy-efficiency standards. 

As a part of the Carbonfund.org partnership, RetailMeNot will work to help reduce the carbon footprint caused by shopping by planting one tree for every click (up to 5,000 trees) on its eco-shopping coupon page. 

Just click on http://www.retailmenot.com/events/earthday to help plant up to 5,000 trees!

To read an online version of the full RetailMeNot Shoppers Trend Report and press release, click here.

Take a look at this interesting infographic of every U.S. state’s environmental strengths and weaknesses.  http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/stories/infographic-united-states-of-the-environment

Every U.S. state is designated as first place in some environmental or public health category and 50^th in another.  Mother Nature Network (MNN) created the infographic to reveal how each state excels or lags in science, nature, public health, or social justice.  The comments are worth reading as well because not everyone agrees with MNN’s classifications.  The discussions can stimulate thinking about our carbon footprints.

Some of the undefined acronyms are defined here for ease of understanding. 

• LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. 
• Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. 
• Dioxin is defined as a highly toxic compound produced as a byproduct in some manufacturing processes, notably herbicide production and paper bleaching. It is a serious and persistent environmental pollutant.

Go here to see the sources of MNN’s statistics and to learn more.

As the U.S. sits on the sidelines, debating the validity of climate change, the rest of the world is making substantial investments in clean energy and sustainable technologies for the sake of the planet and the betterment of their economies.

“Going green” is estimated to be a $100 billion dollar business by the year 2017. Whether you believe in the science behind climate change or not, you cannot overlook the solid data that confirms the cost savings and efficiency gains of organizations that have embraced sustainability as a core value. Further, as an American you cannot deny the need to invest in clean energy as a way to strengthen our economy, our national security and provide a wholesome future for our children.

The business community, city leadership and entrepreneurs are coming together to find cost effective solutions to address climate change. The Sustainable Operations Summit is the premier forum for leading organizations to share best practices that benefit both the environment and the bottom line. The 2012 summit will bring together some of the world's brightest minds in sustainability in New York City during Earth Week to share innovative approaches to reduce our impact on the environment with a focus on energy, the built environment and resource conservation.

From the High Line to the Skyline, NYC plays the perfect host for the summit as it is home to some of the most inspiring green building and urban renewal projects in the world.

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The Sustainable Operations Summit is produced by CraigMichaels, launched in 2002 and has since become one of the nation’s premier producers of senior level events. Their unique event format provides leaders with an intensive yet enjoyable way to better their business that saves both time and money. Linking Leaders is more than just their tagline; their core objective is to initiate and foster relationships that allow you to achieve your business goals.

As part of its sustainability initiatives, CraigMichaels offsets carbon dioxide emissions from staff travel and facility energy usage for its summits with Carbonfund.org.

Today’s blog highlights our Travel Category winner, JetBlue Airways. Carbonfund.org congratulates and thanks them for their commitment to sustainable practices and to the support of important external carbon reductions.

JetBlue views sustainability as synonymous with social responsibility and is committed to reducing the environmental impact of both their crew and their customers. Through the Jetting to Green initiatives, they are allowing a portal for customers to mitigate the climate impact of their travel through customized calculators on Carbonfund.org’s site.  However, JetBlue is leading by example. For the past two years, JetBlue has offset 100% their own business travel, supporting carbon mitigation projects equivalent to the emissions of their crewmembers’ travels. This is all in addition to their annual Spring campaign, One Thing That’s Green, that encourages crewmembers and customers, in all of the 70+ cities that JetBlue serves, to do one thing for the environment. This month JetBlue will launch the 5^th annual campaign, so be sure to visit www.jetblue.com/pledge to learn more on how you can do your One Thing That’s Green.  

JetBlue has been able to partner with Carbonfund.org through the leadership of the Corporate Responsibility Department, and in particular, Icema Gibbs.

Corporate Risk Systems Limited (CRS) is a Health Safety and Environmental Training provider; CRS also offer Risk Management Consultancy and Training Solutions across Health, Safety and Environmental Sectors. From its UK base, it supports many international clients (currently across 51 countries worldwide) in large commercial, private and public organisations and of course insurance markets.

As a responsible organisation offering environmental and health and safety support to their clients, Corporate Risk Systems took direct action to evaluate its own operational emissions, developed and implemented a Carbon Reduction and Offset Policy, using Carbonfund.org to make Corporate Risk Systems CarbonFree^®. 

Every year since 2005, CRS has calculated its annual operational emissions from regular business activities, then made a donation to Carbonfund.org to purchase and retire the corresponding carbon credits in order to offset CRS annual emissions and thus become a CarbonFree^® Health, Safety & Environmental Training and Risk management Consultancy organisation.   The CRS carbon footprint calculation includes all employees’ business auto, rail and airline mileage.   It also includes a calculation for the use of electrical energy by staff for laptops, PCs and projectors, heating and lighting of offices and training rooms, training materials and even includes a figure for CRS sponsorship of a classic Mini Cooper racing car, which in its decoration, promotes environmental protection and Carbonfund.org. All of this data is converted using the UK Government’s DEFRA conversion tables into the CRS Carbon Footprint.

"It’s down to each individual and organisation to accept its environmental impact, if sustainable development is to turn from a concept into reality. Climate Change is one of the most serious threats facing the world today, and it is everyone’s responsibility to reduce carbon emissions at source where possible, and offset our residual carbon footprint." Richard Ball – Head of Environment

(reprinted from Malk Sustainability Partners blog site:  http://www.malksp.com/blog/)

At Malk Sustainability Partners, we advise companies on how they can reduce their environmental footprints and profit from doing so.  As advisors on sustainability, we are passionate about ‘walking the talk’ with regard to managing our corporate environmental footprint.  Toward this end, we are proud of a few initiatives we have underway, from electronic filing of documents to our team’s consistent leveraging of web conferencing and public transit. Additionally, we renewed our partnership with Carbonfund.org to offset our small carbon footprint (you can view this year’s Carbon Offset Certificate). Given MSP’s focus on sustainability, we believe in carbon neutrality for our own operations and our partnership with Carbonfund.org has made this goal achievable, easy, and inspiring.

Carbonfund.org is a leading exchange dedicated to carbon offset trading.  While it is trusted by large companies such as Dell, Jet Blue, Staples, and Motorola, Carbonfund also makes offset purchasing understandable and easy for small businesses and individuals.  The website provides a suite of tools, including a user friendly carbon calculator, to compute your business’s impact; it then offers an array of opportunities to mitigate that impact through contributions to projects which produce carbon credits. These projects, which are to some degree environmental good deeds, span the gamut from landfill gas capture (methane, which seeps out of landfills and is a potent greenhouse gas), clean technology financing, or afforestation (planting trees which create a ‘carbon sink’ as the trees grow and absorb CO₂).  By buying the credits you are essentially buying a share of the positive environmental impact of these projects to account for your own footprint. MSP purchased 30 metric tons of CO₂ credits this year; offsetting our carbon impact while supporting afforestation and reforestation projects.

If you are curious to know more about your company’s carbon footprint, or actions you can take to reduce or offset it, please contact us any time at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.