Climate Counts Scores are in & Stonyfield Proud to be "Soaring"

The following is a reproduction of a blog written by Wood Turner, VP of Sustainability Innovation at Stonyfield. 

Stonyfield’s longstanding commitment to environmental sustainability is one of the things that make our company unique. Our Healthy Planet mission runs very, very deep, encompassing everything from being the first dairy company to use plant-based packaging to our employee-led annual waste audits that have helped us achieve a 90% recycling rate. It includes big things, like our groundbreaking use of rail to move our yogurt east to west, and little things, too, like having recycling bins at our desks, instead of trash cans.   When, in 2006, Stonyfield started the non-profit organization Climate Counts through our Profits for the Planets program, one of our goals was to motivate the largest companies in the world – across a wide range of industry sectors – to embrace Stonyfield’s own commitment to finding solutions to climate change.   With the announcement of its first corporate climate scores in June 2007 in the New York Times, Climate Counts began asking consumers to vote with their dollars by supporting those companies that had the highest climate scores – and avoiding those that consistently lagged behind.   The Climate Counts Company Scorecard now annually evaluates over 150 companies in four key areas: • Whether they’ve measured their carbon footprint • Whether they’ve set aggressive goals and then reduced their carbon footprint • Whether they’ve supported (or opposed) public policy that could lead to climate change solutions • Whether they’ve been open, transparent, and clear on their efforts to address climate change with consumers and other stakeholders   Since the beginning, Stonyfield has been scored by Climate Counts alongside other companies. We thought it was important that we get an independent review of our own efforts if we were going to suggest that other companies face that same kind of scrutiny, even if those other companies were significantly larger than us. We’re proud of the fact that our score – on a 0-100 point scale – has always been in the upper tier – the “striding” tier — of companies addressing climate change.   With our support for comprehensive federal climate and energy legislation, our engagement in the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, our goal to use 100% renewable energy in our operations, and our eagerness to share information with consumers about our pathway to deeper sustainability, we areproud of our efforts to be part of the solution to the increasingly challenging global climate crisis. But there’s always room for growth. That’s why we’re especially proud that, in the latest Climate Counts scores announced in December, we were part of the first group of what are now called “soaring” companies – a “best of the best” category. Our score of 86 acknowledges the continued vigilance of our entire industrial organization, our engineering and maintenance teams, and our transportation and logistics teams to measure and manage energy use and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with that energy in a way that makes it clear that climate action is a company priority. We’re not content to assume our emissions will always fluctuate; we’re focused on reducing them and keeping them as low as possible. The integration of our carbon measurement tool into how we do business and how we understand the impacts of our products is a great example of our leadership. Visit www.climatecounts.org to see how we compare to other companies in the food sector and in the broader marketplace. At Stonyfield, we always remember that, as environmental leaders, the world is watching what we do. For 30 years, we have demonstrated that we can be successful as a business while still reducing our impact on the environment. The 2013 Climate Counts scores are the latest example of how our longstanding mission really does make us best in class.   Learn more about Climate Counts to see how we and other companies score: www.climatecounts.org Learn more about Stonyfield’s commitment to the planet: Our Roadmap for Green Business   Click here to view the original article.