As organizations are scrambling to become more efficient and cutting the “fat” from their budgets, one idea gaining attention is going to three-day weekends. This offering, without decreasing the actual hours worked per week, could not only save money, but also help the environment and public health.

This idea is being piloted in many states and companies across the country. While I was hoping to say the trend began as an effort to help the environment, as necessity is always the mother of invention, the economic downturn was the real reason it has been receiving such favorable notice. Companies realized they could close on Fridays and save money without having to reduce weekly hours.

It also aiding companies in a corporate responsibility perspective, as they strive to address some of the needs brought forward by employees in the last 5 years; environmental issues, commuting pressures as well as work-family balance.

Utah has already taken the 4 day workweek plunge- 17,000 of state employees since last August are working the 4 day work week. In their offices, there no longer a need to turn on the lights for three days, or clean buildings on fridays etc. Electric bills have dropped over the summer, thanks to less air-conditioning. As of late May the state has saved $1.8 million. Not pocket change by any means.

Employees surveyed on the 4 day work week love it- with 82 % wanting to stay the course. The shift in hours for their Monday- Thursday commute is off peak, so they have a better commute on the days they do come into the office.

An interim report released by the Utah state government in February projected a drop of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from Friday building shutdowns. If reductions in greenhouse gases from commuting are included, the state would check the generation of at least 12,000 metric tons of CO2—the equivalent of taking about 2,300 cars off the road for one year.

Recently PepsiCo, which owns the Tropicana brand, calculated that the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice it produces. As they tracked the carbon footprint to the consumers breakfast table it revealed that the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions turned out to be the act of growing oranges, not transportation or production.

Orange groves use nitrogen fertilizer, which requires natural gas to make. It can turn into a potent greenhouse gas when it is spread on fields. PepsiCo undertook this step as they are among one of the first companies to provide consumers with an absolute number for a products carbon footprint. The result of this study has revealed to PepsiCo the effort they will need to find ways to grow oranges using less carbon.

PepsiCo’s experience is a harbinger of the complexities other companies may face as they come under pressure to calculate their emission of carbon dioxide, a number known as a carbon footprint, and eventually to lower it.

“The main thing is helping us figure out where the carbon is in the chain,” said Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, a division of PepsiCo. While acknowledging that protocols for measuring greenhouse emissions are far from perfect, Mr. Campbell said, “you can end up doing nothing if you let that stop you.”

PepsiCo, a manufacturer of soda, salty snacks and cereal based in Purchase, N.Y., is among a growing number of companies that hope to get ahead of potential government mandates and curb their energy use as prices and long-term supply grow less certain.

They also want to promote supposedly low-carbon products to consumers anxious about rising global temperatures; such labeling has already appeared in Europe.

A Brazilian conservation group has found a way to get people talking about how to conserve water. By running cartoonlike television ads to urge people to urinate in the shower thus saving water from not flushing the toilet.

This daring and darling ad has been posted on facebook and is getting many hits on u-tube, which is causing some to balk at this notion of letting loose in the shower.

Seems to be making the impact (or even more) that was intended as people are talking about it worldwide, and sending it to their friends- thus helping to get out the message that flushing one less time a day can save more than 1,150 gallons of water over the course of the year.

Back in June, IBM took the steps to form a “Green Sigma Coalition” in the quest to partner with metering, monitoring, automation, and communication software leaders for “Green” Solutions.

This industry alliance with key leaders will provide smart solutions for energy, water, waste and greenhouse gas management. The charter members of the “Green Sigma” are: Johnson Controls, Honeywell Building Solutions, ABB, Eaton, Cisco, Siemens Building Technologies Division, Schneider Electric and SAP. These members will work with IBM to integrate their products and services with IBM’s Green Sigma solution.

This in turn, will allow companies using these combined solutions to better understand energy and water usage, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across their business operations and make changes to improve efficiency, reduce consumption and waste, and lower environmental impact.

IBM realized that as organizations work to create a greener, smarter planet, this can’t be accomplished in silo’s. Working together and bringing the strength of each organization to bare, this coalition can create solutions the world needs to conserve resources and address climate change, quicker than if they would try to accomplish this task alone.

These new relationships support IBM’s “smarter planet” initiative, which envisions a world where everything is instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.

It almost seems like an oxy moron- exposing the “warts” of an industry; however Chipotle is doing just that by sponsoring free screenings of the documentary “Food Inc.” Which is an expose of the American food industry.

Now Chipotle is no “major offender” and is quite progressive in the “fast food” arena as the Mexican Grill claims to serve more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant in the world, while also 35% of its beans are organic. But as many organizations know, a sustainable path is just that, a journey towards a goal and no company is “perfect”. However, while many are touting the “path” and marketing that effort, not many marketers would shine a spotlight on potential weak points.

“There is something very authentic about allowing your brand to become vulnerable in this way,” argues Andrea Learned in a post at the Daily Fix blog. “By inviting its customers to see the ugly truth, Chipotle is walking its talk of a responsible and healthy food movement.”

She believes the strategy works for two reasons:

• Chipotle acknowledges- and embraces- the fact that it’s on a journey toward a greater goal. The restaurant’s customers will likely appreciate the companu’s honest self-assessment and realistic ambitions. “Consumers don’t trust an ‘all and perfectly done’ proclamation, because that is truly impossible,” notes Learned.
• The company earns credibility from its unique position as industry educator. Chipotle’s right-brained audience wants to do its research before making a purchase. “Any brand that helps in this process will be duly rewarded,” she says.

“Authenticity actually can’t happen without vulnerability, scary as that sounds,” say Learned. But a risk worth taking.

No, your not reading an environmentalists to-do list, this statement above is the Mission statement of Patagonia the clothing company, which is a pure eco driven statement. Yvon Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia. He started the business selling piton’s out of his car in 1957 and along the path he has always defined his bottom line not as Wall Street has done so, but with the realization that everything his business did had an effect- mostly negative- on the environment. Which is why his newfound mission statement reflects a more urgent need for change.

Yvon is quite the hands on CEO, as he doesn’t sit in an office and dictate; he travels the planet, just like the folks who utilize his equipment and clothing, and his employees that source the materials for his clothing/equipment. As he looks around the planet in the past 20 plus years he can see a clear impact on how we are destroying the planet. He now realizes that Patagonia, the business, “exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy.”

Yvon goes on to say, and this statement has been mirrored by other sustainability gurus, that in a broad sense “we need to work on the causes rather than the symptoms. You can throw money all day at symptomatic things, and you are not going to solve the problem.”

Check out Patagonia’s website- www.patagonia.com The content is getting more rich in environmental awareness plus if you want to see an effective example of a eco-philanthropic effort, Patagonia’s One Percent for the Planet, is a program put in place back in 1985 where companies, like Patagonia give back 1% of their sales to environmental charities. One percent recently hit the 1000^th member mark and has given back $42 million to more than 1,700 groups. Yvon does not acknowledge this as a “Philanthropic” effort, but just a cost of doing business. He feels that every business is a polluter, and if they are not using nonrenewable resources, then they should “tax themselves”.