Office Professional 2010 'Gigaton Awards' Acknowle

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by Timothy B. Hurst

A gigaton is one particular billion tons. It can be also the figure a fresh environment leadership award hopes to one day obtain in corporate carbon dioxide emissions. The winners of the first actually Gigaton Awards had been announced more than the weekend with the Planet Local weather Summit, which was held alongside the United Nations COP16 environment talks in Cancun, and was co-hosted by Sir Richard Branson and Jose Maria Figueres with the Carbon War Place.
The nominees consist of Worldwide 1000 businesses across six sectors of enterprise: Consumer Discretionary, Customer Staples, Industrials, Telecommunications, Power, and Utilities.
The mission from the Gigaton Awards is usually to inspire and problem corporations to generate a distinction to environment alter and international sustainability. "This can be a hopeful concept, one which says businesses can lead our method to a secure environment," says Sunil Paul, founder from the Gigaton Awards.
I had an opportunity to speak with Sunil Paul, a cleantech investor and entrepreneur, during a layover on his way to Cancun for your local weather talks and also the Gigaton Awards ceremony. Paul, who founded numerous companies including Brightmail, the top anti-spam application now portion of Symantec, is additionally co-founder and chair from the Clear Financial system Network, a cleantech and green company business.
Paul says companies acquire in to carbon reductions along with the philosophy with the Gigaton Awards, "not since it feels very good, but since these steps influence the bottom line."
The irony of doling out awards for carbon reductions in the context of a mostly unsuccessful global carbon reductions regime was not misplaced on Paul, who mentioned, "the message is particularly stark in the absence of governments' capability to lead around the coverage entrance."
"We are shining the lights of benefits and leadership in opposition to a backdrop of inaction plus a lack of leadership." Just one more company environmental award?
With every one of the green certifications and environmental leadership awards by now lavished on businesses, does the entire world genuinely require another award? Sunil Paul says the Gigaton Awards are various.
"These are totally unique. There's no other award that looks at quantitative indicators and utilizes a peer group to ascertain the ultimate award," he says.
Although the nominees ended up determined by quantitative figures—reductions in carbon dioxide per dollar of profits based on info collected inside the Carbon Disclosure Challenge for fiscal year 2008 and fiscal yr 2009—the real variety of winners was manufactured by an independent Academy and according to demonstrated leadership, not solely on quantitative actions.
"Leadership is about communication and that you simply are executing on your values," Sunil Paul emphasized.
Winners with the 2010 Gigaton Awards are:
- Nike for its vitality financial savings plan aimed at minimizing its world-wide greenhouse gas emissions,Office Professional 2010,
- Reckitt Benckiser Group for demonstrating its leadership in mitigating chance from climate adjust and sustainable procedures,
- Suzlon for its achievement in managing its emissions and overall sustainability milestones,
- 3M for its leadership in increasing power effectiveness and sustainable procedures,
- Vodafone Group for its new organization which gives carbon reducing connections, and
- GDF Suez for its demonstrated leadership by emitting among the lowest CO2 per kilowatt-hour developed in Europe.

Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry