Eleven mid-market companies made B-Corp’s Best For The World list 2014, and some of their industries aren’t what you’d expect.
In honor of Earth Day, B Corp has released their Best for the World: Environmental Impact 2014 rankings. Of the entire list, 11 mid-market companies were featured for their sustainability, innovation, and dedication to eco-friendly practices. While the majority of the 11 companies target expected areas, (including green home care, solar energy developers, and outdoor outfitters) an interesting trend has emerged: You don’t have to be in the environmental business to have environmentally sustainable, friendly practices.
New Belgium Brewery of Fort Collins, CO is the third-largest craft brewer in the United States and is ranked as one of B Corp’s Best for the World. Sustainability is at the heart of the company: CEO Kim Jordan co-founded the company in 1991 after a bike trip through Belgium inspired her to create a brewery that could produce first-class beers with minimal environmental impact. A 100% employee-owned company, New Belgium Brewery keeps a close eye on its eco-impact by monitoring and recording energy usage, waste production, and emissions.
But they don’t stop there: they continually create specific reduction targets to push their sustainability goals even more, impressively managing to recycle, reuse, or compost over 75% of their solid manufacturing wastes.
New Belgium Brewery manages to maintain such impressive environmental statistics by incorporating their social, environmental, and cultural ideals into their business model. In addition to their extraordinary recycling statistics, New Belgium Brewery also donates $1 of every barrel of beer produced to non-profit organizations.
Among the other mid-market companies on the list are Solberg Manufacturing, Inc, a manufacturing company that creates filtration, separation, and silencing products to make machinery and the workplace more eco-friendly, and West Paw Design, a Montana-based manufacturer of eco-friendly upmarket pet products. The other companies that made B Corp’s list are listed below.
To learn more about the individual companies, visit B Corp’s official list.
GOLITE (67% of materials are environmentally preferred, >50% of carbon inventory offset)
Method (Bottles are 100% recycled plastic, Facilities are LEED certified, >50% of energy comes from renewable resources)
Namaste Solar (>50% of facilities are LEED certified, >15% renewable energy generated on-site)
Patagonia (75% of materials are environmentally preferred, 30% of suppliers meet bluesign)
Positive Energy Solar (Extensive renewable energy on-site)
Seventh Generation (100% of products are non-toxic, publishes transparent annual external report detailing mission-related activites)
Sungevity (50% of suppliers environmentally reviewed/audited, Organizes a commuter bike program and facilitates clean commuting)
WasteZero (>75% solid wastes from manufacturing process are recycled, reused or composted, >75% of office supplies from recycled/sustainable materials)
No comments:
Post a Comment