Software: Systems to Measure Sustainable Performance Lacking

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In September 2009, Newsweek Magazine published its first-ever listing of the Greenest Big Companies in America.

The magazine looked at the 500 largest publicly held U.S. companies that trade on either the New York or NASDAQ stock exchanges.

It was noted that some of these companies studied, even those actively seeking to reduce their environmental footprint, do not have their own internal tracking or “dashboard” system in place to monitor their environment or Green performance.
 
IDG Research Service also discovered this in a report released earlier this year. “In this age of rising concerns over energy costs and environmental impacts,” said the report, “relatively few companies monitor energy use and even fewer monitor their [environmental] performance.”
 
Jansan Companies Lack Monitoring Systems
This was the same conclusion reached by a study conducted by The Ashkin Group, a Green Cleaning consulting group, and Sustainability Dashboard, which has just introduced a sustainable monitoring tool specifically for the professional cleaning industry.
 
Although actual numbers and percentages were not released, according to Stephen Ashkin, president of both organizations, the study found:
 
• None of the jansan organizations studied were tracking their Green efforts.
• None were tracking water use
• Only a few were monitoring their use of electricity and natural gas.
• Many were tracking how they dispose of waste and their recycling systems; however, few firms understood how waste contributes to greenhouse gas calculations.
 
“We also found that only a few of the companies we studied are tracking what are called social equity issues,” adds Ashkin. “This is required under the Global Reporting Initiative* and involves such things as public policy and community programs.”

Ashkin adds that he does see large and small companies throughout our industry actively taking steps to become Greener and more sustainable, “But a measurement system needs to be in place to track, follow, and measure [our] environmental accomplishments. We can’t manage what we can’t measure.”