Despite all the attention given to corporate environmental efforts in recent years, a recent survey by Sovereign Bank found that just 5 percent of Rhode Island companies say “green business practices” have had a “significant impact” on their company.
Brad Shipp, vice president of information technology and facilities at Cox Communications, says his company is an exception. Shipp recently spoke to the annual conference of the U.S. Composting Council about Cox Conserves, a corporate recycling program. Shipp talked with Providence Business News recently about how companies can go green without sacrificing the bottom line.
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PBN: What is Cox Conserves?
SHIPP: Cox Conserves is Cox Enterprises’ national corporate [conservation] program that includes the company’s six major subsidiaries, including Cox Communications. The program enables and encourages Cox’s 80,000 employees and families to engage in eco-friendly practices that reduce energy use and promote sustainability. Since 2000, Cox Enterprises has reduced its energy consumption by 10 percent while growing at nearly 12 percent a year. Building on this success, the goal of Cox Conserves is to reduce its energy consumption by an additional 20 percent by 2017.
PBN: Recycling itself can be a big headache for businesses. Why did Cox decide to go further and get involved with composting?
SHIPP: Recycling doesn’t need to be a headache if it’s a part of a company’s larger effort to effectively manage its waste stream.
The Central Landfill [in Johnston] is a limited resource that we share with the larger Rhode Island community. Yet, today it has the illustrious distinction of being the third-highest point of land in the state, and it’s not getting any smaller. Food scraps and other compostable material make up more than 30 percent of the waste Cox previously sent to the landfill. Diverting that waste stream and putting it to productive use isn’t just good business – it’s the right thing to do for our customers and the community.
PBN: Has Cox Conserves changed how you manage the IT department?
SHIPP: The Cox IT department is full of examples where going green also lowers operating costs. In the data center, we’ve migrated to blade servers and adopted hardware virtualization. This allows us to run 53 server instances on eight pieces of hardware. Not only does this lower our hardware budget, but we’re using about one-seventh of the electricity and generating one-seventh of the heat. A smaller heat signature means that the HVAC systems in the data center have to do less work, which adds additional cost savings and contributes to a lower carbon footprint. We’ve also rolled out energy management software to all of our PCs, which will lead to an energy savings of 25 percent.
Recycling plays an important role in technology lifecycle management. We purchase PCs with greener components, and at the end of life they are sent to a facility that recycles them. That way we recoup some value and we know that they don’t end up in the Landfill.
It’s important to note that Cox Conserves has changed the way we manage every department at Cox Communications. Our Marketing group has implemented a campaign to encourage customers to go paperless with their billing. Our Fleet department is purchasing higher efficiency vehicles. Cox Charities will award our first “Cox Conserves Community Grant” to an agency that offers after-school programming to middle school students with a focus on the environment.
PBN: Companies often cite the higher costs associated with green initiatives. How significant are the costs of the compositing program? Do they impact your customers?
SHIPP: It’s important to look at conservation holistically. The money we have saved by installing high efficiency boilers and computerized energy control systems more than makes up for the minimal costs of our composting program. Importantly, we can ensure we don’t pass any costs along to our customers by reinvesting these cost savings into our overall Cox Conserves initiatives.
PBN: Businesspeople have also expressed concern about whether they will see significant benefits from going green. What suggestions would you have for companies concerned about ensuring they have a good ROI for going green?
SHIPP: A well-balanced green initiative can definitely benefit a company’s bottom line. The key is to make prudent investment decisions based on solid data and analysis that are in line with the company’s overall strategic goals. For instance, in the New England climate, an investment in sophisticated energy control systems is likely to have a much more immediate return than a longer term investment in solar energy. Both are important to consider, but ROI analysis might drive a company one way rather than another.
There are also intangible benefits to going green. In a 2007 Tandberg survey, more than half of global consumers – 53 percent, representing 1.1 billion people – said they prefer to buy products and services from a company with a strong environmental reputation. While it’s hard to calculate an ROI for customer goodwill, it’s definitely an important factor in an increasingly competitive marketplace. •
Is your company going green? Providence Business News will publish a special section called “Businesses Going Green” in the March 16 edition. If you have a story to share, contact PBN environmental writer Ted Nesi at nesi@pbn.com.
