Posted on December 19 2011 by zerofootprint and filed in Press Mentions
Camilla Cornell, Financialpost.com
December 19, 2011
When Tom Heintzman travels, he either uses a plug-in hybrid car or purchases carbon offsets for all of his flights, takes public transport from the airport where possible, and uses hotel chains that are powered at least partially by renewable energy. But you would expect that of the co-founder and president of Toronto-based Bullfrog Power Inc., a green electricity producer.
Mr. Heintzman argues there’s a business case to be made for all companies – whether they style themselves as “green†or not – to reduce their transportation footprint.
“We definitely have a lot of polling data that suggest consumers are increasingly aware of companies’ corporate social responsibility and environmental practices and they’re increasingly relevant,†he says.
Many companies’ requests for proposals (RFPs) for business travel agreements now include pointed questions about what the chain is doing to mitigate its carbon footprint, says Sarah Dayboll, director of environmental affairs for Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.
Zerofootprint has developed sophisticated software to help clients figure out where they are starting from (benchmark) and what they need to do to reduce their energy consumption. Take, for example, the Halton Catholic District School Board.
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Ron Dembo, CEO of Zerofootprint. We talked about the three different areas his company is working on right now and all are about achieving the same goal: reducing energy consumption, whether it’s through plug load, adding insulation or by altering human behaviour.
This blog post originally appeared in the Canadian edition of the Huffington Post. Get all the newest posts by signing up to Zerofootprint CEO Ron Dembo’s Huffington Post blog RSS feed.
Climate change is one of the most hotly debated issues of our time, both from an economic and a moral viewpoint. And whenever someone makes a case for action from a moral stance, most often they’ll justify it by invoking the future plight of the world and the children that will inherit it. It’s a delicate subject, after all, what’s more important than our children?
Halton Catholic District School Board students and staff can now track their school’s energy consumption with the hope it will spark discussion and, ultimately, conservation efforts.
The word “green” is tossed around a lot as a catchall term to describe sustainable or environmentally friendly projects, businesses, energy, and more. Green construction and architecture, for one, are proliferating across the world, but when it comes to gauging how “green” a building is, for example, one finds that there are more than a few standards by which to determine its efficiency and sustainability.
On Friday, August 12th, Zerofootprint and TerraCycle teamed up to demonstrate the value of life cycle assessments (LCAs) for companies and consumers in Media Planet’s “Packaging the Future” report. This supplement, distributed in the National Post, delved into the issue of sustainable packaging and what consumers can do to make better buying choices.
The Importance of Life Cycle Assessments
TerraCycle, a global leader in the collection and repurposing of non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste, was looking to conduct a study on the environmental impact of their products. They wanted to show their current suppliers and clients that their repurposed products are an environmentally-preferable solution to incinerating waste, sending it to landfill, or buying products made from new materials.
TerraCycle turned to Zerofootprint, an award-winning cleantech software and services company that helps businesses measure, visualize, and manage their environmental footprint. Zerofootprint helped TerraCycle prove its products were green by providing a clear and comprehensive analysis of the processes used by TerraCycle to repurpose waste.
A typographical error led Amory Lovins to coin the phrase negawatts. In a brilliant 1989 keynote address to the Green Energy Conference in Montreal he outlined what has become the blueprint for a radical business and energy concept.
Pay people to do nothing.
Twenty-plus years later the idea is deeply taking hold.
Fast-forward to Dr. Ron Denbo who was recently featured on a TED global ideas project. He is the Founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, an international company that provides software to measure and manage carbon footprint. Individuals, governments and corporations can use these services to reduce the amount of CO2 they generate.
Reducing NYC’s Carbon Footprint: Do We Know Our Shoe Size?
Ahead of this week’s Regional Plan Association annual assembly on “Innovation and the Global City,” an environmental thinker says more data is needed to direct efforts at greening New York and other cities.
There is much talk these days of a low-carbon economy, creating green jobs, and a new market in energy efficiency retrofit funding. For all the good intentions, many programs are having trouble getting off the ground. There is a lack of infrastructure but, most importantly, an absence of underlying data, indexes, and benchmarks that are essential for the development of any modern economy or market.
When a government sets out to develop an economic policy, among the first things it usually looks at are indexes. If a government is setting interest rates it will look at inflation, the rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index. If it is taking measures that will affect jobs, the government looks at unemployment indexes. If it is adjusting state benefits or pension fund rates, it will look at the retail or Consumer Price Index.
In March, Ron Dembo visited the Skoll World Forum in Oxford where he was selected from a pool of more than 800 delegates and speakers to participate in an exclusive interview with TakePart:
How do I take the guesswork out of carbon measurement?
Your carbon and environmental questions answered. An interview between Zerofootprint Founder and CEO, Ron Dembo and Jill Buck, founder of the Go Green Initiative, host of the Go Green Radio Show.
InsideHalton.com
TechCrunch.com
Zerofootprint helped TerraCycle prove its products were green by providing a clear and comprehensive analysis of the processes used by TerraCycle to repurpose waste. 
