Sustainable Business magazine - essential reading for sustainability professionals
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/137958
Radar 2/8 of sustainability Duncan Young noted that a ranking one year ago showed RBS was the most "reputationally challenged" company in the UK. Young argued that it was of the utmost importance to reassure stakeholders of the company's environmental credentials, given its damaged reputation, caused by the banking crisis, libor scandal and the mis-selling of payment protection insurance. "Crucial to changing that perception about who we are and how we work comes from our stakeholder engagement and our reporting," he said. Young explained that in the past, RBS had been under pressure from NGOs on Click here keep up-to-date with the latest news from edie.net its relationship with environmentallydamaging sectors. According to Young, NGOs were using publically-sourced data to try to provide a ranking of the biggest lenders to environmentally-unfriendly industries. In order to rectify the negative perception, RBS therefore compiled a report, which consisted purely of breakdown data, portraying how it had invested in power-generation sectors. The report has been updated three times since its conception and in its most recent edition records the carbon intensity of some of the company's clients. Water Major brands embrace water efficiency Three global firms are leading the way in water reduction, according to their sustainability reports released in the past month. Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) recorded its lowest level of water used to make one litre of product; Colgate-Palmolive achieved a 30% reduction in water use per tonne of product, and Bayer reduced its water consumption by 6.6% in 2012. CCE achieved a water use ratio of 1.4 litres of water per litre of product, down from 1.43 litres per litre of product in 2011. Over the past five years, it has increased its production by about 8% while reducing its water use by approximately 10%. In addition, CCE's total water consumption in 2012 was 8.82 million cubic metres, which was down from 9.4 million cubic metres in 2011. Major oralcare company ColgatePalmolive has achieved a 30% reduction in water use per tonne of product, mainly through improving its assessment of water use at its manufacturing sites.