Consider vehicles that run on compressed natural gas (CNG).

In the right circumstances, companies not only get some credits for reducing their carbon footprint, but CNG-powered vehicles have the range to cover most business needs in a day and can be cost competitive with gasoline and diesel.

This is not a pie-in-the-sky environmentalist pipe dream. CNG vehicles are proven alternatives to petroleum-powered vehicles.

That’s why United Parcel Service (UPS) just expanded its already prodigious fleet of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) that run on CNG. The national delivery company just added:

• 140 CNG trucks to its fleet in Denver, CO
• 18 CNG trucks to its San Ramon, CA, fleet
• 16 CNG trucks to the Fresno, CA fleet
• 59 CNG vehicles to its West Los Angeles fleet, and
• 12 CNG-powered trucks to its fleet in Ontario, Canada.

These trucks join more than 900 CNG vehicles in use by UPS worldwide. The trucks look identical to the standard brown UPS vehicle.

UPS does gain credits for cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by switching to cleaner burning CNG. But that’s not the driving factor.

CNG makes economic sense right now, and UPS has the experience to prove it. CNG is a “sustainable technology for UPS’s fleet because natural gas is cost effective, clean-burning and abundant,” UPS senior vice president Bob Stoffel said in a statement announcing the fleet expansion.

The use of CNG vehicles makes most sense for companies that can centrally fuel their fleets.

That’s one of the lessons you can pick up from Marcal Paper Mills. The company is totally into the sustainable green thing and only produces 100% recycled paper.

Sure, the mill has invested in fancy technology over the decades to turn waste papers into fresh paper products, as reported in New Jersey’s Alternative Press. But the take-home from Marcal’s story is where their raw material — other people’s waste paper — comes from. To make its paper products, Marcal only uses the paper that’s recycled from:

• curbside pickups in residential neighborhoods
• those blue baskets in office buildings
• unwanted junk mail, and
• waste papers from printing companies.

So when your company’s thinking about going green, it can start by adopting the little things, such as recycling office paper in those blue plastic containers.

Plus, you may want to get your employees, and your mail room if you have one, to recycle all that junk mail that comes through, especially over the holidays.

It might take a bit of organizing and training to change some behaviors, but think of the positive. Recycling junk mail helps save trees. This is not a stretch. Marcal’s been relying totally on recycled paper for decades. It’s why their company shirts proudly state “We Save Trees.”

And of course, by recycling paper, you help save the trees and that prevents unnecessary releases of greenhouse gas emissions.

Your company gets to tout an environmentally friendly feature and attract new customers who are looking to support a green company.

Your customers get a discount for their part in avoiding greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air pollutant emissions they would’ve created had they driven their car to your store.

It’s a strategy that’s helping a brothel in Berlin, Germany, weather the recession. Yes, even brothels see a business slump in hard times.

The incentive plan is working for the Maison d’envie (House of Desire) and “everybody’s a winner,” says Regina Goetz, who runs the brothel in an area short on parking anyway. Goetz came up with the promotional idea because “the environment is a topic on everyone’s lips.”

One employee told the English-language newspaper, The Local, that she’s had several customers show up to take advantage of the “eco discount.”

The brothel offers a €5 discount for a 15 minute visit, which normally costs €30. Patrons get the discount if they show their helmet, bicycle padlock key, bus ticket stub or monthly bus pass.

Brothels are legal in Germany. The industry employs close to 400,000.

Answer: Tracking and counting them to create an in-house GHG emission baseline.

That’s the basic strategy that helped South Carolina’s Sonoco reduce its environmental footprint. It’s not a new idea, admits Sonoco’s CEO Harris DeLoach in the company’s latest Sustainability Report. But once the company decided it wanted to reduce GHG releases and improve energy and water conservation, it started measuring pollutant releases at each of its American operations.

Sonoco also put somebody in charge of the program by creating a Sonoco Sustainability Solutions (S3) team that organized all the collecting, tracking and tallying. Once they knew what and where the problems were, they could tackle them. To reduce GHG releases by 18%, Sonoco improved efficiencies at its paperboard mills.

Reducing water consumption was a classic pollution prevention project. The pollutant was the toxic ingredient in methyl violet inks (molybdenum). It worked great on packages, but it ran up huge wastewater treatment costs and triggered Clean Water Act compliance liabilities. Sonoco’s engineers designed a new process to use molybdenum-free inks, which then enabled the company to use recycled process water instead of fresh tap water.

Bottom line: Sonoco’s York, PA, plant now saves $100,000 a year in lower operating costs and is well within its permit discharge limits.

Recycling is another big success story for Sonoco. The S3 program targeted paper scrap. The company aggressively recycles scrap at its 34 plants. It’s recycling 64,000 tons of the 70,000 tons of scrap material from its various facilities. Now, instead of paying to send that to a landfill, the scrap’s reused at its plants or sold to other companies for their use. Another 28,662 tons of recyclable scrap was also diverted to reuse.

Bottom line: Thanks to the S3 recycling program, Sonoco generated $770,000 in new sales of its scrap materials.

Sonoco’s Sustainability Report is here.

While Congress wrestles with plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, six American companies aren’t waiting around for a political solution. They just took delivery of a new, all-electric truck dubbed the Smith Newton.

The big advantage of the Smith Newton, made by Britain’s Smith Electric Vehicles, is the potential to eliminate GHG and other air pollution problems associated with gasoline- and diesel-powered trucks. There are also powerful fuel-cost savings as most recharging for the Smith Newton can be done overnight when electricity rates are cheapest.

The Smith Newton has a top speed of 50 mph, and a range of 100 miles on a single charge of its lithium ion batteries. It will take six to eight hours to recharge, which makes them suitable for corporate fleet vehicles that return to a central location each night. A Smith Electric brochure on some of the benefits of an EV truck is here.

Disadvantage: Cost. These first vehicles will cost nearly three times a standard diesel truck, well over $150,000.

However, these costs are expected to moderate once Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. completes its assembly plant in Kansas City, MO. Once the factory is up and running next year, it will provide 120 green jobs. Smith Electric also says it will help coordinate federal and state incentive programs to help offset the higher cost of going electric.

Companies taking delivery of at least one Smith Electric truck include:

• Coca-Cola Enterprises
• Frito-Lay
• AT&T
• Staples
• Pacific Gas & Electric, and
• Kansas City Power & Light.

Coca-Cola already plans to add a couple more.

More details on Smith Electric Vehicles are here.

High prices are why so many fancy, energy-efficient appliances collect dust in retailer warehouses. They work great and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they’re a lot more expensive than the standard units they’re meant to replace.

It’s not all the manufacturers’ fault. They redesigned all sorts of appliances to meet federal energy and water efficiency standards. But the high-price strategy hasn’t set any sales records.

Solution: Get a federal subsidy.

General Electric (GE) seems to be taking the lead to have taxpayers help pay to unload some inventory. The subsidy plan is buried in the greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill adopted by the House and now before the Senate.

The bill (click here) includes provisions that would pay “awards” to manufacturers like GE for each high-efficient unit sold. As reported by GreenBiz.com, the bill by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman (CA) and Ed Markey (MA) would pay manufacturers:

* $75 for each dishwasher
* $200 a refrigerator, and
* $300 per water heater.

These award payments would go to the manufacturer, presumably to cover the discounting necessary to get consumers to actually buy the products.

Meanwhile, GE has created a “net zero energy home” program to help consumers maximize savings by using appliances that meet federal energy standards.GE’s announcement is here.

They’re the ones closest to the action, and they know just which stones to turn over for an efficiency gain. And, once they realize that green innovations are also the things that can save your company money, employees usually rise to the challenge.

That’s how Xerox has kept its lean-is-green, cost-cutting programs running since 1986, when it created an in-house Earth Awards program to honor workers with good ideas. This year, the company’s employees created eco-friendly projects that:

• saved over $7.3 million
• eliminated 1.3 million pounds of waste, and
• reduced energy use by 500,000 kilowatt hours.

One idea that helped trim some of Xerox’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was to replace a chilled water system with an ammonia-based refrigeration system. This cut GHGs at a plant in the Netherlands by 130,000 kilograms a month and saved $15,000 a year, thanks to reduced operating expenses.

Employees also suggested reusing and recycling the packaging that came with parts sent to a New York facility. Instead of paying to dispose of this in landfills, the company reused 800,000 sheets of foam, 200,000 pieces of tab board, 60,000 plastic bags, 57,000 corrugated cartons and 6,900 skids.

Canadian employees found a way to revamp a toner technology to reduce water usage and increase product yield. Bottom line: They saved the company $140,000 a year.

Details on Xerox’s money-saving programs are here.

One solution is the .pdf file by Adobe, which can help you eliminate paper, the hassles of filing and all the hardware costs associated with printing, faxing or copying a page.

That’s the promise offered by Duff Johnson, CEO of Appligent Document Solutions. Johnson helps companies get their arms around the .pdf technology to move towards the paperless office goal.

He promotes cost-saving opportunities in any office situation because each office-worker consumes 4,000 sheets, or 8 reams of paper a year. And Johnson likes to point out that making paper releases carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on top of creating water and air pollution problems, even if the paper contains recycled content.

But “electronic” paper skips all that pollution, as well as the costs of maintaining copiers, fax machines, scanners, printers, software, etc. Then, there’s the savings on clerical costs of handling all the documents that can be better managed.

All this can be reduced with .pdf technology, as is detailed in a blog Johnson writes. Johnson’s articles are here.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) will start highlighting green hotels with a new “eco” icon in the motor club’s 2010 TourBook.

The new editions of the TourBook will highlight which of the 31,000 hotels listed have adopted environmental protection and energy conservation programs. The eco option will also be included in the online version of the AAA TourBook.

The push to shout “I’m green” is popping up all over the hotel industry. For example, Marriott just opened a 226-room Courtyard hotel in Chevy Chase, MD, that includes several eco-friendly marketing lures to the green-conscious customer. The newly renovated hotel uses:

• 100% renewable wind power for its electricity, which reduces operational costs and its carbon footprint by requiring no greenhouse gas emissions to power the building
• a reflective roof to help cool the building and bounce the sun’s energy back into the atmosphere
• energy-efficient light and HVAC systems that don’t use any ozone depleting refrigerants
• energy-efficient windows
• an energy management system to coordinate power usage
• low-VOC adhesives, paints, carpets and sealants
• water conservation efforts by installing low-flow shower heads and dual-flush toilets
• special parking for hybrid cars
• bike-to-work program for employees
• centralized recycling stations for on-site sorting, and
• a solar-powered trash compactor.

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts has adopted similar eco-friendly programs. Click here for highlights.

Click here for more on Marriott’s new hotel.

The AAA eco icon news was revealed here.

Cost of the green labeling program will be borne not by Wal-Mart, but by its 100,000 suppliers worldwide.

Wal-Mart’s not doing this for altruistic reasons. It thinks it will make money by giving shoppers a way to rate a product’s “greeniness” based on labeling that details how a product protects the environment by reducing:

• packaging materials
• transportation emissions and fuel usage
• energy usage, and
• raw materials.

All these are cost savers which will help Wal-Mart and its customers reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

To Wal-Mart, the green thing is here to stay. “We do not see this as a trend that will fade. Higher consumer expectations are a permanent part of the future,” company president and CEO Mike Duke said in announcing the labeling intiative.

It’s widely expected that Wal-Mart’s green push will reverberate throughout the business world, forcing companies to create or polish their green credentials.

Reason: Wal-Mart suppliers will have to track their GHG emissions. This is the first question suppliers will have to answer this summer as Wal-Mart creates its Sustainability Product Index. The survey asks suppliers 15 questions. Each must be addressed if the supplier hopes to keep products on Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club shelves.

There will be no exceptions. Give Wal-Mart the answers or find a new outlet.

Full details, including the 15 questions all of Wal-Mart suppliers will have to address, are here.