Just bide your time and start investing in new trucks — any new model that comes off the assembly line. You’ll get there.

New trucks will be much greener than those your company operates today, according to a global survey of fleet operations from IBM, the Global Truck 2020 Study, Transcending Turbulence.

Slowly upgrading with new vehicles will help you cut fuel costs and reduce air pollution because of the steady advance of technologies that will methodically make transportation more eco-friendly.

Truck makers are increasingly investing in fancy new hybrid technologies to make their vehicles more fuel efficient, run on alternative fuels and incorporate new technologies to make vehicles run cleaner. Trucking execs told IBM that the top drivers of change are:

• technology — 71% of those surveyed by IBM said technology will be the most important external factor forcing change, such as remote diagnostic services to troubleshoot maintenance problems while trucks are in operation
• globalization — 54% predicted more investment in product standardization and supply chain management to squeeze out greenhouse gas emissions from suppliers’ products and services, and
• sustainability — 48% predicted environmental and fuel efficiency standards will be the main drivers.

If you know you’ll be shopping for trucks, you may want to attend the Green Truck Summit in Atlanta in March.

But buying new trucks isn’t the only way to improve your fleet’s environmental performance. Training employees on green driving techniques is a low-cost, quick way to save money.

Q: What’s the fastest way to give your company a black eye in today’s green-sensitive world?

A: Don’t report any environmental information, and especially don’t report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions like carbon dioxide (CO2).

That’s how hundreds of companies ended up at the bottom of a new Green Rankings survey published by Newsweek magazine.

The key to getting top honors:

1. Create environmental metrics, like measuring pollution created, waste generated and GHG emissions released
2. Adopt programs to reverse these events, and
3. Report your progress.

That’s the approach adopted by hundreds of companies that scored well in the Green Rankings analysis. The top five companies are:

1. Hewlett-Packard for its strong programs to reduce GHG emissions
2. Dell for its commitment to rely on renewable energy
3. Johnson & Johnson for its commitment to climate change programs
4. Intel Corporation for its reliance on renewable energy purchases, and
5. IBM for its longstanding commitment to train employees on environmental awareness.

Newsweek spent a year studying the greeniness of the nation’s 500 largest companies and found that companies that set environmental goals — such as reducing their carbon footprint — and publicized the company’s progress in reaching these goals also scored better financially and ranked better than their peers.

The Newsweek story is here.

The magazine created its Green Rankings without the support or feedback of the companies. To do this, Newsweek used a program created by Trucost and NSF International to rate corporate green performances. The methodology is described here.

Many utilities are prominently at the bottom of the list, due to their release of GHGs when they burn coal to create electricity.

One utility, Duke Energy scored 490th in the Newsweek ranking. But this was calculated before Duke switched sides in the global warming debate. It now supports a cap-and-trade law to reduce GHG emissions. The energy company’s statement is here. It will be curious to see how Duke scores in next year’s rankings.

The bottom five are:

1. Consol Energy, basic materials
2. ConAgra Foods, food and beverage
3. Allegheny Energy, utility
4. NRG Energy, utility, and
5. Peabody Energy.

All of the listings are here.

That’s the rude analysis from Greenpeace, which thinks the top IT companies are failing — badly — to take action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

They’re far from cutting their GHG emissions 15% or more by 2020 — a goal touted as a realistic in last year’s Smart 2020 report — according to Greenpeace.

In a new campaign, Greenpeace dubs the CoolIT Challenge, the activist group makes fun of the top 12 companies, including IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and Dell. It rates the companies on a 100 scale, and the highest score is a 29 posted by IBM, followed by Sun and Dell. Sony, Sharp and Toshiba score the lowest in Greenpeace’s rating system.

Greenpeace gives good marks to IBM because it has long tried to reduce its GHG emissions at its facilities.

To score better on the Greenpeace CoolIT game, companies need to:

• support climate action initiatives in public speeches
• embrace political advocacy to support GHG legislation
• adopt and promote climate action solutions
• set and meet in-house GHG emission reduction targets, and
• increase use of renewable energy.

The Greenpeace CoolIT game is here.

And, while many are introducing green versions of their traditional products and services, this only nibbles at the edges of the sustainability goal.

So says the granddaddy of business machinery and computers, IBM. The company’s got its own green angle, as a consultant to promote eco-friendly business practices under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) banner. IBM’s convinced that adopting CSR promotes long-term success and profitability, and it just completed its second global survey to prove the point.

CSR is not philanthropy or viewing regulatory compliance as a cost of doing business. It’s adopting environmental, social and economic policies that protect the planet, treat workers fairly, and still reward owners and shareholders.

But to evolve to this level of operation, companies need information, and they need to learn how to process information so they can polish their green images and product lines. The big roadblocks to implementing complete CSR programs are that companies fail to:

• collect and analyze all the right information about sustainability
• aggregate the data often enough so they have an up-to-date picture of market and regulatory realities
• collect enough CSR data from their supply chain partners. With inadequate data, companies are missing major opportunities to reduce inconsistencies, inefficiencies, waste and liabilities, and
• fully listen to and understand the concerns of key stakeholders — particularly their customers — who normally provide new ideas for market opportunities.

For example, IBM’s survey reveals that only 19% of companies collect carbon dioxide (CO2) emission data on a weekly or daily basis. Instead, they collect it monthly or quarterly. This meets regulatory requirements, but it misses out on the real green benefit offered with better data management — opportunities to improve energy efficiencies and reduce power consumption.

IBM’s survey is here.

IBM’s business consulting service department also promotes itself as a Green IT expert, helping clients improve energy efficiencies with their computer operations. Click here for IBM’s Green IT web page.

Going green is proving to be harder than most companies want to admit.

And, while many are introducing green versions of their traditional products and services, this only nibbles at the edges of the sustainability goal.

So says the granddaddy of business machinery and computers, IBM. The company’s got its own green angle, as a consultant to promote eco-friendly business practices under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) banner. IBM’s convinced that adopting CSR promotes long-term success and profitability, and it just completed its second global survey to prove the point.

CSR is not philanthropy or viewing regulatory compliance as a cost of doing business. It’s adopting environmental, social and economic policies that protect the planet, treat workers fairly, and still reward owners and shareholders.

But to evolve to this level of operation, companies need information, and they need to learn how to process information so they can polish their green images and product lines. The big roadblocks to implementing complete CSR programs are that companies fail to:

• collect and analyze all the right information about sustainability
• aggregate the data often enough so they have an up-to-date picture of market and regulatory realities
• collect enough CSR data from their supply chain partners. With inadequate data, companies are missing major opportunities to reduce inconsistencies, inefficiencies, waste and liabilities, and
• fully listen to and understand the concerns of key stakeholders — particularly their customers — who normally provide new ideas for market opportunities.

For example, IBM’s survey reveals that only 19% of companies collect carbon dioxide (CO2) emission data on a weekly or daily basis. Instead, they collect it monthly or quarterly. This meets regulatory requirements, but it misses out on the real green benefit offered with better data management — opportunities to improve energy efficiencies and reduce power consumption.

IBM’s survey is here.

IBM’s business consulting service department also promotes itself as a Green IT expert, helping clients improve energy efficiencies with their computer operations. Click here for IBM’s Green IT web page.