Johnson & Johnson
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As the largest health care company in the world, Johnson & Johnson understand the importance of the environment to people all over the world. Their website promotes the lofty goal of striving to be the most environmentally responsible company in the world. The jury is still out on whether they are or not, but they have made some important steps toward being a green company by actively reducing their carbon footprint.
They have had environmental goals in place for over 25 years, and sets new goals in this area every five years. The latest round of goals, in 2006, was titled ‘Healthy Planet 2010’, surely a sign of the times. These goals focused on a handful of key environmental issues, including waste and packing, water use, and energy use, in order to help them reduce their carbon emission.
Their goals for carbon emissions is to have an overall 7% reduction based on 1990 levels by 2010. This may not be the most ambitious goal, but they have already achieved it with a total decrease of 16.8% as of the end of 2006, accomplished even while their sales triples in volume.
To accomplish these reductions, they have implemented a variety of energy saving programs. Nearly all of their facilities are certified as ISO 14001 for their high environmental standards, and they continue to improve the energy efficiency in all of their operations. Johnson & Johnson purchases large amounts of green and renewable energy, and have even started on-site projects including cogeneration and solar power. However, the green effect is not their bottom line as they have stated that renewable energy will only be used where cost effective, often due to government incentives.
In the US, where such incentives exist, they are the second largest corporate use of on-site solar generation. However, that cannot be said of their locations around the world where governments are less helpful, though the need for green energy no less important. They place a lot of emphasis on the business benefits of going green, especially on the cost savings associated with more efficient energy use.
Another major source for their carbon emissions is their fleets of roughly 36,000 vehicles worldwide. With the goal to improve fuel effiency per mile by over 30% they have adapted their vehicle buying habits and now boast 554 hybrids in their fleet with the hope of reaching 1000 by the end of 2007. Yet despite these measures, they are not currently meeting this target. In fact, this seems to be an area of low importance for Johnson & Johnson as they do not even include the carbon emissions from the fleet in their world wide total as they claim they cannot track the emissions with enough precision. There may be some truth to that statement, but there is surely some way to include it in overall emissions, especially since it represents such a large source of their energy use.
Outside their core operations, Johnson & Johnson is a founding partner of the EPA Green Power program and has received awards from the EPA every year since 2002. According to the EPA, green and renewable energy currently represents 38% of their total energy needs.
How do they stack up?
Business Strategy: 2/5 – seems that the strategy is still driven by profit in this area
Products & Services: 3.5/5 – they have made good steps in reducing the waste and packaging of their products, although this is not their biggest source of carbon emissions
Leading by Example: 4.5/5 – as a strong global advocate of environmental issues and renewable energy, they have received several awards for the leadership they have shown
Overall: 3.3/5
