2010 Criteria
2010 Categories
Category Descriptions
Fictional Program Examples
Applicants are evaluated on the basis of:
- Leadership
- Significant environmental benefits
- Potential model for business community
- Demonstrated program commitment
- Collaborative efforts
Acterra Award for Sustainability
Commute & Transportation
Environmental & Sustainability Education
Environmental Enterprise
Pollution Prevention/Resource Conservation
Sustainable Built Environment
Please note that each eligible program may only be submitted to one category. You may reference the Fictional Program Examples for assistance in helping select the most appropriate category for your program.
The following descriptions are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Applicants are not expected to meet all of the bulleted guidelines.
Acterra Award for Sustainability
Acterra’s highest award recognizes businesses whose programs demonstrate leadership in many or all of the other award categories and encompass all three tenants of sustainability: economics, environment, and social equity*.
Model Programs Strive To:
- Create holistic programs and processes that respect and protect all stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, investors, local and global communities, customers, and the natural environment
- Create products and services that contribute to a sustainable community
- Implement processes that use natural resources efficiently and do not create hazardous or toxic wastes
- Become carbon neutral by minimizing carbon emissions generated through business operations and offsetting the remaining balance
- Educate employees, suppliers and customers about actions they can to reduce their own environmental impact
- Conduct outreach to the local community through philanthropic, educational and other efforts
* An important distinction between the Sustainability and Pollution Prevention categories is the commitment to social and corporate responsibility demonstrated by applicants to the Sustainability category.
Commute and Transportation
Rewards efforts to reduce the environmental and social impacts associated with the transportation of people, products and resources, and especially those which minimize the business’ carbon footprint.
Model Programs Strive To:
- Promote alternative commute programs such as ride sharing, telecommuting and use of public transportation
- Minimize employee business travel by utilizing alternative communication strategies such as teleconferencing and videoconferencing
- Become carbon neutral by minimizing carbon emissions generated by employee commute, transportation and travel, and offsetting the remaining carbon generated
- Encourage the expansion of public transportation resources
- Use optimal facility design and location to enhance proximity to markets, employees' residences, public transportation routes, and distribution centers
- Use company vehicles that run on alternative fuels, select vendors/suppliers who use such vehicles, and provide employee incentives to purchase low/zero emission vehicles
Environmental and Sustainability Education
Rewards educational programs designed to heighten awareness about environmental issues and promote actions that lead toward sustainability.
Model Programs Strive To Implement:
- Educational programs focused on building understanding and responsibility about living and working sustainably
- Educational initiatives which primarily serve the local environment
- Educational programs beyond those associated with internal environmental, health and safety compliance programs
Environmental Enterprise
Rewards a company, project or group for developing a new and innovative environmental solution, technology or product.
Model Programs Strive To Achieve:
- Unique and innovative products or solutions that provide significant environmental and social benefit
- Technical feasibility
- Commercial viability
Pollution Prevention/Resource Conservation
Rewards programs which reduce the consumption of resources (water, materials and/or energy) and minimize the generation of toxic and/or persistent pollutants.
Model Programs Strive To:
- Implement comprehensive and formalized policies, programs, systems and procedures beyond compliance
- Use resources efficiently
- Become carbon neutral by minimizing carbon emissions generated through business operations and offsetting the remaining balance
- Use environmental principles in the design of products, services, and processes
- Implement reuse, remanufacturing, product stewardship and closed-loop recycling
- Achieve measurable results and improvement in environmental performance
- Thoroughly train all employees
Pollution Prevention/Resource Conservation - Special Project
Rewards projects that meet the above Pollution Prevention Award criteria but are more limited in scope; addressing a specific area.
Sustainable Built Environment
Rewards designs that conserve natural resources and promote health and well-being for the occupants of buildings and other built environments.
Model Programs Strive To:
- Incorporate green building design elements (energy efficiency, recycled and least toxic materials use, etc.)
- Maximize use of existing structures/materials (incorporate deconstruction)
- Use design features such as indoor and outdoor plants, natural lighting and pleasant aesthetics, which have shown to improve health and performance
- Utilize materials and techniques that reflect sound environmental practices
- Go beyond compliance with Environmental, Health & Safety (EH&S) standards
- Reduce sprawl and create liveable cities
- Incorporate sustainable interior furnishings and equipment
- Implement beneficial landscaping (e.g. protect existing natural areas, incorporate native plants, limit use of turf and pesticides)
These fictional program examples are provided to help applicants determine the most appropriate category for their program. Applicants are not expected to incorporate all the actions described in these examples.
Note: In any given category the judging committee may elect to give multiple awards based on company size (e.g. one Large Company and one Small Company award). We have included fictional program examples differentiated by company size in the Sustainability category to provide an example of such a scenario.
Acterra Award for Sustainability
Small Company
Green Threads, Inc. makes fashionable organic cotton clothing using only natural dyes. The company ensures that their cotton suppliers and seamstresses are paid a living wage. Deliveries to their outlet stores are made in reusable packaging and the stores produce one quarter of the waste of a typical clothing store. Store employees are all shareholders in the company and turnover is very low, with many employees having worked at the company for over ten years. A commute and transportation program provides free transit passes, bike lockers and showers. All of the landscaping at the company’s headquarters is comprised of native plant species. From shrubs in the median strips to oak trees in the courtyards, the native plantings not only reduce water consumption (no sprinklers required), they provide habitat for birds and other small animals.
Medium Company
GreenHouses Architecture firm is passionate about designing green homes and buildings, but their commitment to sustainability in their own offices is arguably more impressive. In an industry that normally uses significant amounts of virgin paper, they display all their plans to clients and city planning offices digitally, only printing hardcopies on 100% recycled paper when absolutely necessary. All of their Bay Area offices are housed in buildings that they remodeled to be highly energy and water efficient, thereby using 70% less energy than the average firm of comparable size and 40% less water. The offices are also furnished with sustainably made furniture and they employ green cleaning and maintenance companies to service them. They carefully chose each office location to be transit accessible for their employees and clients and provide a free shuttle to the nearby train stop. While they have minimized their greenhouse gas emissions through efficiency measures, they also purchase carbon offsets to counterbalance the remaining emissions generated. They provide ongoing free programs to the public on green building practices, and employees are given paid time off to participate in monthly Habitat for Humanity company workdays, or to volunteer for a community service program of their choice.
Large Company
Edgeware Systems, a leading computer software company, has achieved triple bottom line success by incorporating environmental and social equity directives into its daily business operations. The company is ISO 14001 certified and has implemented a well-organized environmental management system. It has performed numerous self-audits to identify where to conserve resources resulting in the reduction of waste generated annually by 20 tons. The company is aggressively implementing new processes and technologies in its data centers, thus far reducing energy usage by 40% with the goal of 50% reduction. Company headquarters are LEED Gold Certified. A multitude of flexible work programs and commute alternatives are offered to employees, including teleworking, flextime, compressed workweeks, part-time hours, and job-sharing. The company regularly surveys its diverse workforce to gauge and improve employee satisfaction, and has been consistently ranked as a Best Place to Work due to its high priority on work-life balance. The company has been carbon neutral since 2005, offsetting emissions from it daily business operations by supporting Native American-owned and operated wind farms. Philanthropic efforts are largely focused on the surrounding low-income community through educational programming, volunteer service, and numerous grant programs.
Commute and Transportation
Cycle Company’s Carfree Program encourages employees to take public transportation by providing discounted transit passes, a free shuttle to the local train station and a parking spot cash rebate program. Telecommuting, teleconferencing and videoconferencing are heavily utilized to cut down on employee commute and travel. All carbon emissions generated by employee commute and travel are balanced by the purchase of carbon offsets. The company’s maintenance fleet is comprised solely of electric and hybrid vehicles and electric vehicle charging stations are provided in the parking lot. Human-powered transport, such as bicycling and walking, are facilitated by the company’s central downtown location and through the ample supply of bike racks and storage lockers as well as showers and changing rooms. Employees are given monetary incentives to purchase low emission vehicles.
Environmental Enterprise
Hydrogen Systems, Inc. has developed a fuel cell system that can meet all the energy needs of a home. An average home will save 50% on their energy costs, making the payback period for the system only 2 years! The only emission produced by the system is water vapor, saving 160 thousand pounds of greenhouse gases per household per year. This is the first company to develop a fuel cell that can meet all the energy needs of a house and make it economical. The company has already sold over 1 million units and is one of the fastest growing energy companies.
Environmental and Sustainability Education
Wholesome Foods grocery store is committed to teaching its employees and customers about the importance of sustainable food production. Each customer that visits their store receives a pamphlet describing the environmental impacts of conventional agriculture and farming and the benefits of organic foods. Each customer is also invited to attend their free Saturday workshops to learn more about sustainable food production. Their on-site organic garden not only provides produce to the store, it serves as a hands-on teaching site for local schools.
Sustainable Built Environment
Silicon Valley Retreat & Conference Center's dramatic and comprehensive green building and energy efficiency techniques includes strawbale construction, a 3,400 square foot green roof, passive solar heating, passive and active cooling using an earth sheltered basement and solar chimney, a PV electric generation system, solar hot water for their commercial kitchen, stormwater management for irrigation, and a native plant landscaping plan. As a result, the Center sees annual savings of 30% on electricity, 40% on natural gas, 20% on domestic water use, and 80% on landscape irrigation water use. The Center’s location was selected due to its close proximity to a train station and commuter/city bus stops. The Center regularly gives tours to educate architects, landscape designers, students, and nonprofit groups on green building techniques.
Pollution Prevention/Resource Conservation
Excellent Electronic’s commitment to environmental protection starts with a strong mission statement and training program that promote continuous environmental improvement as a key company goal. This commitment is backed by an employee reward program that lets employees keep a portion of any cost savings resulting from their recommended changes for environmental improvements, as well as by including environmental performance in job descriptions and evaluations. General improvements like installing efficient lighting and occupancy sensors and water efficient toilets and faucets have been completed. They have also instituted an “environmentally preferable purchasing” policy that favors use of recycled content and low-toxicity products and services. Currently they use recycled content office paper, letterhead, toilet paper, and carpeting. Janitorial and pest management services include contract specifications that eliminate and/or minimize the use of toxic products and require non-chemical methods where applicable. The company has instituted a “reusable container” system with vendors for parts delivery and uses recycled content packaging printed with water-based inks on outgoing product. Internal operations include a closed-loop production process that does not discharge wastewater. A state-of-the-art production line minimizes chemical use through various automated controls, and an on-site lab allows for continuous monitoring of chemical processes, resulting in improved product quality and low overall scrap rate.
Pollution Prevention/Resource Conservation - Special Project
AB Industries reduced its energy consumption by nearly 50% through its comprehensive program to maximize the energy efficiency of its operations. An energy assessment was first completed on all facilities revealing that the old HVAC system was oversized, so a smaller and more efficient model was installed. Variable drive motors replaced older inefficient models on industrial equipment, and centrally run software that controls computer monitor power down was installed to ensure consistent application of energy saving modes. Lighting retrofits included upgrading to the most efficient lighting, replacing magnetic with electronic ballasts and installing occupancy sensors and LED exit signs. Windows were either replaced with double-paned low-e models or had reflective surfaces applied. Shading devices were installed on south and west facing facades, and skylights now provide a significant portion of the daytime lighting in the warehouse. Once these energy conservation measures were complete, AB Industries’ power requirements were minimized enough that they could install a smaller, economical photovoltaic system which was purchased using money saved on energy bills.