How CSR Awards Winner Is Reducing the Environmental Impact of Commercial Transportation

Posted by Liz Dean on Mon, Mar 12, 2012 @ 01:39 PM

Donlen of Northbrook, Illinois, USA, received a Stevie® Award for Corporate Environmental Responsibility Program of the Year—Up to 2,500 Employees in the company awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards. (The American Business Awards are now accepting entries. Download your entry kit here and submit your 2012 ABA entries by the March 28 deadline.) Here we take a closer look at what steps fleet financer and management provider, Donlen is taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

DonlenAs a global provider of fleet management solutions, the corporate awards winner was concerned with the following facts:

  • Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are the leading cause of climate change;
  • The commercial fleet industry currently manages nearly 3,000,000 vehicles, and one-third of GHG emissions in the United States come from the transportation sector; and
  • The average fleet produces nearly 9,000 metric tons of GHG annually, which is equivalent to the GHG emissions produced by burning 1,012,373 gallons of gasoline.

In 2010, Donlen stepped forward as an industry leader and became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), collaborating with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a CGI Commitment to Action titled “Commercial Fleet 20% GHG Emissions Reduction,” and launching Fleets for Change, a fully independent website and robust reporting database.

Utilizing significant Donlen resources, Fleets for Change works with companies to help transform the environmental impact of the U.S. commercial fleet industry. This five-year commitment will help to reduce fleet emission levels by 20%, generating a reduction of more than 500,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Pledging Reductions
Any company that is committed to working to track and reduce GHG is welcome to join Fleets for Change. After joining, participants pledge reduction levels then upload their fuel usage and MPG data into a secure database. There, they can not only track their progress against their own goals, but anonymously benchmark against similar fleets with regard to vehicle type and/or class, industry, fleet size, and other criteria. (No company names or identifiers are ever disclosed to other participants.) Access to this cross-industry and fleet data is unprecedented in the fleet management industry.

Creating Change
The organization awards winner's commitment to creating meaningful industry change is easily recognizable through their Fleets for Change initiative:

  • This is an industry-wide initiative open to any fleet that wishes to participate, whether or not they are a Donlen customer. Fleets for Change is a fully secure, independent site.
  • There is no cost for a company to participate in Fleets for Change. Donlen is underwriting all associated costs of the site, database, reporting, and analysis.

  • Donlen is committed to protecting the security of participant information: no individual data is identified or used for any purpose other than confidential reporting by Fleets for Change to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Best Practices
For companies needing assistance to identify their reduction goals and strategies, business award winner, Donlen offers best practices based on extensive experience helping their customers to develop and implement sustainability initiatives. For their customers, Donlen consultants provide performance metrics, benchmarking data, analytical support, facilitating discussions around lifecycle costs and cost reduction. These effective strategies, some of which are shared with Fleets for Change participants, help to measure and reduce fleet GHG.

Corporate award winner and CEO Gary Rappeport spearheads Donlen’s innovation and unparalleled success in the fleet industry. His focus on employee and customer satisfaction, corporate social responsibility, and environmental consciousness has put Donlen in the forefront of workplace excellence, and allowed Donlen to experience unprecedented growth under his leadership.

“The transportation industry is responsible for 28% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,” stated Rappeport.“As a leader in the fleet management industry, it’s important that Donlen takes the initiative to help reduce commercial fleet GHG on a broader scale. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) offers us the ideal venue to address this critically important issue, and we're proud to collaborate with EDF to be part of the larger work of CGI.”

About Gary Rappeport:
Chief Executive Officer Gary Rappeport joined Donlen in 1986 and held a variety of roles prior to taking the leadership position in 1996. Named Executive of the Year-Services in The 2009 American Business Awards, Gary is committed to both employee and customer satisfaction, and developed the Donlen Service Success Chain in which annual goals are set and achievements benchmarked. Gary received a Bachelor's degree in Finance at the University of Florida and an MBA in Finance and Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a member of the Chicago Chapter of the World Presidents’ Organization, and serves as chairman of the American Automotive Leasing Association. Gary is on the Dean's Advisory Board of the University of Wisconsin Business School. He is an active member of The Sierra Club and is diligently involved with Children's Oncology Services, Inc. Prior to joining Donlen, he held sales and management positions at NCR and HP.

About Donlen:
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Hertz Corporation (NYSE:HTZ), Donlen (www.donlen.com), with headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois, is a global provider of fleet financing and management solutions. Since 1965, Donlen has offered its clients highly personalized and responsive customer service, and their workplace excellence has been recognized as one of Crain's Chicago Business "List of 20 Best Places to Work in Chicago" each year from 2009-2011, a Leader on "The Global Outsourcing 100®" list by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) for five of the last six years, a National Association for Business Resources "101 Best and Brightest Places to Work For in Chicago" each year from 2007-2011, the 2012 Gold Stevie® Award winner for Business Intelligence, and the 2012 Silver Stevie Award winner for Front Line Customer Service Team of the Year in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Topics: business awards, corporate awards, American business awards, business award, corporate award, Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, company awards, organization awards, executive of the year, Donlen, Gary Rappeport

3 Weeks Left to Submit Your American Business Award Entries

Posted by Liz Dean on Fri, Mar 09, 2012 @ 10:56 AM

The entry deadline for The 10th Annual American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., is quickly approaching – it’s Wednesday, March 28, 2012. You can start submitting your entries today here.

How the submission process works:

  1. Request your entry kit. 
    Once emailed to you, the kit will be your guide on everything you'll need to know about how to prepare and submit your entries.
  2. Review the 2012 ABA categories.
    Pick who you would like to recognize and why they should be recognized. We have categories highlighting organizations, teams, departments, and individuals, as well as:
  1. Submit your entries.
    Select your categories, write your submissions according to the instructions, and submit your entries.

Benefits of submitting a business award entry:

  1. More chances to win
    All Finalists in the Best New Product or Service categories will automatically be included in the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products, a public vote that will commence in July. The People's Choice Winners will be honored at the new tech awards ceremony in San Francisco on September 17. Finalists in the Best New Product or Service categories will have an opportunity to win two awards: a Stevie® Award, as voted by your peers, and a crystal People's Choice Stevie Award, as voted by your customers.
  2. New award distinctions
    The American Business Awards banquets will showcase our three levels of award distinction: Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards. You can learn more about the new awards here.
  3. Multiple awards banquets
    The 10th Annual corporate awards will have two awards ceremonies. We will hold our traditional banquet at the Marriott Marquis in New York City on June 18th and have a second ceremony in San Francisco at the Julia Morgan Ballroom on September 17th where we will announce our tech award winners.

Helpful resources to make your submission process easier:

  1. Step-by-step video on how to submit entries
    Watch our helpful video tutorial on how to successfully enter submissions.
  2. Review past winners' entries here.
    They're great models for how you should write your entries.
  3. 7 tips on submitting winning entries
    Read our tips on how to submit winning entries.

If you have any questions regarding your ABA submissions, call us at + 1 703-547-8389 or email us at help@stevieawards.com and we'll get back to you right away.

Not going to make the March 28th deadline?
Don't worry, you can still submit entries through April 25 with a $35.00 late fee.   Click here to see the ABA's calendar.  

Topics: customer service awards, hr awards, business awards, corporate awards, app awards, marketing awards, PR awards, American business awards, business award, corporate award, it awards, company awards, new product awards, tech awards, web site awards, management awards, tech award