Bigfoot challenges carbon footprint

AUSTIN (KXAN) - When Wal-Mart announced plans in February to drastically cut its carbon footprint, the mammoth company's suppliers took notice.

Wal-Mart plans to eliminate 200 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its entire supply chain. That puts enormous pressure on the suppliers to slash their own emissions. Meanwhile, pressure on such smaller companies continues to mount from increasingly environmentally aware consumers.

There are environmental consulting firms that work primarily with large companies, but they are often expensive. What if there was a cheaper way for a small or medium-sized business to determine its carbon footprint and then find ways to reduce it? That's where Bigfoot comes in.

Hondo Green, an Austin environmental consulting firm slapped a Bigfoot costume on one of its employees and led him around to "Creative Agency" types, such as ad agencies, design boutiques and interactive shops. The goal was to get Bigfoot to encourage big cuts in carbon footprints, signing the businesses up for a year-long friendly competition to see which ones could make the biggest cuts and reap the biggest rewards, using a new web-based tool. Called the "Hondo Green Assessment Tool," the application allows users to enter information regarding travel, materials, energy, water and waste in the business. As changes are made in company operations, the program tracks the resulting decrease in footprint and the rising savings in operational costs. It also offers new green initiatives that can make further footprint cuts.

"My mother was arrested in one of the first environmental protests in Texas: The oak trees that went for Memorial Stadium on the UT campus," said Jared Huke, Vice-President of Hondo Green's parent company, The Hondo Group. "I grew up in the Hill Country and green is something that has always been a part of, I guess, my family's tradition and my upbringing."

Huke created sustainable furniture in Asia for several years and the manager of Hondo Green, Courtney Kleefuss did a hitch as a Peace Corps volunteer in Samoa. Now both bring the idealism of their respective backgrounds into the practical world of creating green jobs.

"We're going to be a more sustainable company and we're going to help other companies, too, and that's something I couldn't pass up," said Kleefuss.

It's one thing though, to have a web-based application that works. It's something else again to get people to put it to work. Since The Hondo Group is primarily an advertising agency, itself, it didn't take long for the creative employees there to trot out Bigfoot to spread the word.

As the creature, played by very tall employee, Matt Jones, toured the agency houses, firms started signing up. Four of them are now on board, along with Hondo Green itself, and the company says there is room for fifteen more to join up for the, "Bigfoot Challenge," which will run from Earth Day, April 22, through Earth Day, 2011. Participation will be free, but Hondo Green hopes all of the companies will stay with the program beyond the first year, joining a growing number of firms paying comparatively small fees to Hondo, resulting not only in smaller footprints, larger bottom lines and more and more "green" jobs.