Managing sustainability

BOULDER — Sustainability directors at local companies oversee recycling programs and tune up their buildings’ energy-efficiency scores, overhaul supply chains and support employee efforts at volunteerism.

But ask those folks exactly how many dollars such measures contribute to their companies’ bottom lines, and things can get fuzzy. Marketing plays a big role in today’s sustainability efforts, many of them say, making savings hard to quantify. Doing something because “it’s the right thing to do” — the goal of a $1 million emission reducer bought by Ball Corp. in the 1990s — also does not necessarily carry a return price tag.

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