Detroit Public Schools Energy Manager Emile Lauzzana is tasked with finding any and all ways to cut the energy usage across one of America’s largest public school districts — one that includes 50,000 students, more than 100 schools and a dozen support facilities. Cutting costs is the name of the game for the cash-strapped district, which operates a utilities budget of $18 million (which goes toward electricity, natural gas, steam, water and sewer service). Lauzzana has now implemented the “Go Green Challenge,” an energy-saving behavioral program aimed at raising energy awareness and driving cost savings through various eco-minded projects.

“What we are providing is a structure for participation in sustainability,” Lauzzana explains. “This is something that people have wanted for a long time in the district. People are just really excited about it.”

R2 Solutions‘ John Lingelbach helped found a responsible recycling (hence the “R2″ name) standard that provides guidelines for e-waste recyclers to properly, safely recycle through an extensive certification program. When Lingelbach began to investigate this back in 2006, e-waste recycling was completely unregulated and shrouded in mystery. Today, the organization has certified more than 425 companies.

“Back in 2006, it was the Wild Wild West of electronics recycling,” Lingelbach recalls. “There was no way to know what you were getting into when you were partnering with an electronics recycler. The R2 standard provides an opportunity for electronics recyclers to get audited once a year and conform to environmental, health and safety, community health and safety and data security requirements.”

Extended producer responsibility is at the forefront of Nestlé Waters North America‘s sustainability profile. The company’s Vice President of Sustainability, Michael Washburn, says that recycling rates for beverage containers hover somewhere between 30% and 40% — especially significant when you consider that beverage containers represent 4% of the U.S. solid waste stream. Now, the company is focusing on new ways to retrieve its empty bottles so it can do more green good.

“We wanted to get our containers back because we know how to recycle that material and put it back into productive use — ideally it goes back into more bottles,” Washburn says. “When we started a campaign to increase [Nestlé Waters'] EPR, it was with the intention of increasing recycling rates and getting that material back. We’re going to need that material in the future, and if it’s going to waste we’re missing the opportunity.”