Apple is constantly inventing more efficient ways to recycle materials back into our devices. We’re also replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. And we’re going further to reduce our impact by using substances that are safe for people and the environment.
Apple
In the Race to Build a Renewably Powered Internet, Amazon, Netflix Lag Behind
6 years ago - It takes a tremendous amount of energy to manufacture and power our devices, data centers and infrastructural needs. And with an energy footprint accounting for approximately 7 percent of global electricity, the IT industry has an important role to play in the transition towards clean energy.
Apple, HP, Samsung, Sony Join Effort to Keep Child Labor Out of Cobalt Supply Chains
6 years ago - Apple, HP, Samsung SDI and Sony have joined the Responsible Cobalt Initiative, with a pledge to follow the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines for mining supply chains, which call for traceability and immediate correction of any abuses.
RE100, EP100 Convince Even More Big Names to Invest in Cleaner, Smarter Energy
6 years ago - During Climate Week NYC 2016 this week, several companies made bold commitments through The Climate Group’s two leading corporate energy campaigns: RE100, which is focused on transitioning to 100 percent renewable power, and EP100, a new initiative focused on doubling energy productivity.
3 Lessons in Innovation Every Organization Can Learn From (RED)
6 years ago - When (Red) was founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver back in 2006, it was born out of necessity. The Global Fund — an organization dedicated to fighting diseases such as AIDS, TB, and malaria in the developing world — had launched in 2002, with a commitment to garner private sector engagement and raise funds from governments in an effort to accelerate the end of AIDS. But the private sector was not biting, contributing only $5 million in the Global Fund’s first four years. This low level of funding threatened to jeopardize ongoing commitment levels from the public sector.
HP, Apple Leading Action on Forced Labor, But ICT Sector ‘Must Do Far More’
6 years ago - The information and communications technology (ICT) industry is an at-risk sector for forced labor, and while most of the world’s largest ICT companies have publicly demonstrated awareness of the issue, far fewer have strong processes in place to address it.
Apple Quietly Launches ‘Apple Energy’ Subsidiary to Sell Renewable Energy Back to the Grid
6 years ago - Apple seems to be embedding its renewable energy commitments into its corporate structure. The company recently created a new wholly-owned subsidiary known as Apple Energy LLC and filed an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates power companies, to be able to sell electricity and other power grid services to non-utility customers. The move is a strong sign that Apple will not only fulfill its plans to operate on 100 percent renewable energy through net-metering, but plans to generate and sell renewable energy back to the grid.
The Bar for Corporate Leadership on Climate Has Been Raised
6 years ago - As the legal briefings pile up over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), I’m inspired by the growing number of companies and business organizations standing up for the most significant step in U.S. history toward reducing climate pollution. The bar continues to rise for companies that want to lead on sustainability, and it’s great to see companies aligning their corporate sustainability strategy and policy advocacy. Today’s corporate-led amicus briefs in support of the Clean Power Plan and smart climate policy are the latest example.
South Pole Group: Why Companies Should Care About Renewable Energy
6 years ago - The landmark international climate change nearly 195-nation agreement that came out of COP21 late last year sent a message to the world that a low-carbon future is imminent. The Paris Agreement, for the first time, brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities. Its main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The 1.5 degree Celsius limit is a significantly safer defense line against the worst impacts of a changing climate.
Trending: Apple Invests $1.5B in Clean Energy; 17 States Won’t ‘Stay’ Clean Power Plan
7 years ago - The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to delay the enforcement of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan was a victory for the coalition of 27 industry opponents and mostly Republican-led states that believe the regulations are a “power grab.” In response, a bipartisan group of 17 states has announced that they will collaborate to expand clean energy, modernize energy infrastructure, and drive change.
Touching Your Soul: Responsible Brands, the Survival of our Species and the New Nutty
7 years ago - Great brands don’t stop at connecting with mere outward expressions of who we think we are or what we want to be. The very best brands connect with long-held mystical beliefs underlying our rational selves, the parts of our sub-consciousness that manages and helps us to cope with all the irrational, arbitrary, inexplicable unknowns in life. These thoughts take shape in symbols forged from ancient stories reflecting patterns of thought and beliefs about how we understand ourselves. Carl Jung argues these narratives and their archetypal characters are universally present in our individual psyches, to which we are powerfully attracted as a means of giving life meaning and managing reality.
10 Sustainable Business Stories That Shaped 2015 ... and Some Questions for 2016
7 years ago - 2015 was a pivotal time when humanity turned more decisively toward building a thriving and sustainable world. On our largest shared challenge, climate change, most of the major hurdles to action — both imagined and real — started to crumble. And an unlikely group of new voices joined the fight. From the Pope to global CEOs to almost all the world’s political leaders, the most powerful people got on board.
Courageous Companies: 7 Corporate Sustainability Pioneers Shaking Things Up
7 years ago - The bold thinking and actions taken by corporate sustainability trailblazers often challenge the status quo and alter the concept of a company’s role in society. The following companies are leaders. They have taken principled stances or have implemented innovative programs that lead to better social and environmental conditions. In some cases, a company is included here just because of some radical statement from the CEO. But, they are the kinds of statements and actions we need if we are to move past incremental improvements and achieve transformative change on our way to sustainability.
Report: Mobile Tech Helping Save 180 Million Tons of CO2 Each Year
7 years ago - The use of smartphones in the United States and Europe is helping to save more than 180 million tons of carbon emissions a year — an amount greater than the total annual emissions of the Netherlands — according to a new report released this week by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), authored by The Carbon Trust.
Google, BMW, Disney, Microsoft Once Again Top List of Best CSR Reputations
7 years ago - Reputation Institute has released its annual Global CSR RepTrak® 100, which highlights the companies that have the best reputations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) among the general public in 15 countries. Google tops the ranking for the second year in a row, with a significant lead over all other companies in the ranking.
At Last, a Business Case for CSR That Even Milton Friedman Could Love -- The Sustainability Effect!
7 years ago - Way back in 1962, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously proclaimed, “… there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits …” And while most of us in the CSR and sustainability worlds have tended to recoil in horror at those words, some of us have no less earnestly longed for a way to live up to them. Isn’t it possible, we’ve asked, for sustainability to be good for society, the environment and shareholder value, all at the same time? What better way to achieve sustainability in commerce, that is, than to disarm its most formidable foe - the presumed lack of a business case?
How to Solve the True Cost of 'Cheap'
7 years ago - Almost exactly 2 years ago I wrote about The True Cost of ‘Cheap.’ Last week a request came for more information: could you talk more about this issue and possible solutions? Two years ago I focused on Total Cost of Quality issues and advocated we begin to include social cost in our Cost of Quality measures. The basic premise is actually a Six Sigma principle — if you can't shift the mean, shift the goal.
Would You Want to Read Your Company’s Sustainability Report?
7 years ago - "It's all in our Sustainability Report."That's a phrase guaranteed to strike fear in the hearts of even the hardiest sustainability wonks.
Greenpeace ‘Click Clean Scorecard’ Rates Top Websites on Renewable Energy Use, Transparency
7 years ago - If you’ve ever wondered about the energy powering your favorite websites, a new tool from Greenpeace is here to help. On Thursday, the advocacy group released a new browser extension tool that shows which of the most popular websites are moving most ambitiously towards renewable energy use. Users that download the extension (compatible with Google Chrome) can distinguish leaders from laggards by the color of a cloud icon that appears green, yellow, or red whenever they open a new site.
The Key to Transformational Change Leadership? Holonomic Thinking
7 years ago - “What happens when you cut a hologram in half?” Maria Moraes Robinson and Simon Robinson asked as a prelude to sharing what holonomic thinking means. When you cut a photograph in half, you get two separate images, but when you cut a hologram in half, the whole image can still be seen in each piece. Holonomic thinking represents a shift in consciousness from understanding an organization as a collection of individual parts, departments or programs, seen separately, to seeing the organization as a whole that expresses itself and comes into presence in the various individual parts. It means “standing in front of a customer or partner and being able to express the organization as a whole, being different and at the same time being the same.”
BMW, Google Top Global Corporate Reputation List
7 years ago - BMW, Google and Daimler are the world’s most reputable companies, according to the Reputation Institute’s 2015 Global RepTrak® 100.Rolex, LEGO, The Walt Disney Company, Canon, Apple, Sony and Intel rounded out the top ten.The annual survey measures public perceptions of corporate reputations based on seven dimensions: innovation, leadership, governance, citizenship, workplace, performance and products and services.