PRESS RELEASE -
The next time you reach for your favorite ice cream bar, you could be making a choice to support sustainability efforts globally.
Helping Canadians make a positive impact on the planet by actively choosing more sustainable brands and products is the idea behind U CAN, Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan in Canada. U CAN is a Canadian program, but it is part of a global sustainability initiative that touches brands and communities around the world.
For example, enjoying a Magnum ice cream bar might not seem like a way of helping the environment, but when you do, you support a larger sustainability effort here in Canada and around the world:
CLEANTECH -
Sustainability is the new key driver to innovation these days and ICTs play quite a pivotal and influential role in enhancing and boosting productivity of agricultural value chains that are responsible to uplift the process, smallholder farms in particular. E-agriculture has fast gained popularity since the rise of e-commerce, e-fashion, and e-detailing; practically everything has been transformed to apply to the digital world.
CLEANTECH -
Information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to play an influential role in the future of agriculture. News this month provides some insight into just how significant it could be: Bayer and DuPont have joined what Reuters is calling an “ag-tech investment boom,” while the startup creating artificial intelligence-based solutions for farms that supply Walmart and other major retailers has completed a $7 million Series A funding round.
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The food industry widely recognizes a looming mountain it must climb: By 2050, the world population will grow by more than 2 billion, which will require upward of a 70 percent increase in food production. Along with this rise in demand, companies in the food supply chain face increasing scrutiny on the environmental and social impacts of farm operations.
Here’s the fundamental challenge: increasing production while preempting regulations and minimizing environmental impact.
CLEANTECH -
For the eco-conscious American, it may seem counterintuitive to invest in companies notorious for deforestation. Unfortunately, they may be unknowingly supporting such corporations through their retirement funds.
“When Americans put their hard-earned money in savings and retirement accounts, they believe they are preparing for a better future. But large asset managers undermine that very future, globally speaking, by putting this money into destructive agribusiness firms, generally through complex investment chains and failures in due diligence,” said Jeff Conant, the senior international forests program manager at Friends of the Earth.
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International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) and Unilever have announced a new partnership with leading non-governmental associations (NGOs) to enhance the livelihoods of smallholder vetiver farmers in Haiti.
Goals set for Vetiver Together, as the project is known, include sustainably improving food security, increasing yields and diversifying income, as well as working to support women’s empowerment and environmental conservation. The project is supported by the Enhancing Livelihoods Fund – a partnership between Unilever, Oxfam Great Britain and the Ford Foundation, and will be implemented by Heifer International.
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In the south of Spain, unsustainable water use is threatening Doñana National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Europe’s most important wetlands. Located southwest of Seville, the Park supports millions of migratory birds and is a stronghold of the endangered Iberian lynx.
PRESS RELEASE -
View full infographic here.
International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. and Unilever announced today a new partnership with leading non-governmental organizations to enhance the livelihoods of smallholder vetiver farmers in Haiti. The partnership, Vetiver Together, aims to sustainably improve food security, increase yields, and diversify income, while working to support women’s empowerment and environmental conservation.
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In West Virginia, residents will soon be seeing a lot more green than they’re used to. And it may come in the form of dollar bills, too.
Researchers from West Virginia University are teaming up with a new startup called Agri Carb Electric Corporation to investigate the farming infrastructure benefits of hemp. This will mark the first time West Virginia has allowed hemp cultivation in 70 years.
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By 2050, global demand for protein on our dinner plates is expected to increase by 80 percent over current levels, due to population growth in African countries and increased wealth in Asia.
How are we going to meet this demand? In 2011, 69 percent of the animal protein consumed globally came from land-based sources — and there are fewer and fewer options for expanding production on land.
“Most of the land we think of as farmland is used to grow food for animals, not for people,” says Arlin Wasserman, keynote speaker at the 2015 SeaWeb Seafood Summit and founder of Changing Tastes, a consultancy focused on food sustainability planning.
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It was something of a ‘two steps forward, one step back’ kind of week in the ongoing quest for sustainable sourcing of palm oil — potentially the most prolific and embattled ingredient in the consumer goods industry.
First, five multinationals active in Singapore — Unilever, Danone, Ayam Brand, IKEA and Wildlife Reserves Singapore — came together this week to drive an increase in the amount of sustainable palm oil sourced in the country, with the goal of delivering products that have not contributed to haze pollution or deforestation to consumers.
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BASF announced today the launch of its Colors & Effects brand, bundling BASF’s global pigments business. The new brand encompasses BASF’s distinct colorants and effect pigments portfolio, and serves customers across five key industries, including coatings, plastics, printing, cosmetics, and agriculture.
“To continue to grow and develop their business, our customers need a diverse selection of pigments and global expertise,” said Alexander Haunschild, Senior Vice President, Global Pigments Business. “In this competitive marketplace, we created a brand focused entirely on pigments to provide our customers with products and solutions from one single source.”
CLEANTECH -
ReGen Villages is a tech-integrated and regenerative residential real estate development company. The Dutch holding company, in collaboration with Danish architecture firm EFFEKT, was founded by serial entrepreneur James Ehrlich, who describes his brand as “engineering and facilitating the development of off-grid, integrated and resilient neighbourhoods that power and feed self-reliant families around the world.”
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This week, outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland announced a goal to double its footprint in five U.S. cities by 2020 in an unexpected, unique way. Each year for the next five years, the brand will match its retail floor space with the creation or restoration of an equivalent amount of green space in a different city with a Timberland store, beginning with New York City. The next four cities will be revealed later this year, with projects ranging from walking trails to community gardens to city parks.
CLEANTECH -
Global Forest Watch’s new PALM (Prioritizing Areas, Landscapes and Mills) Risk Tool, released by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and freely available through its open-source Global Forest Watch Commodities platform, includes information about over 800 palm oil mills in Southeast Asia, along with regularly updated satellite imagery and spatial data.
LEADERSHIP -
Kashi is on a mission to increase organic acreage in the U.S. – but we can’t do it alone. Today, I’d like to invite you – food lovers, buyers, and growers - to join us on our journey.
The Challenge
Forty percent of the United States is farmland – but, despite soaring demand for organic products, less than one percent of that farmland is Certified USDA Organic.1 At Kashi, we believe in nourishing, plant-based foods that promote powerful, uplifting health – and we cannot talk about improving the health of people without improving the health of our planet.
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More sustainable cotton has become more widely available thanks to collaborations such as the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) and other programs focused on minimizing the use of highly hazardous pesticides, improving working conditions, addressing biodiversity issues, and reducing water consumption in cotton agriculture.
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The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) issued its latest Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report – titled “Shared Goodness” – on June 9, showcasing progress made in 2015 against a variety of priority issues. Building on 2014, Hershey made continued progress through a range of efforts supporting the company’s commitment to responsible sourcing, ingredient transparency, simple ingredients and environmental sustainability. Additionally, 2015 marked the launch of Hershey’s Nourishing Minds program, the company’s global shared social purpose. The innovative program provides children in need with the basic nutrition they need to learn and allows Hershey to help address this critical issue with its deep expertise in food production.
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What do Organic Valley, Target, REI and Toyota have in common? They are what Freya WIlliams describes as “Green Giants,” companies that have turned sustainability into billion-dollar businesses, and they are not alone.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
From the mudlets of the Mekong delta to the Fjords of Norway, the past five years have seen sustainable seafood flourish. This is partly due to certified fisheries, which have delivered measureable, positive impacts in the oceans. While uncertified stocks have struggled with greater variability in terms of biomass and fishing pressure, stocks certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) have increased in abundance even as demand for sustainable seafood increased.