PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
A first-of-its-kind, global shopping platform, Loop™ aims to offer zero-waste packaging options for the world’s most popular consumer products.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
5th annual awards received highest-ever number of applicants competing for circular economy recognition.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Continuing this year’s wave of near-constant innovations aimed at responsible management of post-consumer plastics are new advancements from both the private and public sector.
BASF making products with chemically recycled plastics
BASF announced it has broken new ground in plastic waste recycling with its ChemCycling project. Chemical recycling provides an innovative way to reutilize currently unrecyclable plastic waste, such as mixed or uncleaned plastics. Depending on the region, such waste is usually sent to landfill or burned with energy recovery.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
The fashion industry has kicked December off with a bang, launching a number of game-changing initiatives and partnerships aimed at further improving its image by reducing its impacts.
WASTE NOT -
New initiatives from both the private and public sector aim to further chip away at the UK’s food waste issue, as the nation attempts to rebound from being designated Europe’s biggest food waster in 2015.
Kellogg's Cornflakes adding sweet touch to Throw Away IPA
COLLABORATION -
This is one of a series of interviews by students and alumni from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) with practitioners from the Sustainable Brands community, on a variety of ways organizations can, and are, Redesigning the Good Life.
COLLABORATION -
This week, two fashion giants with extensive brand portfolios announced partnerships that show promise for cleaning up “dirty fashion.”
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, more momentum on the anti-plastic front: Unilever will develop a crowdsourced, plastic-free laundry solution to combat single-use sachets; while Stora Enso and Sulapac are developing renewable drinking straws.
Unilever to invest €100K in crowdsourced alternative to plastic packaging
CPG giant Unilever has announced that it will invest €100,000 in a new, plastic-free laundry tablet — a crowdsourced innovation that has the potential to replace single-use sachets of laundry powder, a popular format for laundry detergents in the developing world that is problematic in terms of plastic waste.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
US-based multinational 3M launches approximately 1,000 new products each year; starting in 2019, 100 percent of them will have sustainability built in: Today, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24), 3M announced its first formal requirement that, beginning in 2019, all new products will include a Sustainability Value Commitment that demonstrates how they drive impact for the greater good.
LEADERSHIP -
Atlanta may not be the first city that comes to mind when you think of sustainability — but perhaps, it should be.
PRESS RELEASE -
Signs the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment at the Our Ocean Conference.
PRESS RELEASE -
Castlepark Primary School in North Ayrshire will unveil its very own playground made from recycled plastic after winning a national competition to receive a sustainable play area for children.
The playground unveil will happen at 1.30pm on Tuesday, 27th November 2018 at Castlepark Primary School, Irvine, North Ayrshire, with children, parents and representatives from Febreze, Fairy, TerraCycle, Tesco and North Ayrshire Council attending.
Over the summer, Febreze and Fairy partnered with TerraCycle and Tesco to give schools in the UK a chance to win a playground made from recycled plastic. Community members were encouraged to get involved and help their local schools win by voting for them in the competition.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
During this season of giving, many of today’s more discerning consumers won’t be joining the masses scrambling to answer the siren call to stock up on discounted “stuff” — they’ll be remembering the values meant to be at the heart of this season, by taking REI’s advice to #OptOutside to enjoy nature and giving back by cleaning up; and when they do shop, they’re increasingly basing their loyalty and purchasing decisions on companies’ reputations rather than just product features and price.
WASTE NOT -
It was 2014 and social entrepreneur Samir Lakhani was working on sustainable aquaculture projects in the villages of Northern Cambodia. Watching a mother wash and bathe her new baby using laundry powder rather than soap is a vision that has stayed with him to this day.
It was also the inspiration for his next business venture.
“I noticed that nobody seemed in good overall health — whether it was an infection that wouldn’t go away or a child with diarrhea,” he told Sustainable Brands in a recent interview.
WASTE NOT -
The global movement to end textile waste continues, with the release of outer- and undergarments from new and established brands alike.
PRESS RELEASE -
Next week Americans across the country will sit down with their friends and families to celebrate Thanksgiving. Collectively, those families will also throw away an estimated 200 million pounds of turkey during the holiday, costing us $293 million as a nation. And that’s just one day!
But most food waste comes from supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, hospitals and arenas. Inedible turkey parts such as bones, and skins as well as vegetable stalks and stems, surplus ingredients, and extra pies never make it to a pot or plate.
WASTE NOT -
This is the second in a four-part series on geomimicry by renowned author and George Mason University professor Dr. Gregory C. Unruh. Read part one here.