PRESS RELEASE -
LG Electronics has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the 2018 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year–Sustained Excellence Award for continued leadership in protecting the environment through energy efficient home appliances and consumer electronics products.
"Environmental sustainability is a core business principle at LG. We're proud of our long-standing partnership with ENERGY STAR and our positive environmental impact in the United States," said William Cho, president and CEO of LG Electronics North America. "LG is helping American consumers experience 'Innovation for a Better Life' by creating products that deliver energy savings to help save money and the planet without sacrificing performance or style."
WASTE NOT -
Resource scarcity and the rise of the circular economy are inspiring businesses, industry associations and governments to develop new ways to recover precious and critical raw materials (CRMs) from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The Urban Mine Platform, a database of valuable materials for “urban mining,” is the public and private sectors’ latest attempt to take on the challenge.
PRESS RELEASE -
Underscoring its leadership in environmental sustainability, LG Electronics USA was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the Champion Award, special recognition for demonstrating significant environmental, social and economic outcomes that go above and beyond the requirements of the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge.
WASTE NOT -
In today’s digitally dependent world, e-waste management is a critical issue that requires urgent attention from both the public and private sector.
WASTE NOT -
While coffee cup recycling is just beginning to gather steam, previously hard-to-recycle products such as lead batteries and contacts are demonstrating surprisingly high recycling rates.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Electronic waste is the world’s fastest-growing waste stream, and according to a United Nations report, it’s projected that 50 million tons of e-waste will be accumulated by 2018.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
A coalition of businesses, international organizations and NGOs have banded together to put an end to the social and environmental impacts driving the growing trade in batteries for smartphones, gadgets, electric vehicles and renewable energy storage systems. Launched at the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2017, the Global Battery Alliance aims to create a responsible value chain for the battery market powering the technology and clean energy revolution.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Fairphone, a social enterprise and modular smartphone producer spurring a paradigm shift in the technology industry, has secured €6.5 million to scale up its mission to make fair, responsible electronics mainstream. The investment will enable Fairphone to continue innovating in the areas of material sourcing, production, distribution, recycling and product longevity.
PRESS RELEASE -
Kohler Co., the leading manufacturer of kitchen and bath plumbing products in the U.S., has released its first public sustainability and stewardship report.
The report reflects Kohler Co.'s sustainability strategy, introduced in 2008:
CLEANTECH -
Have a look at the gadgets you have within reach right now.
Your cell, your laptop, your tablet, a backup power source – they all have one thing in common. They are powered using a lithium-ion battery, and for good reason.
These batteries offer high energy density and high voltage, meaning they can power increasingly sophisticated electronics. They last a long time. And they are relatively environmentally friendly, containing no polluting metals, such as cadmium, lead or mercury.
WASTE NOT -
The way people buy, consume and discard their electronics is changing — and for the better. A new report by WRAP has revealed that an industry-wide adoption of circular principles could unlock new economic opportunities and drive the economy towards greater sustainability. The research outlined in Switched on to Value: Powering Business Change shows that while only 10 percent of UK households use household recycling schemes to discard their unwanted electrical items, 83 percent of households have demonstrated interest in retailer take-back and trade-in schemes, which can provide customers with a convenient way to properly dispose of products while ensuring data protection and safety.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Greenpeace East Asia has released a new IT product guide ranking tech giants according to iFixit’s repairability score. Seventeen IT brands were represented in the study and over 40 best-selling smartphones, tablets and laptops launched between 2015 and 2017 were assessed.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Big news has emerged on the energy front, with a major application of a technology that harnesses the power of pee to generate electricity and new debate about the need for energy storage.
The University of the West of England’s Bristol Bioenergy Centre (BBiC) is appealing to festival goers’ senses of humor to power this year’s Glastonbury Festival. The Centre’s signature Pee Power urinals have been installed across the festival grounds equipped with a revolutionary technology that transforms urine into electricity.
CLEANTECH -
While renewables are becoming the new normal, battery storage has largely lagged behind. But a new report from global consulting firm McKinsey and the roll-out of new storage pilot projects across the US, Germany and UK are evidence that storage could finally be catching up.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Circular initiatives may be on the rise, but an impending commodity crisis for cobalt indicates that we still haven’t learned our lesson as far as resource depletion is concerned.
The ferromagnetic metal is primarily used in the preparation of magnetic, wear-resistant and high-performance alloys and is a critical component of batteries designed for electric vehicles, laptops, smartphones and a host of other electronics.
And we’re running out.
WALKING THE TALK -
In its annual Environmental Responsibility Report, tech giant Apple has revealed ambitious new plans to develop a closed-loop model for its supply chain. To achieve this goal, the world’s second largest smartphone producer will focus on using only renewable resources and recycled materials and eliminating conflict materials from its value chain.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
While automakers such as Toyota, Tesla, Ford, Honda and General Motors are putting their bets on hydrogen and electricity to power future mobility, Canada’s McGill University thinks metal could be the key to a clean, low-carbon future.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
High-profile incidents, such as the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh in 2013 and the exposé of slavery and human trafficking in the Thai seafood and electronics industries in 2014 have rightly drawn the world’s attention to global supply chains. As shameful as these incidents are, they are not anomalies. Many unethical, unsafe and unsustainable practices persist, under the radar, three or four layers down the supply chain.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
This is the second in a series of articles examining ‘sustainable leadership’ and what it entails. Find links to the full series below.
We start our search for sustainable leadership with a quote from Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
This rule has applied to all successful innovations, from the bronze age that replaced the stone age, to the iron age, the industrial revolution, electricity and smartphones; these innovations succeeded because they made what existed before obsolete.