PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Looking for something to hold you accountable on your New Year’s resolution to be more active? Changers — a German startup whose mission is to motivate behavior change by making sustainable actions measurable — has launched CO2 Fit, a new mobile app that measures the CO2 generated during various types of travel and rewards more active and lower-emitting options with Recoins, the world's first ‘green’ currency based on CO2 savings.
BUSINESS CASE -
This week, Procter & Gamble published its 16th annual sustainability report, which reveals how the CPG giant made far-reaching — and as it turns out, lucrative — improvements to its global operations years ahead of schedule.
WASTE NOT -
Waste Management’s just-released 2014 Sustainability Report, Creating a Circular Economy, documents the company’s progress on recycling, energy production, transforming waste into valuable resources and helping businesses move toward zero waste.“As our customers have become more focused on waste reduction, so have we,” said David Steiner, Waste Management’s president and CEO. “By finding new ways of extracting value from the materials we manage, we’re making advancements toward our long-term business strategy, and helping others do the same.”
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The GW4 Alliance—a consortium of four leading research universities in the South West of England and Wales—has announced a new project to clean up water from a Cornish tin mine using algae to harvest the precious heavy metals and produce biofuel at the same time.Researchers from universities in Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), are now working with the Coal Authority and Veolia to take untreated mine water samples from Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall into the laboratory and grow algae in them. The research will explore whether algae is effective in removing materials such as arsenic and cadmium from the mine water.
PRESS RELEASE -
TEMPE, Ariz – Dec. 3, 2014 – The eyes, ideas and imagination of the sustainability world will turn to Arizona in February as Arizona State University (ASU) hosts the second annual Sustainability Solutions Festival at venues across the greater Phoenix area.
CLEANTECH -
Boeing has carried out the world's first flight using "green diesel," a widely available sustainable biofuel already used in ground transportation. The company powered its ecoDemonstrator 787 flight test airplane on Tuesday with a blend of 15 percent green diesel and 85 percent petroleum jet fuel in the left engine.Sustainable green diesel is made from vegetable oils, waste cooking oil and waste animal fats. Boeing previously found that this fuel is chemically similar to HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) aviation biofuel approved in 2011. Green diesel is chemically distinct and a different fuel product than "biodiesel," which also is used in ground transportation.
COLLABORATION -
Marking the end of the comment period on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, 223 companies have announced their support for EPA’s proposed carbon standard for electric power plants, including IKEA, Mars Inc., VF Corporation, Novelis, Levi Strauss, Unilever and Nestlé.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
The global environmental industry grew 3.6 percent in 2013, generating revenues of $1.047 trillion, while the U.S. environmental industry grew only 0.7 percent in 2013 compared to 4.5 percent in 2012, according to new research from Environmental Business International.In 2013, the U.S. environmental industry’s total of $344.84 billion in annual revenues represented 2.81 percent of the gross domestic product, while the environmental industry employment reached 1.75 million.
LEADERSHIP -
German power and gas giant E.ON has announced it will now focus on renewables, distribution networks and customer solutions, and spin off its conventional generation, global energy trading, and exploration and production businesses into a new, independent company (“New Company”), a majority of which will be spun off to E.ON SE shareholders.“I’m pleased that the Supervisory Board unanimously approved the Board of Management’s proposed new strategy, which will give our employees and our investors clear prospects in two strong companies that are viable for the future,” E.ON Supervisory Board Chairman Werner Wenning said.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
A recent report from the London Sustainable Development Commission (LSDC) asserts that socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurs are “critical” to London’s future as a world leader in the economy of the future, as the Commission unveils its picks for this year's crop of the City's most notable mission-driven startups.Green Means Business highlights why London is an ideal location for 'green' entrepreneurs to 'drive innovation, growth, and job creation'; estimating that London's low-carbon and environmental goods and services (LCEGS) sector has the potential to give an annual market value of £69bn by 2025.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
After ongoing criticism from organizations such as Greenpeace for continuing to run on ‘dirty power,’ Amazon this week announced a “long-term commitment to achieve 100 percent renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure footprint.”The world’s largest cloud-computing company said that its Web Services segment — which provides IT infrastructure to Internet heavyweights including Netflix, Spotify and Pinterest — will aim to be powered by 100 percent renewables, but didn’t set a deadline for achieving that goal.
NEW METRICS -
Carnival Corporation, the world's largest cruise company, has reduced its carbon emissions from shipboard operations by 20 percent one year ahead of schedule, according to the company’s new sustainability report.
NEW METRICS -
Actively managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has proven to result in direct economic gains for companies. A 2013 KPMG study of the S&P 500 companies found that firm value decreases on average by $212,000 for every additional thousand metric tons of carbon emissions produced. CDP’s Global 500 Climate Change Report 2013 showed that companies who are leaders of sustainability reporting have higher overall returns than companies of the Global 500.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Global investment in activities that reduce the threat of climate change fell for the second year in a row from $359 billion in 2012 to $331 billion in 2013, according to a new study by the Climate Policy Initiative.Global Landscape of Climate Finance shows that, while public sources and intermediaries contributed $137 billion—a figure largely unchanged from last year—private investment totaled $193 billion, falling by $31 billion from 2012.
PRESS RELEASE -
EnerG2, a Seattle-based company manufacturing advanced carbon materials for next-generation energy storage devices, and BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, today announced a strategic partnership. EnerG2 and BASF entered into a comprehensive collaboration to improve and scale-up the production of EnerG2’s proprietary carbon materials for use in supercapacitor electrodes and as a performance additive in start-stop lead-acid batteries. Both technologies play an important role in short-term energy storage for automotive and industrial applications.
CLEANTECH -
The global market for zero net energy (ZNE) commercial buildings is expected to grow to $239.7 million by 2018, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.6 percent, according to a new report by BCC Research.
CLEANTECH -
Microsoft, Siemens and FuelCell Energy have come together to build what they claim is the first zero-carbon, waste-to-energy data center in the U.S.Microsoft's data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming uses biogas produced at the nearby Dry Creek facility, which is a byproduct of municipal wastewater treatment. Anaerobic bacteria produce the biogas while stabilizing solids removed from wastewater. The fuel cell electrochemically converts the biogas into electricity to power the Microsoft IT server container. Virtually no air pollutants are released because of the absence of combustion.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
Michael Dickstein, Global Sustainable Development Director at Heineken International, and Kirsten Barnhoorn, Heineken’s former global sustainability leader, led this interactive Q&A session following Dickstein’s morning plenary presentation.The first question coming from the audience was: “How was Heineken able to convince marketers to look into sustainability issues?”
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
A collaborative business effort, led by UK charity Business in the Community, brought together representatives from business and Government to tackle energy efficiency in the home.The fortnight campaign, Be Energy Aware, ran in October 2014 encouraging consumers to use less energy in the home, ultimately saving money on their energy bill. Participating companies included Virgin Money, lighting manufacturer Osram, DIY retailer B&Q, Thames Water, and Housing Association AmicusHorizon. The UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and industry body Energy Saving Trust also supported the campaign.
COLLABORATION -
Virginie Helias, Global Sustainability Director at Procter & Gamble, opened this Monday afternoon session talking about how to bridge the existing gap between marketing and sustainability.P&G is a company targeting 5 billion people. Its marketing approach used to be “traditional,” often focused on its products’ performances, but over the years found that some of its ads were not effective anymore. As a consequence, the company decided to move out from its comfort zone and to articulate new messaging that better engaged its customers.