CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
From investors to growers, producers, blenders and consumers, the below50 initiative, launched today, expects to attract every industry sector involved in the pipeline of sustainable fuels. Any company who produces, uses and/or invests in fuels that are at least 50 percent less carbon intensive than conventional fossil fuels can join below50.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
NIKE, Inc. has unveiled the latest expansion of its European Logistics Campus in Belgium, to accelerate its drive toward “the supply chain of the future.”
The expansion will make Nike’s European operations more efficient, more responsive and more sustainable, enabling growth by serving consumers across Nike.com, Nike retail and wholesale partners in 38 countries, all from a single inventory location.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) and Sedex have been competitors in the past, but this week, the business-driven initiative and non-profit organization signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to reduce duplication of effort while building capacity and bolstering global collaboration to fight human trafficking. The announcement comes as both organizations release new online tools for their memberships.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Leading seafood brands, major UK retail chains and some of the world’s largest fishing companies have struck a groundbreaking deal to protect a key Arctic region from industrial fishing for cod.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The debates around extended producer responsibility for packaging — an approach whereby consumer goods companies pay some or all of the costs for managing packaging materials — have been raging in the U.S. for more than six years.
CLEANTECH -
Since the introduction of the first ecolabels and standards for organic products in the late 1980s and '90s, sustainability standards and certifications have proliferated across myriad industries. From food to manufactured goods, standards and certifications are helping consumers and businesses alike make better purchasing decisions to ensure they respect the triple bottom line.
LEADERSHIP -
Two of America’s most well-known yogurt brands are taking unconventional approaches create stronger ties with some of their stakeholders. Dannon is implementing a new supply system that allows the company to engage directly with its milk suppliers as part of an ambitious plan to influence farm practices, and Chobani will be giving its 2,000 full-time employees an ownership stake worth up to 10 percent of the company when it goes public or is sold.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Global outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland prides itself on its commitment to innovate and operate in an accountable and responsible manner — in terms of its products, the communities in which it operates, and the outdoors. As part of this commitment, the company today announced the implementation of its rigorous environmental standard — the Timberland Environmental Product Standard (TEPS) — across all of its product categories, beginning with its Spring 2016 collection.
CLEANTECH -
Late last year, devastating fires engulfed 2 million hectares of land in Indonesia, impacting the health of 43 million people around Southeast Asia, and emitting as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Brazil does in a year. They were driven by years of rampant, unregulated deforestation, chiefly for the expansion of paper pulp and oil palm plantations.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
One of the world’s largest palm oil companies, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), has published a 4-year plan to trace its entire supply to the growers’ plantations. Earlier this year, GAR mapped its entire supply chain to 489 individual mills, and plans to build on that progress by achieving 100 percent traceability to plantation for all of the palm oil purchased and processed by the company by 2020.
COLLABORATION -
As with any multinational retailer, a high proportion of the environmental impacts resulting from Woolworths operations worldwide are linked to the farming and/or processing of products that we sell. As a result, we make it our business to work together with our suppliers to minimise these impacts, and to positively influence the environmental and social outcomes of doing business. Challenges we face in our global supply chain include impacts of extreme weather events, soil degradation, declining water quality and increasing input costs; below are a few of the initiatives and partnerships aimed at addressing them.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Six years after NGOs released a scathing report on Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Group, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) decided to suspend IOI last Monday.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Consumers these days want to know that when a business says that it is producing something ethically and sustainably, that it can back up such claims throughout its entire supply chain. After all, a business’s claims to operating sustainably are only partly fulfilled when it can’t confirm the sustainability of its raw materials or other products involved in production. So customers increasingly expect businesses to make sure their supply chain is as committed as they are to principled behaviour.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Modern slavery has been a popular topic in corporate responsibility lately, and with good reason: Forced labor affects roughly 21 million people around the globe, and 71 percent of companies believe there is a likelihood of modern slavery occurring at some point within their supply chains.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
71 percent of companies believe there is a likelihood of modern slavery occurring at some point within their supply chains, according to research conducted by the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability at Hult International Business School and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
A successful campaign led by chef-turned-activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall drew attention to a big problem: coffee cup waste. Fearnley-Whittingstall claims that in the UK, less than 6 million takeaway hot beverage cups are recycled each year, while 7 million are thrown out each day. As part of his Hugh’s War on Waste initiative (which includes a television show), he took to the streets of London on March 14 in a “coffee cup battle bus.”
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
‘Forced labour affects roughly 21 million people around the globe, of whom 68% are exploited for private economic gain.’
These chastening figures, produced by the International Labour Organisation, are spurring governments around the world to bring in tough new measures to deal with this $150 billion industry.
COLLABORATION -
According to a report issued by the Congressional Budget Office, deforestation activity accounts for 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Companies such as Unilever have adopted zero-deforestation policies; while private sector initiatives are critical to broader zero-deforestation efforts, a more comprehensive approach involving multiple entities from the private and public sectors is necessary.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Today, Canadian environmental NGO Canopy welcomes six large Chinese viscose producers to the growing roster of fashion and textile leaders committed to eliminating the world’s ancient and endangered forests from their fabrics. While to date 60 brands and designers, representing more than 85 billion USD in annual revenues, have signed on to the CanopyStyle campaign — triggering the need for deep shifts within the viscose supply chain — the real change will come from producers, who must provide the industry with alternatives.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Two powerful palm oil companies are fulfilling promises related to accountability in their supply chains and bolstering their sustainability.