PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Airbus Group is taking innovation inspired by nature to the air by using 3D printing to help build a stronger, lighter-weight galley partition that mimics cells structure and bone growth. The design literally lightens each airplane’s load, allowing it to do things like save a projected 465,000 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
COLLABORATION -
Dermatologists Grace Bandow and Samar Jaber were surprised by the experience they had on their first mission to a Syrian refugee camp. They prepared for parasitic and bacterial infections associated with crowded living – minor diseases that flourish in “close, dirty quarters.” What they did not anticipate was the number of people who simply needed an item commonly found in a household medicine cabinet.“It never occurred to us to prioritize Vaseline petroleum jelly,” they wrote in an article published by The Washington Post upon their return.
PRESS RELEASE -
Participation in the newly created Health and Wellness Technology Accelerator is open to companies that support human wellbeing through interventions that target nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep, alcohol and smoking cessation. Companies will be selected based on criteria established jointly by JJHWS and Plug and Play. Consistent with Johnson & Johnson’s efforts to support diversity and its focus on increasing women’s representation in science and technology, the accelerator will target at least 30% participation by companies founded by women or minorities.
CLEANTECH -
The Ford Motor Company is ‘going further’ with its Smart Mobility Plan, which focuses on innovation in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience, and data and analytics. Two recent developments include the use of sensor technology on motorcycles to collect mobility data in Africa, and autonomous vehicle testing on public roads in the US.
PRESS RELEASE -
Sustainable Brands® pan-European conference SB’15 London begins today at the Beaumont Estate in Windsor. Nearly 400 business executives across diverse industry sectors and from 30+ countries are convening today through November 18th to collaborate and demonstrate how brands are transforming sustainability-led initiatives into profitable business outcomes.
NEW METRICS -
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have found that carbon dioxide (CO2) has a direct and negative impact on human cognition and decision-making, according to a new study, as reported by ThinkProgress.These impacts have been observed at carbon dioxide levels that most Americans are routinely exposed to today inside classrooms, offices, homes, planes and cars.
CLEANTECH -
Medical records, electronic or otherwise, might as well be Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to, well, just about anyone other than a medical professional. This makes it next to impossible for us to make sense of our personal health data.But a startup called Gliimpse says it has developed the “Rosetta Stone” for medical records, which helps translate the esoteric information into fluid, actionable data. I recently caught up with Gliimpse co-founder and CEO Anil Sethi, and co-founder and president Karthik Hariharan.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
Earlier this week, the shortlist was announced for the World Design Impact Prize 2015-2016, a global competition hosted by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). Six projects that address health, energy, and infrastructure challenges were selected from the 82 nominations.
BLOG -
The global Sustainable Brands community continues to impress and inspire with the growing levels of creativity companies are applying in their sustainability efforts, especially when it comes to elevating the level of priority of environmental and social criteria in product innovation processes. Products with a purpose are popping up in many shapes and forms, and many of them are proving they can perform really well financially.
PRESS RELEASE -
Novozymes ranks among the top in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. But why does the ranking matter to investors and what do we learn from it? We asked two investment specialists from RobecoSAM to explain.
For more than ten years, Novozymes has been recognized as one of the most sustainable companies in the world by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), which evaluates and ranks leading companies based on their sustainability performance. Once again, on Sep. 10, the DJSI announced that Novozymes scored 90 points out of 100 in the highly competitive Chemical Industry sector of the Index, placing the company among the top 3 percentile of sustainability leaders in their sector.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Climate impacts already cost billions in economic damage each year. Global drought losses are expected to surpass $8 billion in 2015 alone. A 2010 study by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) predicted that extreme drought will threaten large parts of the U.S., Central and South America, and Southern Europe by the 2030s.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The common viewIn times where concerns over depletion of non-renewable resources and climate change are drastically increasing, it seems easy to accept that bio-based products are without a doubt better than fuel-based products.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
One year after drugstore chain CVS Health stopped selling cigarettes, the company released new data that shows the decision has influenced tobacco sales across many types of retailers and announced a new school-based tobacco-prevention program.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
We know from the emerging discipline of biomimicry that natural systems can stimulate sustainable designs for human use. Two recent innovations use trees for inspiration and materials in unconventional products that may revolutionize very different industries: large-scale metal production, and battery technology to suit cars and wearable devices.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
TerraVerdae BioWorks, an industrial biotechnology company developing advanced bioplastics and environmentally sustainable biomaterials, announced Monday that it has successfully achieved key milestones for the commercial production for its line of Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)-based biomaterials. These include 10,000-liter production runs of its line of biodegradable, natural microspheres for use in personal care and cosmetic products.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Today, Fortune published its inaugural “Change the World” list of the top companies that are innovating business solutions to address complex social and environmental challenges. This list, developed with input from FSG and the Shared Value Initiative, illustrates a shift in business-as-usual among large corporations: For the first time companies are recognized for, and competitively ranked on, innovative strategies that positively impact the world.
CLEANTECH -
The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge last year achieved concrete results in cities in Australia, Ireland, Mexico and the United States, according to the company’s 2014 Corporate Responsibility Report.This included improving infrastructure and its effectiveness, integrating municipally-owned solar energy into the existing power grid, planning for economic development and reversing neighborhood decline while increasing tax revenue.The report details how the company’s technology and talent are transforming governments, institutions, communities and the quality of life for people around the world.
CLEANTECH -
As a digital industrial company focused on answering the unique needs and scale of customers across aviation, energy, healthcare and transportation, GE has announced plans to enter the cloud services market with Predix Cloud. The world’s first and only cloud solution designed specifically for industrial data and analytics, this platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will capture and analyze the unique volume, velocity and variety of machine data within a highly secure, industrial-strength cloud environment.
CLEANTECH -
CVS Health and IBM have announced they will use predictive analytics and Watson cognitive computing to transform care management services for patients with chronic disease. The partnership will enable health care practitioners to use Watson to advance care management beyond programs and services typically available today.