Stories About Living Within Our Means
Found 48 stories. Page 2 of 3.
Visa Outlines Ways to Improve Daily Travel for Smarter, More Efficient Cities
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Global transportation study assesses trends and challenges in public transportation and parking, in the face of population growth and urban migration patterns.
New Alliance to Bring Circular IT Life Cycle Management Across Europe
THE NEXT ECONOMY - European leaders in financing professional equipment and IT life cycle management join forces to offer circular, product-as-a-service solutions.
UK Gov Proposes Tax, Other Incentives to Help End Throwaway Fashion
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE - The Environmental Audit Committee is calling on the UK government to make fashion retailers take responsibility for the waste they create.
BP’s Energy Outlook, 2019 Clean200 Show Undeniable Power of Renewables
CLEANTECH - The Carbon Clean 200 are already capitalizing on the transition to a low-carbon future; BP’s latest scenarios support that strategy
Tips from Dr. Bronner’s, Sun World, Wrangler on Advancing Regenerative Ag Supply Chains
SUPPLY CHAIN - The winds are changing. Companies that have operated many steps removed from the farms and people that produce their raw materials are building stronger connections to their agricultural supply chains. This shift stems from interest to replenish soil and water supplies, and boost overall resilience and output through regenerative and thriving agriculture. Pure Strategies’ latest report, Connecting to the Farm, points to the best practices companies are using to get closer to the farm while advancing these critical sustainability aims and gaining valuable business benefits.
Do We Lose Moral Self-Determination When We Work?
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - The co-working startup WeWork made headlines recently with a new policy banning meat from company functions and barring employees from expensing any meat dishes. The move is intended to reduce the company’s environmental impact, with the company predicting a reduction in carbon emissions by 445.1 million pounds and saving over 15 million animals. Miguel McKelvey, WeWork’s co-founder and Chief Culture Officer, speaks of the policy as not just creating an environmental benefit, but also changing the minds of his employees and creating a culture of personal accountability at the company.
New Research Calls for Less Talk, More Action to #MoveTheDate
WALKING THE TALK - Today, August 1, marks our earliest yet Earth Overshoot Day — the day humanity has used nature’s resource budget for the year — since its establishment in 1987. Despite increasing awareness of our planetary boundaries and social thresholds, we’ve not only not managed to reverse it, we’re making it worse.
Chicken or Egg: Does Happiness Lead to Sustainable Lifestyles, or Vice Versa?
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - What better way to kick off Sustainable Brands ‘17 Copenhagen than to explore the personal motivations behind changing consumer behaviours in favour of society and planet?
New Footprint Calculator, #MovetheDate Campaign Commemorate Earliest-Ever Earth Overshoot Day
NEW METRICS - To mark Earth Overshoot Day (August 2nd — the earliest to date) — the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regenerate over the entire year — international research organization Global Footprint Network has launched a new mobile-friendly version of its signature Footprint Calculator.
Groundbreaking Report Provides Government with Road Map to Cut U.S. Food Waste
WASTE NOT - While more than 42 million Americans lack access to a sufficient amount of food, a staggering 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is uneaten, resulting in at least 62.5 million tons of wasted food annually. Meanwhile, a mere 10 percent of food is recovered each year across the entire supply chain. Tackling the growing problem of food waste has become a top priority for governments and businesses across the globe, but many laws and policies designed to enhance food recovery fail to address the needs facing the evolving landscape of food donation.
Rethinking Ownership: Making the Shift from Consumer to User
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - The way the majority of the world’s economy works is ‘linear’. We take materials out of the earth, make them into marketable goods that we consume, and dispose of the goods when we’re done with them. It’s a system that accelerated since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, when there was an abundance of cheap and easily accessible natural resources. Mass production made a lot of sense at the time and has since arguably raised our standards of living exponentially.
Earth Overshoot Day Continues to Creep Up the Calendar
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - While Olympians are desperately competing in Rio for the fastest times and highest scores, humanity has achieved a different world record – we have used up nature’s budget for the entire year in record time. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year and arrived earlier than ever, falling on August 8, 2016. Unfortunately, there are no winners in the race for natural resources.
If Humanity Were a Corporation ...
LEADERSHIP - ... what would it take to make Sustainability its Brand and the Sufficiency Economy its Value? While at this moment, every social unit recognises that we all need to take action NOW, the most challenging question is always: HOW? What should be — would be — the best solution to enable us to achieve sustainability? So let’s think big and try a little thought experiment: What if humanity were a corporation — what would it take to make sustainability its brand? How can we create value that will set the framework to build a sustainable brand?
Lessons from Spirituality, Nature and Business on the Meaning of Purpose and How to Activate It
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - The purpose of business is changing. While historically, business students have been taught that the purpose of business solely is to increase investors’ profits — known as the Friedman Doctrine — the most successful brands are searching for a deeper meaning. Defining and activating purpose in business was the key theme of Tuesday evening’s plenaries at Sustainable Brands 2016. While Millennials often receive credit for compelling companies to embrace higher ideals, this actually is something all generations of demanded, said Shannon Schuyler, Chief Purpose Officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). However, because Millennials are such a large demographic and constantly communicate via technology, their voices are being heard.
New Research from MorningStar Farms, WRI Illustrates Environmental Benefits of Eating Less Meat
CLEANTECH - This week, both the World Resources Institute (WRI) and MorningStar Farms — producer of veggie burgers, sausages and other faux meat items beloved by vegetarians across the U.S. — have unveiled research asserting that the average American could cut their diet-related environmental impacts by nearly half just by eating less meat and dairy.
What Difference Does One Make?
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - My family eats a mostly vegetarian diet. Some kids at school were making fun of my 9-year-old son, telling him how great meat tastes. Before diving into the challenge of dealing with childhood peers, I asked him if he knew why we’re vegetarian. When it was clear he didn’t (that’s on me), I started to tell him about the environmental impacts of meat as it’s currently produced, health benefits, and animal welfare.
'Sea the Possibilities' Healthy Eating Challenge Not So Healthy for the Oceans
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - For Chicken of the Sea, the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans give the right recommendation: People should eat more seafood, and it should replace of other protein foods for two meals per week. In response, the company launched the “Sea the Possibilities Challenge,” a behavior change campaign that encourages consumers to lead “happier, healthier, and more adventurous” lives, in part by increasing their seafood consumption.
UK Chef's New TV Show Waging 'War on Waste'
WASTE NOT - The latest celebrity chef-led TV show is going beyond delicious meals to dish out hard truths about waste. Chef-turned-food-waste-activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall “is on a mission to reduce the amount of waste that Britain produces,” in the new BBC One series, "Hugh’s War on Waste."
IoT: The Solution to Sustainably Feeding 9 Billion?
CLEANTECH - A 2014 National Geographic article, “One-Third of Food Is Lost or Wasted,” reported that 3.5 billion acres of land, an area larger than Canada, was plowed in 2007 to grow food, support livestock and dairy production that was never consumed. As for water waste, nearly 70 percent is consumed by agriculture, more than twice that of industry at 23 percent, and municipal use bottoms out at 8 percent.As UNEP’s Nick Nuttall acknowledged in the piece: "Food waste is a stupid problem. But people love stupid problems because they know they can do something about it."
An Intro to ThriveAbility: The Next Stage of Development for Sustainability
NEW METRICS - You all know the classic quip for our field:John: “My marriage is sustainable.”Jane: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that…”You get it: The notion of “sustainability,” while vitally necessary, inspires enthusiasm like a hairshirt. What we humans really want to do is thrive! The problem sustainability confronts is that the human pursuit of thriving (as currently enacted) wreaks havoc — we overshoot planetary boundaries and erode social foundations.