COLLABORATION -
Steve Jennings, the Founding Partner, Chief Innovation Officer and Futurist at Better Ventures opened up Wednesday afternoon's panel discussion entitled Understanding and Developing the Capacity for Transformative Relationships by asking the panellists to share what transformative partnerships mean to them.
“10 years ago, partnerships for sustainability were very transactional,” answered Loa Dalgaard Worm, the Executive Director at FSC Denmark. “NGOs wanted money to run their initiatives, and businesses wanted something to put it their CSR reports.”
SUPPLY CHAIN -
It was a normal Friday afternoon. Actually, it was February 5, 2016. I was about to head out to meet friends for happy hour and was scanning through the reporting materials that Richardson Antoine, Thread’s Haiti Field Manager, had just sent me.
LEADERSHIP -
“What keeps you up at night?” Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of Futerra, asked this question to 50 sustainability leaders from around the globe on the third and final day of SB ’16 Copenhagen. The core issues most people responded with were inequality, climate change, recession, refugees, biodiversity loss. “It’s the ‘parade of horribles’ that makes sleep tough at times,” said one survey responder. The theme that came out of the expressed fears was division on multiple fronts: Division of opinions, incomes, outlooks.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Have you ever been thankful the cashier didn’t ask if you want a receipt, because you’re tired of the paper piling up? You do your best to recycle receipts, but there’re still those that slip through the cracks into the trash. Have you ever wondered why we still have paper receipts in a digital world?
Your annoyance is well-placed. According to mobile payments juggernaut Square, these little paper slips inflict the following damage on the environment per year:
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
“Our organization is totally supportive of sustainability as long as nothing else comes up or it doesn’t interfere with something the Executive wants to do!”
Hands up if you have heard this before. Many organizations find that after the long process of building and adopting a sustainability policy or strategy, they stall. Sure, implementing and embedding sustainability into the business and day-to-day operational decisions is hard work, but that’s not the only thing holding up changes. Often, the environmental management or sustainability plan becomes siloed within the organization, resulting in delays and disorganization. As well, functional leaders don’t always understand the plan’s relevance to their area.
PRESS RELEASE -
The lens on diversity in tech couldn’t be more focused at this moment in our collective history. As part of our commitment to diversity, Symantec wants to give a voice to those underrepresented in the tech industry — including minorities, women, LGBT, veterans, disabled and people entering into tech as a second career — as we explore how we got here and how we move the industry forward to be truly reflective of today’s society.
To achieve this, we’ve launched a Medium publication #iamtech for you, for everyone interested in this topic — to talk about what diversity and inclusion means to you.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Renewable diesel and materials producer Neste and spoken word artist Prince Ea have unveiled the latest collaboration in their Pre-order the Future project, this time with a film that focuses on the future of learning. In “The People vs.
PRESS RELEASE -
What would you do if you couldn’t afford enough diapers for your baby? One in three families in the United States is affected by diaper need, or not having enough diapers to keep their babies clean, dry and healthy. This growing problem puts more than 5.3 million children living in low-income families at risk for serious rash or infection when families dry and reuse diapers.
There is no federal safety net like WIC or SNAP for diapers. Families must rely on the generosity of non-profit diaper banks, among others. Yet there’s hope: For as long as nurses have been caring for babies they have been collecting and giving diapers to families in need.
LEADERSHIP -
What is the most effective way to lead change? Some would argue for a top-down approach focused on execution, while others believe in an intrinsic, sense-and-respond style.
For Leith Sharp, director of executive education at Harvard University’s Center for Health, the answer is that organizations need both a command control operating system and adaptive sensing capability to lead transformation in the 21st century.
“The challenge for adaptive organizing champions is to learn both languages,” said Sharp. “A healthy command control is putting purpose first earnestly so the whole system can survive.”
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
I first witnessed Sustainable Brands descend on Detroit in April — flanked by Diego Rivera’s famous mural, Industry, at the Detroit Institute of Arts — when it announced that in 2017, the SB flagship conference would move from San Diego to Detroit.
PRESS RELEASE -
Nearly one year ago, countries across the world came together to discuss a new sustainable development agenda - the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - resulting in the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a set of 17 goals and 169 targets to guide countries toward “a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity” by 2030.
From access to education to gender equity to fighting poverty to mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change, the SDGs build on the past Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while calling on all countries, developing and developed to play a role in a sustainable future.
CLEANTECH -
Meet two racers who share a need to push the envelope - whether the subject is figuring out how to go a few millimeters per second faster than before or preserving endangered species.
COLLABORATION -
News Deeply, in partnership with Sustainable Brands, has produced a series of profiles looking at how brands are tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges. The goal is to examine trends and gather insights from a new wave of corporate citizenship – in an era when the private sector is increasingly expected to play a positive role in improving our lives and societies. This is the 8th article in the series.
PRESS RELEASE -
For 34 years, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) has partnered with Habitat for Humanity to help families around the world obtain decent, affordable housing. The Company is celebrating the 50,000th Habitat home that it has supported through product or volunteer contributions.
For this milestone build, Dow is partnering with Saginaw-Shiawassee Habitat for Humanity to build a new home in Freeland, Mich. From August 18 to September 9, Dow volunteers will work alongside the future homeowners, who have been working diligently with Habitat for several years to make their dreams of homeownership a reality.
Volunteers from Freeland area churches and Thrivent Financial will also lend a helping hand on the project.
LEADERSHIP -
We are in the midst of a metamorphic period of change unlike anything the world has seen since the Late Middle Ages. With “meta” (meaning “form”) and “morph” (meaning “change”), the word suggests the transformative change in form of human institutions now emerging as we awaken to the realities of climate change and the destruction of ecosystems we have long relied upon for our survival. As the organization specialist Peter Drucker insightfully said, ‘In times of turmoil, the danger lies not in the turmoil but in facing it with yesterday’s logic.’
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
In our last article, we explained why it’s important to make sure that your purpose is thoroughly grounded in the political, economic, social and technological context in which you operate. We call this the “dig” phase: intensively researching and analysing your external environment.
The “dig” phase doesn’t stop with the outside world, however. It’s just as important to look inwards. For your purpose to have any hope of gaining real purchase on the day-to-day operations of your business – to have any hope of being authentic - it must be fully aligned to the truth of your business.
PRESS RELEASE -
A candid interview with International Paper Sustainability Manager James McDonald
One Fortune 500 Company’s Global Citizenship Transformation
PRESS RELEASE -
Mark Hunter, President and CEO of Molson Coors, gives his perspective on the 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report released by Molson Coors this week:
The 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report details the progress we continue to make in growing our positive Beer Print and working toward our 2020 sustainability targets.
COLLABORATION -
When in hot water, take a bath.
To many westerners, this Chinese saying is nonsensical. Yet it accords with a fundamental African way of thinking: when faced with something profoundly troubling, the solution lies in a deeper experience of that very state.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Mark Manning, former oil industry insider and director of acclaimed Iraq war documentaries The Road to Fallujah and Caught in the Crossfire, has turned his lens to another battle taking place in the Gulf, this time on the U.S.’ Gulf Coast. The upcoming feature-length documentary, The Rising, details the devastating effects not only of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, but of the company’s cleanup efforts following the spill and the apparent large-scale cover-up of their health impacts on the coastal communities.