THE NEXT ECONOMY -
With a recent rise in evidence of demand for sustainable travel experiences, Kind Traveler, the world’s first socially conscious hotel booking platform; and Steller — the world’s leading storytelling app and community co-founded by TV personality Richard Bangs, known as the father of modern adventure travel — have joined forces to launch new travel options that inspire travelers to vote with their dollars, benefiting local communities and ecosystems.
PRESS RELEASE -
IT-company SAP counts on gamification to make employees, customers and partners more familiar with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through its new “Wheel of Purpose”. Gamification means applying game-typical elements to a context that has little to do with games to raise motivation and joy for educational content.
PRESS RELEASE -
November 16, 2018 - UPS® (NYSE: UPS) today announced the launch of its 5th annual
MARKETING AND COMMS -
National Geographic has kept pace as the country’s demographics rapidly shift and the cultural definition of immigrants, identity and families continues to evolve, having recently launched a year-long series dedicated to exploring “Diversity in America.” With national conversations on race, immigration and diversity front and center, Susan Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Director at National Geographic Magazine and National Geographic Partners, spoke with MediaVillage about why it was time to take stock of these issues and how that might be done.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Last week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Corporate culture sets the groundwork for how your team interacts with each other and your customers.
NEW METRICS -
Last week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share their latest tools and findings regarding measuring the risks and impacts of previously unmeasured forms of value, the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Every day, millions of Americans drink, on average, 2.1 cups of coffee; each cup takes about a hundred beans to brew1. Each bean must go through harvesting, wet milling, drying, dry milling, storing, shipping, trucking, roasting, grinding and packaging before it is available for us to pick off a store shelf and bring home to brew. Coffee may be simple to prepare in the home — especially if you have a Keurig machine on your counter — but the work behind such a ubiquitous beverage is incredibly complex and starts, as with most things we love, with people.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Early marketing for products promising sustainability was all about what they “weren’t.” Tofurky wasn’t meat. Soy milk wasn’t dairy. Solar wasn’t coal.
Positioning against the negative helped companies attract consumers who were revolting against the polluting impacts of standard manufacturing practices and products. But doing so ignored what potential customers still wanted, whether a product was sustainable or not: delicious taste, high performance, reliable quality and comfort, and overall satisfaction.
Consider the ominous ads for the first Prius, which started running in 2001. The only virtue they extolled was fuel efficiency, and portrayed oil drills as monsters.
PRESS RELEASE -
Sometimes a great notion matters. Sometimes a great notion matters a huge amount. In this case, the great notion was the Michigan Source Reduction Initiative (MSRI). Few people remember MSRI, but its legacy lives on.
MSRI was the catalyst that launched The Dow Chemical Company into a collaborative approach in helping the world achieve sustainable development. It also ushered in a wave of new and unique company-NGO collaborations that helped accelerate progress and set new standards for these relationships. It is hard to imagine the great collaborations of more recent years (e.g., US Climate Action Partnership formed in 2006) happening without that catalyst of MSRI.
COLLABORATION -
The only positive side of the marine plastic problem is the growing tide of actions from the global business community to try and solve it — in the past year alone, the issue has spawned campaigns, documentaries, cross-industry collaborations, scientific breakthroughs,
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Meat-heavy diets have been under increased scrutiny of late, spawning a host of research and campaigns linking them to the accelerating impacts of climate change around the world.
Now, a new report from the Changing Markets Foundation, Mighty Earth and Compassion in World Farming points the finger at governments, which they say are failing to tackle meat over-consumption to meet climate targets.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
The often-patrician act of philanthropy and the #MeToo movement may not seem like the most obvious pairing, but for Cynthia Nimmo, president and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network (WFN), they are two sides of the same coin.
PRESS RELEASE -
Twentieth Century Fox Film and AMC Theatres are joining forces to provide underserved and underrepresented young people across the country access to the powerful new film THE HATE U GIVE, as a tool for driving empowerment, empathy, and dialogue. The studio and theatre chain are hosting free screenings in nine metro areas during the film’s limited release – at 11am local time, Saturday, October 6: Atlanta, GA, Baltimore, MD, Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Miami, FL, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC.
Students and youth-serving organizations are encouraged to register for the free screenings; visit amctheatres.com/group/the-hate-u-give to reserve tickets.
COLLABORATION -
Natural disasters are becoming a new reality for many Americans. In 2017 alone, 25 million people, or 8 percent of the U.S. population, were affected by a natural disaster — a “historic year,” according to FEMA.
More often, corporates are responding before, during and after natural disasters to serve affected employees, customers and communities. Historically, companies have responded to disasters by providing the basics of food, water, and shelter — often via cash donations to relief organizations. But in the past few years, we have seen more companies bring their competencies, products or services, and people to disaster situations in innovative ways. And they are changing the way communities across the U.S. weather and recover from disasters.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
As of the writing of this article, the year 2020 is a mere 450 days away. Can you believe that? 450 days!
For the sustainability community, 2020 is a particularly important date: 2020 Sustainability Goals have become highly fashionable; unless you have been living under a rock, you are familiar with phrases such as “20 percent reduction [insert carbon, energy, waste, water, etc] by 2020.”
MARKETING AND COMMS -
McDonald’s USA has announced that its seven classic burgers are now free from artificial preservatives, artificial flavors and added colors from artificial sources. The ingredient changes affect all 14,000 U.S. restaurants, marking this the next major milestone in McDonald’s food journey and another way the fast food giant aims to help customers feel good about its food.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
Last year, the Sustainable Brands community gathered around the world throughout the year to share insights on how they – and their customers – were “redefining the good life.” This year, the conversation has progressed from the ‘what’ to the ‘how’ of designing the sustainable future in which we all want to live.
WALKING THE TALK -
Today’s consumers are increasingly concerned about the impact their purchasing decisions have on the planet. People want to know how products they buy affect social and environmental ecosystems, and are paying more money for and attention to healthy foods and consumer goods.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
In the early days of my career, more years ago than I care to admit, I spent a good part of my time explaining to people what e-waste was, that it was hazardous and that it shouldn’t be landfilled. I’m pleased to report that those days are over. Most of us today are well aware of the tide of electronics washing up in China, Africa and elsewhere. The vast majority of us want to ensure our discarded electronic paperweights are properly recycled. We are moving in the right direction.