CLEANTECH -
Ford has announced a plan to have a ride-sharing service featuring high-volume, fully autonomous, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)-defined level 4-capable vehicles in commercial operation by 2021.
To get there, the company is investing in or collaborating with four startups to enhance its autonomous vehicle development, doubling its Silicon Valley team and more than doubling its Palo Alto campus.
PRESS RELEASE -
Eastman announces an innovative partnership with Aether Global Education, a nonprofit think-tank focused on transformative learning through design education.
PRESS RELEASE -
Iron Mountain® Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the global leader in storage and information management services, today announced the publication of the 2015 edition of its Corporate Responsibility Report. The report, now in its third annual edition, offers a comprehensive overview on the company’s progress towards its global commitments for key Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) program goals. The full report is available for download on Iron Mountain’s Corporate Social Responsibility portal.
WASTE NOT -
In the ongoing fight against food waste, startups continue to innovate to offer solutions: Renewal Mill is turning waste such as olive pits and grape skin into new food products, and apps are springing up around the world to help restaurants, bakeries and more sell their leftover food at a discount. Meanwhile, Electrolux has launched a new global competition looking for innovative ideas to inspire home cooking.
PRESS RELEASE -
Two years ago we launched one of our largest and most exciting corporate responsibility programs to date, the Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3), which addresses the global cybersecurity workforce gap by training and certifying young adults and veterans in cybersecurity and assisting them in landing meaningful internships and jobs.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
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 5th article in the series.
PRESS RELEASE -
Toyota and Horizon Educational Group Challenge SoCal High School Students to Build Fuel Cell Vehicles
TORRANCE, CALIF. (Aug. 9, 2016) – Game-based learning. Augmented reality virtual field trips. Biometric eye-tracking to determine how students absorb and understand content.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
A key business driver for today’s vehicle manufacturers is to find cost-effective ways to reduce material impact, and weight, in the cars they build. Lighter vehicles result in less fuel consumption – and consequently, fewer emissions.
PRESS RELEASE -
The line, which will be running at an initial capacity of 350,000 engines per year, is designed to reduce water and energy consumption by over 50% per engine produced compared to the previous production line. The company estimates that the water saving per year will be in the region of 17.5 million litres compared to 2011. This is enough to fill seven Olympic-sized swimming pools, and makes Dagenham the most water-efficient Ford plant in the world.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Rio 2016 Olympic Games are making history by leaving a significant legacy of low-carbon technologies in Latin America while set to balance 2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e).
The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee and The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW), the Official Chemistry Company of the Olympic Games and Official Carbon Partner of Rio 2016, announced today that more than 2 million tonnes of third-party-verified greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions are projected to be delivered by all projects and actions implemented to fulfill the commitment of hosting a global event with minimal carbon impact. Through unique cross-sector collaboration, the Olympic Games act as a catalyst for the adoption of more sustainable solutions that are relevant to the economy and society.
PRESS RELEASE -
In food processing, lactic acid bacteria can be friend or foe. Kept in check, these organisms help produce fermented foods ranging from smooth yogurts to crunchy pickles – and can even be leveraged for probiotic purposes. But under low oxygen, low temperature and acidic conditions, the bacteria can cause spoilage, discoloration, bloated packages and textures, odors and flavors that displease customers, trigger recalls and cause food waste.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) launched the Living Progress Challenge (LPC) last year to inspire entrepreneurs across the globe to create software applications and digital services that improve lives.
CLEANTECH -
The first five years of a child’s life are a critical window for learning and development, but we have yet to master how best to teach and engage children throughout that time. Hoping to advance preschool education, Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization that produces Sesame Street, has partnered with IBM to develop new educational platforms and products using Sesame’s early childhood expertise and IBM Watson’s cognitive computing technology.
CLEANTECH -
UPS today announced it has achieved its goal of driving 1 billion miles in its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet one year earlier than planned, and marked more than 10 years of learning from its “Rolling Laboratory.” UPS’s long-term commitment to sustainability is helping to transform commercial transportation and logistics, spurring growth in the clean fuels market and powering critical engineering advances. The company’s wider sustainability progress is detailed in the 14th annual Sustainability Report, released today.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
San Francisco-based technology startup Molekule recently introduced the world’s first molecular air purifier, bringing a patented technology to the category that eliminates a full spectrum of indoor pollutants by breaking them down on a molecular level.
According to the EPA, a backer of the new product, air indoors can be up to five times more polluted than outdoor air and since on average, people spend 90 percent of their time indoors, that exposure is harmful to health and well-being.
CLEANTECH -
Sustainability is the new key driver to innovation these days and ICTs play quite a pivotal and influential role in enhancing and boosting productivity of agricultural value chains that are responsible to uplift the process, smallholder farms in particular. E-agriculture has fast gained popularity since the rise of e-commerce, e-fashion, and e-detailing; practically everything has been transformed to apply to the digital world.
CLEANTECH -
Information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to play an influential role in the future of agriculture. News this month provides some insight into just how significant it could be: Bayer and DuPont have joined what Reuters is calling an “ag-tech investment boom,” while the startup creating artificial intelligence-based solutions for farms that supply Walmart and other major retailers has completed a $7 million Series A funding round.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Anellotech, a sustainable technology company focused on producing cost-competitive BTX (benzene, toluene and xylene) – petrochemical-based aromatic hydrocarbons - from non-food biomass, has announced Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a member of the Toyota Group, as a multinational strategic equity investor and corporate partner in the renewable aromatic chemicals supply chain.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The United States, the world’s second-largest emitter of CO2, is faced with the task of converting its energy system from black to green. Offshore wind can help get the job done.
Danish energy company DONG Energy believes that the US has the perfect conditions for exploiting the potential of offshore wind. The company, which has built roughly a quarter of the world’s current offshore wind capacity, has acquired the rights to establish wind farms in two areas off the country’s east coast, and expects offshore wind energy to be cheaper than fossil energy within 10 years.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, SolarWindow Technologies, Inc. announced an ‘invisible’ system for transporting electricity within the company’s transparent organic coatings, which are applied in thin layers onto glass surfaces. The SolarWindow™ Intra-Connection System moves electricity generated in the coating to ‘invisible wires,’ which in turn transport electricity to the edge of the glass and connect to building electrical systems.