Stories About Technology
Found 1125 stories. Page 44 of 57.
#NewMetrics '15: Willard, Gowdy Present the Holy Grail of Managing Non-Financial Performance
NEW METRICS - “As a business community we are making progress, but not enough, and not fast enough.
Dell Advances Circular Economy Model with CE100, Industry-First Recycled Carbon Fiber
THE NEXT ECONOMY - On Monday, Dell announced additional progress against its circular economy initiatives, including the expansion of its closed-loop recycled plastic supply chain, introduction of reclaimed carbon-fiber source materials and new industry collaborations to advance global circular practices.
VW Scandal a Jolt to 'CSR' That Reaches Far Beyond the Auto Industry
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - What started as a sordid tale of Volkswagen rigging half a million cars with “defeat device” software has snowballed into a global scandal as the German automaker later admitted 11 million of its cars were involved in the deception.
P&G Promises 15 Billion Liters of Clean Water, 30% Fewer Emissions by 2020
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Last week, Procter & Gamble (P&G) announced two new 2020 goals: delivering 15 billion liters of clean drinking water through its Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program (CSDW) and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its facilities by 30 percent.
Kickstarter Becomes a Public Benefit Corporation
LEADERSHIP - Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has announced it is reincorporating as a public benefit corporation, The New York Times reports, a legal designation that protects for-profit companies that want to do well and do good at the same time by affording them the freedom to pursue corporate purposes beyond maximizing profits.
Microsoft, GE Among Big Brands Backing New White House ‘Smart Cities’ Initiative
CLEANTECH - Microsoft, GE and Bank of America are among the ten companies supporting a White House challenge to U.S. cities to become smarter by accelerating deployment of innovative technologies that tackle energy, water, waste and air challenges.Organized by the nonprofit, Envision America, the new effort will invite leaders from 10 winning communities to participate in a workshop in January in Charlotte, NC, where they will work with leading experts from industry and academia to diagnose needs, workshop solutions and develop new smart initiatives for their community.
27 African Startups Prove Worthy Grassroots Solutions for Sustainable Development
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - 27 African social and environmental startups were recognized with awards last week at the 2015 SEED Africa Symposium. The recipients’ business models benefit local communities and help meet sustainable development challenges. Two of the awards were specifically designated for women-led ventures that focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Trending: Uber, Airbnb Optimizing User Experience Through Smart Partnerships
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Not a day goes by that we don’t hear some mention of “the sharing economy” these days, partly because of continued smart moves from the companies creating and riding the wave.First, on-demand ride service Uber recently announced a partnership with hotel chain Hilton Worldwide to help “make travel seamless” through new app features.
More Than Words: The Book Producing Clean Drinking Water One Page at a Time
CLEANTECH - The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the total number of people without access to clean drinking water now stands at 663 million; each year, more than 840,000 globally die from water-related diseases. A key challenge in developing effective water filter technologies has been making them cheap and portable for distribution to those who need them.
SAP Repeats Free Online Course on Sustainability and Business Innovation
PRESS RELEASE - SAP SE today announced that due to high demand it will repeat its 2014 course “Sustainability and Business Innovation” through the open SAP platform. The course will be held September 9 through October 29. Last year, over 13,000 attendees from 45 countries took part in the free online course.
5 User Experience Principles to Help Communicate Complex Ideas
MARKETING AND COMMS - With User Experience (UX), the primary objective is to remove barriers between the user and the outcome we want to create. We start by putting ourselves in the shoes of users and trying as best we can to get inside their heads so that we can approach the experience from their perspective. What kind of experience would they naturally gravitate toward? What might baffle them? What could thrill them? All of this becomes especially important when clients are trying to communicate something particularly detailed, nuanced or complex. In our experience, having a handful of solid principles to guide you can be particularly helpful.
Tesla Smashes Consumer Reports Rating System, Branches Into Sharing Economy
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Tesla Motors is charging forward with a new partnership with home-sharing startup Airbnb and a record-breaking variant of its Model S, the P85D.The Tesla Model S P85D smashed the Consumer Reports’ rating system, setting a new benchmark for a perfect overall score.At the Consumer Reports test track in East Haddam, Connecticut, the car initially earned a raw 103-point score in the 100-point-based rating system. Consumer Reports made changes to its scoring methodology to account for the car’s exceptionally strong performance, and awarded the Tesla Model S P85D a final score of 100 points.
SimaPro Share & Collect Software Facilitates Fast, Fact-Based Sustainability Decisions
NEW METRICS - Today, PRé Sustainability, a sustainability software and consultancy firm with 25 years’ experience as leading voice in life cycle management, life cycle assessment and sustainability metrics development, launches SimaPro Share & Collect, a web-based platform developed to facilitate fact-based sustainable decision-making in an efficient, time-saving manner.
Trending: 'Freaky Friday' Technologies Grow Metal, Create Batteries from Trees
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.
Texas Teen Develops $20 Water Purifier to Fight E-Waste Pollution
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING - Eighteen-year-old Perry Alagappan of Texas has created a renewable heavy metal filter capable of removing 99 percent of heavy metals from water that passes through it, The Guardian reports.This could be particularly useful in countries such as China and India, where recycling factories are recovering e-waste exported from around the world, but discharging heavy metals and chemicals into local water supplies in the process.
Trending: New Use for Coffee Grounds, 'Uber for Trash' Among Latest Innovations in Waste Reduction
WASTE NOT - You might already be using them in your garden or they might be fueling your commute — but now you can use them in your 3D printer: Coffee grounds seem to be wasted less and less by the day, thanks to waste-to-energy and upcycling efforts across the globe.
#BusinessCase: Ecolab, Trucost Expand Water Risk Monetizer to Include Revenue-at-Risk Assessment
NEW METRICS - Just in time for World Water Week, the Water Risk Monetizer, industry’s first publicly available financial modeling tool that enables businesses to factor current and future water risks into decision making, now provides users with insights into how water scarcity impacts revenue. The tool’s new assessment helps water-dependent businesses better understand the full value of water to their operations and identify revenue at risk based on current and projected water scarcity.
Trending: Biobased Microbeads, Flexible Foams Could Offer Renewable Materials for Hundreds of Products
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.
Musk’s ‘Hyperloop’ on Track to Start Construction in 2016
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Two years ago, billionaire CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX visionary Elon Musk made headlines when he released designs for the ‘Hyperloop’ Transport System, which would be capable of rapidly transporting people from Los Angeles to San Francisco via a tube in under 30 minutes.The proposed system would use pods about two meters, or around 6.6 feet, in diameter. Musk described the Hyperloop as a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table," instilling images of people-packed pods being blasted pneumatically through vacuum tubes.
NASA Says Closing the Loop on Poop May Be Key to Long-Term Space Travel
WASTE NOT - The circular economy is launching into space. Researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina recently secured funding from NASA to create a closed-loop system on a spacecraft that could turn astronauts’ feces into food, fertilizer and other useful materials for long space flights. “Synthetic Biology for Recycling Human Waste into Food, Nutraceuticals, and Materials: Closing the Loop for Long-Term Space Travel” was awarded a $200,000 per year grant, for up to three years, to tackle the space agency’s challenge to feed humans cramped into a spacecraft for months at a time.
