PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The UPS Foundation has partnered with drone manufacturer Zipline and leading vaccine alliance Gavi., to deliver blood, medicines, and vaccines to clinics across Rwanda via a fleet of Zipline drones. Drones can provide a faster, more reliable method of medicine delivery in areas where roads are often impassable, or where products cannot be kept for long without spoiling. The venture is planned as a one-year initiative, with hopes to expand in the future.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
German multinational automakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler are seeking larger shares of the U.S. urban mobility market. BMW has entered the car-sharing market with the launch of its ReachNow service in Seattle, Wash., while Daimler is merging its route-planning service with a mobile ticketing company to form a North American unit of its mobility services unit, moovel Group.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The private vehicle sector has been one of the first and most pressing to push for a transition in the way we value the consumer economy. Companies such as Uber, Zipcar and Blablacar have stirred both applause and controversy as their disruptive business models have taken the marketplace by storm.
PRESS RELEASE -
SAN FRANCISCO – Lyft and General Motors today announced the launch of their Express Drive short-term rental program exclusive to the Lyft platform. The program will make cars available to Lyft drivers at affordable rates with insurance and maintenance included.
The launch of Express Drive comes two months after GM entered into a strategic alliance with Lyft to develop an integrated on-demand network of autonomous vehicles.
PRESS RELEASE -
ATLANTA, March 8, 2016 – UPS (NYSE:UPS) today announced it has been recognized as a World’s Most Ethical Company for the tenth consecutive year by the Ethisphere® Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices.
PRESS RELEASE -
UPS (NYSE:UPS) today announced updates to 125 hybrid electric delivery trucks that extend their range and improve fuel economy as part of the company’s broader Rolling Laboratory approach.
A compact, quiet-running 2-cylinder engine replaces a prior 4-cylinder engine to extend their range, improve performance and fuel efficiency. The updated trucks deliver significant fuel economy equivalency gains – up to four times the fuel economy of a gasoline-powered vehicle. They will be deployed in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio and Texas later this year.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, paint and coatings manufacturer AkzoNobel issued 126,785 carbon credits – worth over $500,000 – to 16 ships that reduced their emissions by switching the coating on their hulls. The vessels were ‘rigorously assessed’ by an independent auditor, RINA Services and The Gold Standard Foundation, to verify their fuel consumption data.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
To serve people’s urban mobility needs, cities rely on anything from one dominant, mainly private owned means of transport — the personal automobile — to a complex mixture of publicly and privately financed transport means. Users of these mobility services are usually left to their own devices to identify the optimum (combination of) modes to cover a journey and understand differences in terms of pricing, time and convenience.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Less than three weeks after General Motors (GM) announced a $500 million investment in ride-for-hire service Lyft, GM made another big move towards “the future of mobility.” This week, GM launched Maven: an on-demand car-sharing service and “personal mobility” brand.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Ford Motor Company has been rather focused on the “future of mobility” since the launch of its Smart Mobility Plan and 25 related experiments. The company has been shifting its focus from being an automaker to changing the way the world moves.
CLEANTECH -
With CES 2016 underway in Las Vegas this week, we are expecting to have announcements about exciting tech advancements coming out of our ears. Case in point: At The Ford Motor Company's press conference this morning, it announced a partnership with Amazon to integrate vehicles with Echo, the e-commerce company’s smarthome device.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
UPS has announced it will supply its fleet in Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss., with an estimated 15 million diesel gallon gas equivalents of renewable natural gas (RNG) as part of a multi-year agreement with Memphis Light, Gas and Water and Atmos Energy Marketing.
COLLABORATION -
As evidenced by the unprecedented private-sector engagement in COP21 earlier this month, businesses globally get that they need to innovate (and improve!) their products, services and business models to combat climate change, resource scarcity and unpredictable futures. Aside from the alignment of 195 nations on a climate-action agreement, what did all the talk at COP21 amount to from a business perspective? A lot of initiatives that push forward change and collaboration. But is it all smoke and mirrors, and toothless pledges, or is there real action brewing?
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Could the bicycle be the tool for change that our cities need? A new documentary and a related app are hoping to inspire better design, smarter political decisions, and reduced CO2 emissions in the urban planning process by shining a light on the bicycle and its growing conflict with the car.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
For great sports teams, the big win marks a beginning, not an end. It whets their appetite for excellence, and more wins.So it is with companies who’ve had success in meeting sustainability targets through greener freight transportation strategies. Early wins trigger a planned effort, with dedicated resources, to uncover more opportunities. It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and again at brands that have made green freight a linchpin of CSR efforts – the green freight heroes.Freight accounts for 16 percent of corporate-driven climate pollution, so there’s no shortage of impactful opportunities. The challenge comes in assessing the priority projects and maintaining a focus on continuous improvement.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
For many marketers or entrepreneurs, building a business with a purpose is the Holy Grail. It feels great – and we all want to do a job that makes sense. And it’s good business: brands with a purpose work better – Jim Stengel and a few others have clearly made the point.But building a business with a purpose requires a change of paradigm. For many of us, that means unlearning what we studied at marketing school.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Logistics can be a sustainability manager’s “secret weapon,” because this theater of operations often gets passed over. It’s easy to think addressing logistics will be too complicated, given that most of the emissions are from equipment owned and operated by suppliers (i.e. scope 3). But freight operations often sit in the top five contributors of greenhouse gas emissions at any given corporation, so there are rich pickings to be had here.
PRESS RELEASE -
UPS today announced the deployment of 18 electric, zero emission delivery vehicles to the Houston-Galveston area in Texas. The truck purchases are the result of a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), local governments and non-profits. These vehicles, designed and built specifically by the Workhorse Group for the “stop and go” needs of a UPS delivery truck, will avoid the consumption of an estimated 1.1 million gallons of diesel fuel over 20 years.
PRESS RELEASE -
Fleet is Part of Clean Air Project with U.S. Department of Energy, Local Governments and Non-Profit
SUPPLY CHAIN -
In a recent review of corporate responsibility reports from major consumer-facing brands, Environmental Defense Fund found that barely half of the companies mentioned the environmental impact of their freight supply chain and the steps they were taking to reduce this impact. This is unfortunate for two reasons: Freight transportation is a major source of corporate-caused climate pollution, and it’s ripe for rapidly achieving significant cost-savings and emissions reductions.