BUSINESS CASE -
This week, Procter & Gamble published its 16th annual sustainability report, which reveals how the CPG giant made far-reaching — and as it turns out, lucrative — improvements to its global operations years ahead of schedule.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Drones have already disintermediated the aerospace/defense industry and have crossed the threshold from commercial to consumer, delivering to the average person the world’s most powerful personal computer. The potential for good in industrial agriculture, wildlife conservation and animal poaching, monitoring of factory farms, and prevention and early detection of forest fires is unprecedented.Drones can make granular crop maps for farmers, monitor illegal logging, track sometimes elusive endangered species in their habitats, and even drill down to track the sounds of animals as small as bats.
PRODUCTS AND DESIGN -
Amazon has announced the launch of Amazon Elements, a new line of everyday essentials with transparent origins. Beginning with signature diapers and baby wipes, Amazon Elements offers Prime members an unprecedented level of information — when and where items were made, why each ingredient was included, where the ingredients were sourced and more.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
A whopping 97 percent of environmental impacts in the retail sector come from the product itself — from raw materials, transportation and product manufacturing. With impacts so heavily weighted in the supply chain, retailers are increasingly and creatively wading upstream to partner with their suppliers on their greatest impacts. The key to success lies in selecting the appropriate supplier engagement method and then using that approach as a vehicle to deeper collaboration. But can successful retailer approaches truly motivate meaningful supply chain improvements?The benefits of engagement
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
This week, LiquiGlide Inc. — creator of a coating for the insides of food containers that helps coax out every last drop — released survey results that clearly illustrate consumers' intense dislike of product waste.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has made a qualified commitment that 90 percent of its packaging will be recyclable by 2020. The commitment came the day before an October 14 vote on a shareholder proposal filed by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow asking the company to phase out unrecyclable packaging. The proposal won significant support — 25 percent of shares voted, representing more than $35 billion of investments, according to a P&G filing yesterday with the Securities & Exchange Commission.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Alongside Fair Trade Month, Fair Trade USA has announced the launch of several new Fair Trade Certified™ products across new categories, including home goods, apparel and coconut.In 2014, the third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in North America partnered with 109 new companies (for a total of 915), and helped launch 455 new Fair Trade Certified products into the North American market. The growth and increased availability of Fair Trade products empowers shoppers to choose items that make a positive difference — from ensuring that factory workers have safe working conditions, to helping farmers and workers improve their communities and environment.
WASTE NOT -
Whirlpool has announced a new recycling initiative that offers consumers a responsible alternative to throwing out their used refrigerator water filters.Whirlpool typically recommends that consumers replace their refrigerator water filter every six months for optimum performance. However, consumers can now take advantage of the company's Refresh & Recycle mail-in program; a simple way to recycle used refrigerator water filters. Recycled filters will be tested for material content and transformed into concrete aggregate used to build roads and other concrete structures. To make this all happen, Whirlpool says it is partnering with recycling company g2 revolution.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Greenpeace has launched a campaign urging LEGO to #BlockShell and end its partnership with the oil company, which the NGO contends has been using LEGO’s brand to clean up its image as an Arctic oil driller.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The American Cleaning Institute (ACI), the nonprofit trade association representing over 120 companies in the US cleaning products industry — including BASF, Clorox, Dow, Novozymes, Method, Seventh Generation, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever, to name a few — has launched a new voluntary initiative to promote and demonstrate continual improvement in the cleaning products industry’s sustainability profile.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Procter & Gamble announced this week that it will eliminate phosphates from all of its laundry detergents — which include brands such as Tide, Ariel, Cheer, Gain, Ace and Bold — by the end of 2015. The company says the goal of the change is to provide consumers with superior cleaning performance while eliminating the harmful effects of the chemicals on the environment.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The states of Washington and California are breaking new ground by providing consumers with information on potentially harmful chemicals in the products they buy and use on a daily basis. Washington’s focus is on products meant for children; California’s law spotlights cosmetics.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
What do dirty diapers and deceptive ads have in common? (We’ll pause a moment so you can add your own punch line.) Now that’s out of the way, the action against Portland-based Down to Earth Designs — consumers know them as gDiapers — is the FTC's latest effort to ensure the accuracy of environmental marketing claims. But even if green isn't your game, the case also offers insights into what the FTC calls "unqualified claims."
COLLABORATION -
According to a Berkeley study, one properly shared car reduces the need for nine owned cars. Participating in a car co-op may not be up your alley, but there are plenty of Millennials eschewing ownership and Boomers that are downsizing who buy into the notion of the “Collaborative Economy” — making co-owning cars a viable option for some.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Imagine a marketplace where you can buy — or not buy — products and services that accelerate social innovation by redefining the capitalist narrative; a place where you can purchase or sell “goods for good” from companies or to consumers around the world. Look no further come February 12, when the COMMON Marketplace makes its official debut.Developed by COMMON, the world’s first “collaborative brand” made up of a community of creative and business professionals, the organization says the new online marketplace is a place where “goods for good” can be bought and sold. In order to sell on the Marketplace, companies must apply and meet a set of design, sustainability and collaborative criteria.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
BioLite uses revenues from outdoor recreation products such as the CampStove to incubate products for emerging markets, most prominently the HomeStove. It's a market-based approach to addressing poverty, one that generates self-sustaining energy access as well as health- and time-saving benefits.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
With the holidays fast approaching, many of us are scrambling to make last-minute purchases for friends and family. As items cross the check-out counter, products enter our lives carrying with them a chemical footprint that is often overlooked. While no overarching labeling scheme reveals the chemical makeup of most products, we can cheer some inspiring activity moving us toward toxin-free consumer products in the future. We may not see immediate changes in product chemistry this holiday season, but there is reason to hold onto hope for next year’s shopping list.
WASTE NOT -
The Plastic Disclosure Project sees an influential need for companies to start disclosing their plastic footprint in order to create a benchmark for reduction by increasing recycling and adding value back into plastic use.
Last night on “60 Minutes,” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled to Charlie Rose the company’s latest advancement in customer convenience — Amazon Prime Air, which will promise package delivery by tiny, unmanned drones that Bezos called "octocopters" within 30 minutes of order placement.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Greenpeace International tonight launched a report calling out a host of consumer products companies — including Colgate Palmolive, Mondelez International (formerly Kraft), Nestlé Oil, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser and a host of other companies — as guilty by association for rainforest destruction in Indonesia, a crucial habitat region for the endangered Sumatran tiger.A License to Kill: How Deforestation for Palm Oil Is Driving Sumatran Tigers Toward Extinction links the companies to Singapore-based Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil processor, which accounts for over one-third of the global palm oil processing market and has a distribution network covering over 50 countries.