MARKETING AND COMMS -
Earlier this month, the CDP released a report highlighting 29 public U.S. companies across various industries that have incorporated an internal carbon price as a strategic planning tool, effectively holding themselves accountable for the carbon emissions produced as a result of daily operations.
LEADERSHIP -
General Motors last week announced that Mary Barra will replace Dan Akerson as CEO on January 15, 2014 — making her the first woman to lead a major automaker. Barra currently serves an executive vice president in the company’s global product development unit.With more than 30 years' experience at GM, Barra rose through a series of manufacturing, engineering and senior staff positions, the company says. Notably, Barra helped to facilitate GM’s turnaround after its 2009 bankruptcy and reorganization.“With an amazing portfolio of cars and trucks and the strongest financial performance in our recent history, this is an exciting time at today’s GM,” said Barra in a GM news release. “I’m honored to lead the best team in the business and to keep our momentum at full speed.”
COLLABORATION -
In sustainability, the 'lone wolf' will soon be a thing of the past, as collaboration becomes increasingly necessary to make real changes.In October, Dell outlined its 2020 Legacy of Good plan, but admitted that it wouldn't be able to achieve its ambitious goals alone.Step in #theBIGshift — Forum for the Future's latest (and potentially biggest) initiative aims to transform the key systems that we rely on, and champion the rewards for those businesses and other organizations who are stepping up to the challenge of creating a sustainable future.
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.
WASTE NOT -
Waste-to-energy is a trend we’re happy to see growing like wildfire, with new initiatives seeming to pop up weekly that turn waste generated by everything from food and alcohol to heat, humans and
SUPPLY CHAIN -
The UN Global Compact (UNGC) on Monday released a new guide aimed at helping businesses understand the rights of indigenous peoples, and recommends practical actions to respect and support these rights.
COLLABORATION -
LEGO Group recently announced a partnership with WWF centered around improving performance on a range of environmental priorities — including greater focus on collaboration with suppliers to reduce total carbon emissions — and committed to becoming net positive through the use of renewables by 2016.The toy maker joins the likes of Natura, HP, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson and Sprint as the newest member of the WWF’s Climate Savers program.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
In a sector where social and environmental commitments have traditionally focused on philanthropic efforts, luxury is perhaps the most poised for instigating positive change within the fashion industry, argues Nicola Giuggioli, CEO of Eco-Age. According to Giuggioli, the luxury industry’s intimate knowledge and appreciation of high-quality materials, manufacturing and notions of provenance, alongside its smaller scale in comparison to mass fashion, position it to become a leader in the sustainability space.
NEW METRICS -
At SB's third annual #NewMetrics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania in September, the need for next-generation sustainability goals — which measure progress toward real-world goal-lines such as carbon budgets, water tables, and living wages — emerged as a key theme.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
CorporateRegister.com, which hosts and manages the global online directory of corporate responsibility (CR) reports, today released its annual free CR Perspectives report, combining data, insight and opinion to reveal how global CR reporting has developed and where it might be headed.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Duke Energy Carolinas, which provides roughly 20,000 megawatts of electricity to approximately 2.4 million customers throughout the Carolinas through a mix of nuclear, coal-fired, natural gas and hydroelectric power generation, announced on Friday the addition of a “Green Source Rider” that will offer its large customers an opportunity to purchase renewable energy, apparently in response to requests from some of said large customers.
Just prior to its official opening last week by The Queen, One Angel Square — The Co-operative Group’s new head office in Manchester, England — has been declared the most environmentally friendly building in the world. The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), an internationally acclaimed system of assessing buildings, gave One Angel Square a score of 95.16% — the highest ever awarded.The accolade came on Thursday, just before Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, toured the 14-story facility and unveiled a plaque marking the formal opening of the building in Manchester’s city centre.
NEW METRICS -
In seven earlier parts of this series, we've discussed 17 pitfalls in the sustainability metrics field. We told sometimes painful stories from several fields outside of business with experience measuring things, such as education and criminal justice, and we discussed easy-to-miss things such as confirmation bias, mistakenly measuring the wrong thing, and failing to acknowledge complexity.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Earlier this week, Coca-Cola released its 2012/2013 Sustainability Report, which outlined progress the global beverage giant has made in the areas of water conservation and restoration, supporting sustainable community initiatives and empowering female entrepreneurs around the world.We caught up with Coke’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Bea Perez, for more on the company’s progress to date and the work that’s left to be done.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
The UN Global Compact (UNGC) today released a guide for companies to manage and report on their direct and indirect influences on climate policy. Now for the first time, companies have guidelines to help them engage in climate policy in a transparent and accountable way that is consistent with their sustainability commitments.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Only one in five companies has fully integrated sustainability into business, according to the BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Survey 2013, which received responses from more than 700 corporate sustainability executives — the largest pool to date.In this year’s survey, respondents were asked for the first time to indicate the extent to which sustainability is integrated into the core of their business. Only 21 percent of respondents reported that their company is close to full integration. A majority say that their company is either about halfway to integration (51 percent), or is just getting started (22 percent).
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Last month, BBMG, GlobeScan and SustainAbility released The 2013 Aspirational Consumer Index, a report that confirms the rise of nearly 2.5 billion consumers globally who are uniting style, social status and sustainability values to redefine consumption. According to the report, more than one-third of consumers globally (36.4%) identify as Aspirationals, defined by their love of shopping (78%), desire for responsible consumption (92%) and their trust in brands to act in the best interest of society (58%).
MARKETING AND COMMS -
It’s been a busy fall for Patagonia — the outdoor apparel company kicked off October with the launch of its “Responsible Economy” campaign, which challenges consumers and businesses to think more consciously about disposability and resource allocation, and ended the month by announcing its plans to offer Fair Trade Certified™ apparel, beginning in Fall 2014.
WASTE NOT -
Since appearing on season two of NBC’s Fashion Star, Daniel Silverstein has made a name for himself in the eco-fashion world. According to the New York Times, the fashion industry generally discards 10-20 percent of the fabric used to manufacture apparel, but Silverstein disrupts the paradigm, using design-driven innovation to create a fashion line without fabric waste. We chatted with Silverstein and brand manager Chris Anderson to see what inspires them about designing without waste and where the future of fashion is headed.
According to new analysis released by PwC, the world is on track to blow its 2°C carbon budget, estimated by the IPCC for the next 89 years, within 21 years. This would put the world on a path consistent with potential global warming of around 4°C by 2100, the most extreme scenario presented in the recent IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report on climate science, released in September.