ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
Multinational consumer goods company Unilever announced a new transparency measure today that will provide consumers with access to additional fragrance ingredient information for its personal care products.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Waste packaging and food leftovers from this Christmas alone will have cost councils £72 million1, according to new research from UK think tank Green Alliance. In England, local authorities spend roughly £300 million every year dealing with waste packaging and, after rising steadily since 2001, England’s recycling rates went down for the first time in 2015.
COLLABORATION & CO-CREATION -
There are an estimated 21 million victims of forced labour in the world today, with labour exploitation fast becoming the dominant form – in 2015, it overtook sexual exploitation for the first time in the UK. The insidious nature of forced labour, coupled with the growing complexity of global supply chains, makes it a tough problem for corporations to identify, let alone stamp out.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
Domestic migrant workers make up a substantial percentage of the workforce in China's manufacturing industry. Latest figures estimate that there are 247 million migrant workers in the country. These workers often originate from towns and villages hundreds or thousands of miles away from the factories where they work. The majority of these workers are parents, and due to childcare needs and the Hukou system – a household register that has tied people's access to social services to their hometowns, making it difficult for millions of domestic migrant workers to take their children with them.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
On Tuesday, day 2 of New Metrics ’16, Greg Norris of the International Living Future Institute, Jane Abernethy of HumanScale, John Pflueger of Dell, Johanna Jobin of Biogen and Daniel Aronson of Valutus discussed the next stages of the business world’s efforts to become Net Positive.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
With private and municipal composting programs becoming more mainstream, as well as more companies turning to more sustainable packaging designs, composting is now easier than ever. The next step in the crusade to reduce waste? The Sustainable Packing Coalition (SPC)’s launch of the new How2Compost label program.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
Closed Loop Fund (CLF), a private sector investment fund that finances recycling infrastructure and sustainable manufacturing technologies to advance the circular economy, released its first public progress report. Details reveal investment opportunities in the recycling industry that deliver clear environmental and financial returns for cities, companies, and private investors, despite the headwinds of low commodities prices.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
Nestlé and Unilever are helping set the standard for sustainable agriculture, according to a survey of over 150 global sustainability heads conducted by Pure Strategies. The responses identified these firms as the leaders and revealed that farm-level engagement is a top priority across industries such as apparel, home and personal care, and life sciences.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Many clothes are now made in Turkey because of its proximity to Europe, allowing retailers to fill last-minute orders and get new designs into shops more quickly. But Turkey is a challenging place to do business, especially following the influx of almost 3 million refugees escaping war and bloodshed in Syria. With under-resourced humanitarian assistance, jobs and wages are critical to refugee families’ well-being and security.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Every day we eat and drink products tainted by forced labor, a new report has found. Agricultural workers in particular, including migrants and women, are some of the poorest paid and most exploited workers in the world. Many work in harsh conditions on isolated farms, where employers can have complete control.
According to KnowTheChain’s latest industry benchmark, the 20 largest global food and beverage companies are failing to address these risks, with an average company score of 30 out of a possible 100.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
Following numerous reports of slave labor in seafood supply chains, traceability seems to have (finally) become a priority for the industry.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
IKEA has been quietly piloting various initiatives across its European stores to see how it can build circularity into its service offering for customers. It’s a bold move, given that consumer-facing circular economy business models are still relatively embryonic, particularly in the retail market.
“Over the coming years, we will support customers to care and repair, rent, share, bring back, and resell their IKEA products to prolong product life,” IKEA’s sustainability manager Jonas Engberg told me in a recent interview.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
Sports company PUMA is offering its suppliers in select emerging markets with a new financing program in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. The program is expected to incentivize improvements to suppliers’ social, environmental and health and safety standards, and is a first-of-its-kind financing structure for the apparel industry.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Today, the Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), a project of the nonprofit As You Sow, launched its newest initiative, YESS: Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced. YESS will work to eradicate modern slavery in cotton harvesting and yarn production by enabling yarn spinners to identify and eliminate cotton produced with forced labor, and be verified for having fair labor practices. The development of YESS is supported by Humanity United.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN) and 35 other associations1 representing a wide range of sectors including major consumer goods brands, packaging producers, material producers and extended producer responsibility (EPR) organizations have presented the European Union with a set of joint recommendations for its circular economy legis
SUPPLY CHAIN -
The number of standards for green products has grown in recent years due to increasing market demand for environmentally-preferable products, resulting in concerns over greenwashing and a need for an international standard. ISO has been working on such a standard since 2014, to help organizations make their procurement processes more sustainable.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS -
Growing consumer demand for healthy, responsibly produced food is leading more and more big food companies to embrace transparency, simplify their product formulas and highlight the integrity of their foods: Examples include Campbell’s and Chipotle, which both launched ‘what’s in my food’ campaigns in the past year; Panera,
SUPPLY CHAIN -
This week, Tiffany & Co. released its sixth annual Sustainability Report, which outlines the jeweler’s continued progress in corporate social responsibility, commitment to the environment, and contributions to the communities across 30+ countries in which it operates.
“Of the many reasons to take pride in Tiffany, none is more important than our long-held commitment to the environment and its people,” said Tiffany CEO Frederic Cumenal. “World-class leadership in sustainability among great luxury brands is rooted in a humble understanding of our impact on, and thus responsibility to, the world.”
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
More than half of the United States isn’t recycling, and PepsiCo is setting out to help change that with a brand new ad. Designed to motivate people to recycle, the ad depicts a series of humorous examples of people doing activities halfway — like dog-grooming, running a race and mowing the lawn — as a way to remind them to take the extra step to recycle.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Perdue Foods, one of the nation's largest poultry producers, recently unveiled a precedent-setting commitment to improving animal welfare, which involves much higher standards and requirements for its poultry facilities. Citing the "five freedoms," a set of ethical imperatives for farmed animal welfare, 2016 and Beyond: Next Generation of Perdue Commitments to Animal Care outlines the company's efforts to implement on-farm improvements such as environmental enrichment and natural light; curb malicious abuse; and eliminate cruel live-shackle slaughter.