ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Since 1990, Indonesia has lost half of its rainforests. What’s worse, the rate of deforestation, currently at roughly two million hectares per year, is still accelerating.
Heart of the issue being that ecological values remain difficult to measure in monetary terms. Such is the tragedy of the commons for a country with the world’s fourth-largest population: Its eagerness for economic development driven by the global market has made one of the planet’s most diverse natural habitats subject to exploitation for fast cash, rather than being protected as a crucial part of the global ecosystem.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
It’s National Drinking Water Week, but new survey results suggest Americans may have more concerns on their minds than reasons to celebrate. Most Americans feel unknowledgeable about what is in their drinking water and are concerned about contaminants.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. passed legislation to ensure the air we breathe and water we drink is clean, and that endangered animals and federal lands are protected. For 20 years, enforcement of these laws ranged from full swing or lapsed, depending on the political winds. And then something remarkable occurred: The American people took over and started a movement, spurring action to protect the environment.
BUSINESS CASE -
Recovering gold, copper and other metals from electronic waste – a practice called “urban mining” – is not only more environmentally friendly than extracting virgin materials, but can also be more cost effective. Newly published research shows that the revenue from selling metals recovered through recycling television sets far outweighs the recyclers’ expenses. With these offsets, it costs 13 times more to obtain these metals from ore than from urban mining.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Italy is quickly establishing itself as a force to be reckoned with in the circular economy, as evidenced by a new report from Enel, an Italian multinational manufacturer and distributor of electricity and gas.
LEADERSHIP -
Right now, almost four billion people live in a city somewhere in the world. By the middle of this century, that number is set to jump by a staggering 2.5 billion, with 90 percent of that growth happening in cities located in Asia and Africa.
However, with many cities doubling in size every 15 to 20 years, our urban environments currently lack the resources necessary to adapt to the forces of urbanization. Our cities will need to accommodate spiraling numbers of people, servicing their needs and stimulating trade and investment to create jobs, all within the constraints imposed by mega-challenges, such as climate change, poverty and employment. In Europe, two-thirds of people already live in cities.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
In case there was still any doubt that fossil fuels are on the decline, new analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) confirms it: Wind and solar energy jobs now outnumber coal and gas jobs in 30 states.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY) announced today it has made a commitment to no new deforestation in its global cocoa supply chain. This commitment is aimed at stopping ongoing deforestation and protecting forests in the cocoa-growing regions where the company sources its cocoa.
The commitment includes two fundamental components:
CLEANTECH -
Dutch financial firm Rabobank has shared the names of the 20 startups to participate in the FoodBytes! event in San Francisco on 1 March 2018.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Though the normalization of single-use plastic packaging has made plastic pollution out to be an insurmountable problem, consumers’ and brands’ growing awareness of the implications of take-make-dispose models is helping drive the development of recyclable and renewable packaging alternatives. Ellen MacArthur Circular Design Challenge winners TrioCup and Evoware are two examples of packaging innovators leading the charge towards a more circular economy.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the Carlsberg Group launched the Carlsberg Young Scientists Community in an effort to address some of the world’s biggest challenges surrounding climate change and water scarcity.
The Community offers an opportunity for budding scientists to build on achievements made at the Carlsberg Research Laboratory and develop cutting-edge sustainability projects that set new standards for science-based and partnership-driven sustainability research, creating solutions for a low-carbon, circular future.
NEW METRICS -
We've come a long way since the first New Metrics conference seven years ago.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Dow Chemical Company recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Sustainability External Advisory Council (SEAC) at a meeting in Chicago.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
A report launched at the World Forum on Natural Capital (WFNC) in Edinburgh, Scotland last week examines the vanishing wealth of the world’s nature, and the growing systemic risk that represents to global economies and societies.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Factoring the value of nature into governance and corporate decision-making is not an easy task, but governments and businesses are starting to recognize the importance of natural capital accounting. According to the Natural Capital Coalition, 68 countries are looking to produce natural capital accounts, while 10 percent of WBCSD member companies mention the Natural Capital Protocol framework in their sustainability reporting.
NEW METRICS -
We need to make better decisions to avoid the potentially severe consequences for businesses operating in a deteriorated environment. The social and environmental megatrends will, over time, act as a drag on prosperity as the costs of basic inputs such as water, energy and land escalate in response to scarcity.
NEW METRICS -
One of the hallmarks of context-based sustainability (CBS) as an approach to performance accounting in business is that it features the use of organization- or company-specific metrics. Indeed, a basic tenet of CBS is that no two organizations are exactly alike and it makes sense, therefore, for them to use different metrics to assess their performance, all in accordance with their own materiality determinations.
LEADERSHIP -
Customer experience design is the forgotten dimension of sustainability. We need to transcend what have now become well-defined approaches and definitions of customer experience, to help companies understand why their offerings are no longer resonating with people, and how to develop a profound understanding of the lived experience of every single person whose lives our organisations touch. This understanding is just as applicable to those businesses and organisations developing sustainable products, services, technologies and initiatives.
PRESS RELEASE -
Today at Aqua Nor 2017, the BioMar Group takes a moment to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the BioSustain™ concept. Sustainability has long been in the DNA of BioMar however the development of BioSustain firmly established the company as the forerunner in driving sustainable innovation through collaborative partnerships in the aquaculture industry.
“At BioMar we are proud of our long history in sustainability”, said Carlos Diaz, CEO BioMar Group, “over a decade ago we recognised the need to find sustainable solutions to fishmeal and fish oil and believed that ‘profit through sustainability’ was possible.”