CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
As part of its commitment to serve both people and the planet responsibly, morning mainstay Dunkin’ Donuts has unveiled plans to eliminate polystyrene foam cups in its global supply chain by 2020. The phase-out will begin later this year and will see the coffeehouse giant replace conventional foam coffee cups with a double-walled paper alternative. The company’s transition to paper cups will remove nearly one billion foam cups from the waste stream annually.
COLLABORATION -
Delta Air Lines is expanding its partnership with Duke Athletics and Duke University with a first-of-its-kind sustainability program.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® program, already the global standard for environmentally responsible seafood, has created a new tool that allows businesses to assess the potential risk of forced labor, human trafficking and child labor in fisheries.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
We know that carbon emissions, particularly carbon dioxide and methane, are a major contributor to global climate change trends, and that the challenge of mitigating and even reversing this trend is highly complex. We also know that — like so many other sustainability challenges we face — managing carbon is a challenge faced by the natural world and solved through its own adaptive strategies that have evolved over 3.8 billion years.
In short: Nature sees carbon as a building block — and we can, too.
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 -
A new textiles economy is on the horizon as innovative textile and chemical firms develop new chemical- and petroleum-free processes to produce fabrics and materials.
WASTE NOT -
Resource scarcity and the rise of the circular economy are inspiring businesses, industry associations and governments to develop new ways to recover precious and critical raw materials (CRMs) from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The Urban Mine Platform, a database of valuable materials for “urban mining,” is the public and private sectors’ latest attempt to take on the challenge.
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.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The business world is undergoing rapid transformation, as consumers’ — and employees’ — expectations of companies increase, largely in regards to social purpose and environmental performance. It’s no longer enough to deliver high-quality products at low prices with good availability. They need to be delivered in a way that does no harm — either to people or the environment.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
In response to the success of its “Blue Planet II” nature documentary series and the substantial social media response that followed, the BBC will launch two new programs that explore the impact of plastics and textiles on the environment.
COLLABORATION -
It’s never been more important to bring the poaching and wildlife conservation story to life, while also bringing together local and international stakeholders to build sustainable solutions to what has become a global issue.
Recent developments, such as the US lifting bans on certain elephant trophy imports and changes to the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe, add to the intrigue of what is already a fascinating place.
NEW METRICS -
We've come a long way since the first New Metrics conference seven years ago.
PRESS RELEASE -
Inspiring Progress
From climate activism to product innovation, a look back at some of the highlights from HPE's Living Progress over the past year.
WASTE NOT -
In today’s digitally dependent world, e-waste management is a critical issue that requires urgent attention from both the public and private sector.
PRESS RELEASE -
The vision for the circular economy is to decouple economic growth from the use of global resources. Naturally, circularity raises multiple questions for industry, including waste management, consumer behavior, corporate responsibility and decarbonization. The challenge is to move from a circular economy vision to a viable and sustainable business model. While circularity provides a framework to potentially reduce corporate environmental footprints, it takes sound measurement with a Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) methodology to guide companies to prioritize and analyze the effectiveness of their efforts. The prize? Purposeful business aligned with the limits of the planet.
WALKING THE TALK -
Sustainability matters, but why does it matter to your business?
The vinyl industry began our sustainability journey with the recognition that meeting the needs of a fast-growing population will demand much more of the earth’s natural resources, and we wanted to be prepared to address this challenge. As a result, doing more with less is essential to the way we manufacture and market our products.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Ford Motor Company Fund, and executive chairman Bill Ford, announced the award of $200,000 in funding as part of the Bill Ford Better World Challenge. This grant will support two international projects to improve health and sanitation conditions in India and Mexico. These two recipients will be joined by a third award allocated later in 2018.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
As an issue putting nearly a trillion dollars at risk, deforestation has quickly become a front-of-mind concern for businesses dependent on forest-risk commodities, such as timber, palm oil and cocoa. However, new data released by the Forest 500 shows that the 250 companies with the greatest influence over forests are failing to adequately address deforestation risks, and will not meet 2020 goals to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Approximately 21 million Americans own woodlands in the United States. Collectively, these family-owned forests account for nearly 290 million acres, or more than one-third of U.S. forests — more than the federal government or the forest industry.
What’s more important for supply chain and sustainability managers, is that 50 percent of the wood flowing into your supply chains originates from these family-owned forests.
BUSINESS CASE -
We live in an increasingly dynamic and interconnected world. Conflicts in the Middle East are causing demographic shifts in Europe, e-waste from the West is being recycled in Africa and emissions from China are affecting air quality in the US. These are just a few examples of how megatrends are shaping today’s world.