MARKETING AND COMMS -
The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation organization based in the US, will take full advantage of the love in the air this Valentine’s Day by disseminating 4,000 free Endangered Species Condoms to eight of the most romantic getaway cities in North America. From Bar Harbor, Maine, to Santa Fe, N.M., the condoms will be given away by volunteers to playfully raise awareness about how runaway human population growth is affecting endangered species around the globe.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), with the help of dozens of prominent retailers, designers and NGOs from the UK clothing industry, on Tuesday launched a new campaign aimed at reducing encouraging Brits to find new appreciation for their unwanted clothes.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
This week, Canadian forest-conservation NGO Canopy commended the world’s largest tissue manufacturer, Kimberly-Clark Corporation — global producer of Kleenex, Huggies, Kotex and dozens of other paper towel, diaper and family-care brands sold worldwide — on the release of a cutting-edge study of the existing and potential raw materials for its products. The comprehensive lifecycle analysis (LCA) was authored by the Georgia Institute of Technology, with Canopy bringing independent expertise to the advisory board.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Ever since we started writing and speaking about our current book project, How on Earth: Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050, we have been amazed by one phenomenon in particular: When we have a chance to explain to people what not-for-profit (NFP) enterprise actually is, we get an incredible response from all sectors and political spheres to the proposition that not-for-profit business lies at the heart of our future global economy.
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.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
… Or, as Greenpeace refers to its apparent victory: “How to Detox a fashion brand in 14 days, 6 cities and 10,000 tweets.”British luxury fashion brand Burberry has responded to recent allegations by Greenpeace that some of its clothing contains hazardous chemicals by committing to remove all such substances from its operations by 2020.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Hazardous chemicals have been found in children’s clothes and shoes made by major brands including Disney, Burberry and adidas, according to a new report, A Little Story About the Monsters in Your Closet, released yesterday by Greenpeace East Asia.
COLLABORATION -
The D&AD White Pencil, an award that highlights excellent creative ideas with a social purpose — now in its third year — is the world’s top prize for design, advertising or digital work that addresses key social, political or ethical issues.In order to demonstrate its increasing commitment to supporting positive change through creativity, D&AD is now collaborating with The International Exchange (TIE) — a leadership development programme that combines the expertise within agencies and studios with the needs of NGOs to create positive, sustainable change — to offer two TIE placements to this year’s White Pencil nominees.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
GMO Inside, a campaign of national non-profit organization Green America, celebrated a victory yesterday after target General Mills announced that its original Cheerios cereal would now be produced without the use of GMOs.
COLLABORATION -
A diverse group of leading UK companies and multinationals including BT, Kingfisher, Coca-Cola Enterprises, SKF, Capgemini and The Crown Estate have teamed up with NGOs Forum for the Future, The Climate Group and WWF-UK to encourage businesses to commit to becoming net positive, by giving back more than they take from the environment and society.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Ryan Kushner and his wife, Amanda Ravenhill, launched their non-profit start-up, Hero Hatchery, whose mission is to “wake society up to the imminent threat of climate change, and illuminate the possibility it holds as a call to reinvent current unhealthy systems,” in October. They hope to raise $30,000 for the world’s first crowdfunded fellowship to support a climate-change activist who will bring out the climate change hero in us all and work to ensure climate change maintains its relevancy in the cultural zeitgeist.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
While thousands of retailers across the U.S. and cyberspace are dusting their shelves and crossing their fingers for lucrative Black Friday and Cyber Monday takes, respectively, thousands of organizations around the world are gearing up for an event that represents the true spirit of the holiday season, #GivingTuesday.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Research presented this morning at the SB London conference reveals that many of the world’s consumers lay the responsibility of solving global environmental issues mostly at the door of businesses.
U.S.-based social enterprise Envirofit International has announced it will join the UN-supported anti-poverty program Business Call to Action (BCtA), with plans to reduce greenhouse gases by 193,500 tons of carbon through the sales of 150,000 clean cookstoves across Kenya in the next two years.Envirofit International is a multinational corporation that develops and disseminates technologies aimed at reducing pollution and enhancing energy efficiency in developing countries. By introducing clean cook stoves as a less costly fuel alternative, the company says it will help low-income consumer households that have been traditionally overlooked.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Fair Trade USA has partnered with nonprofit Kiva to help small-scale coffee farmers access financing, improve crop quality and invest in the future of their families and communities.The partnership resulted from a successful collaboration last year between Fair Trade USA, Kiva and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to pilot Kiva’s first agricultural lending program with a Fair Trade coffee cooperative in Mexico. Kiva says its lenders around the world fully funded nearly all of the loans, which benefited hundreds of small farmers working to prepare their fields for harvest.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
McDonald’s Corp. has confirmed that it will replace all polystyrene beverage cups with paper cups at its 14,000 U.S. outlets, according to As You Sow (AYS), a nonprofit organization that promotes corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy. The move comes in response to a shareholder proposal filed by AYS in 2011, asking the fast-food giant to stop using foam. After agreeing to a test replacement of its foam cups with a double-walled paper hot cup at approximately 2,000 restaurants, primarily on the West Coast, in 2012, McDonald’s deemed the pilots successful and the paper cup will now become the standard hot beverage cup at all U.S. outlets.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
Across numerous countries, the economic contribution of the not-for-profit sector has been on the rise since the late 1990s. In Canada, for example, not-for-profit institutions now contribute 8% of the country’s gross domestic product. Moreover, in the U.S. the not-for-profit (NFP) sector grew significantly faster than the for-profit (FP) sector between 2001-2011, despite the financial crisis of 2008.
LEADERSHIP -
Net Impact, a nonprofit inspiring a new generation of students to work for a sustainable future, has released its 2013 edition of Business as UNusual: The Student Guide to Graduate Programs. Key findings suggest that social and environmental issues have become a mainstream necessity in MBA programs, driven in part by overwhelming student demand.
COLLABORATION -
Do you feel that once you’ve met one environmentalist, you’ve met them all … and that each of them comes with a banner in their backpack? If so, and if that’s stopping you from collaborating with them, you’re likely missing out on an opportunity that could help your company gain an important competitive edge. Partnering with environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) can, at the very least, buffer your brand against the perception of “greenwashing” or potentially even spark the development of breakthrough products and systems that revolutionize your business or even your sector.
WASTE NOT -
Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) — a nonprofit, grassroots group known for its advocation of electronic waste recycling — has announced a campaign to press battery manufacturer Rayovac to step up its efforts on recycling and waste reduction. The organization asked Rayovac in May to begin taking back its batteries for recycling; now TCE has been joined by 26 other organizations from across the country calling on Rayovac to provide recycling for its batteries in the U.S., as it does in Europe.