THE NEXT ECONOMY -
80M tons of plastic waste will end up in the environment just in the next 10 years. Without voluntary, global producer responsibility programs to unlock capital towards infrastructure and bridge the policy vacuum, how else do polluters suggest for us to tackle this massive financing gap in the meantime?
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Meat and dairy companies need to go further and faster to protect our natural world — before politicians, regulators and investors make the decision for them. The latest FAIRR Index shows what’s possible and shines a spotlight on the investment risks of maintaining the status quo.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The new startup offers a regenerative ‘tree burial’ service that reimagines cemeteries as forests — enabling the dearly departed to truly give back to the land and encouraging younger generations to think about death in new ways.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Tesco Exchange, aka ‘Tesco Tinder,’ matches suppliers who have too much of a product — for example, crops, byproducts, ingredients or packaging — with other Tesco suppliers that can put it to use.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Orange Fiber and Keel Labs are platforms for exploration and innovation that can reverberate across the fashion industry and prove that sustainable feedstocks and production processes can create both financial and planetary prosperity.
CLEANTECH -
Inspired by nature, SolarBotanic’s solar trees use leaf-shaped, thin-film, photovoltaic nanotechnology to harness both sun and eventually wind energy to power houses, charge EVs or be stored for future use.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Developing and optimizing a fully circular plastics value chain is a complex challenge that can’t be achieved with any single solution. We challenge our peers and other key stakeholders to be courageous and take risks, to explore new possibilities and partnerships, and persist until we have solutions.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
New survey finds 83% of US consumers value brand product transparency, but only 47% feel they have the information to make sustainability-based purchasing decisions. Impact labeling will begin with Garnier products and roll out progressively across L'Oréal's brand portfolio.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Offsetting initiatives are becoming increasingly popular
among businesses looking to be seen as leaders in sustainability. However — while the approach can be an interim solution for operations that can’t be fully decarbonized — companies must focus first on working with their supply chain to identify where immediate changes can be made.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Campbell's — and many other companies’ — current 401(k) options have employees investing millions in fossil fuels and deforestation through Vanguard, which has just announced it has left the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
NEW METRICS -
NatureMetrics says new platform represents breakthrough in understanding and managing our impact on nature — providing simple, standardized metrics to track and report on site-based nature impacts.
COLLABORATION -
The first COP took place in 1995 — 27 years later, and it’s easy to understand the scepticism. We’re still quite a long way from universal adoption by all nations and private sector actors of net-zero strategies that align with the urgent timescales science tells us are needed. But no other issue brings 198
nation states together in this way.
WASTE NOT -
Whether making a widget or a culinary treat, prioritizing a circular life cycle for products helps keep them out of waste streams until they are negligible — or better yet, they never land there.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Self-reported data from over 7,700 companies that responded to questions on biodiversity through CDP’s climate change questionnaire shows they are ready to disclose on biodiversity, sending a powerful signal to negotiators ahead of
COP15.
WALKING THE TALK -
In 2021, WSL launched WAOO to protect and conserve surf ecosystems around the world. Over the 2022 tour season, it collaborated with community organizations, indigenous groups, surfers and others on activations including replanting native coastal vegetation in Hawaii, removing plastic pollution from Indonesian waterways, and restoring coral reefs in Tahiti.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
For most readers, bribery or corruption aren’t part of your everyday experience — though they should be part of due diligence processes on your business partners and supply chain. However, the danger that one department says one
thing and another does something different and inconsistent is clear in every company.
FROM PURPOSE TO ACTION: BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE TOGETHER -
While flexible packaging plays an important role in keeping food fresher longer, it has long been difficult to recycle. Designing more recyclable flexible packaging from the start and determining a better end-of-life process for current materials is a vital step in reducing food waste.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
BCG and the CMO Sustainability Accelerator — a coalition that includes Sustainable Brands, ANA and Adweek — have developed a practical guide to help brands “bring green to the mainstream” by developing and marketing sustainable choices for all consumers, not just those moved by sustainability claims.
WALKING THE TALK -
This is the first of three daily updates from the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights 2022. Day one started a week that focuses not on holding individual
companies to account, but where the systems that will enable this are being framed.