NEW METRICS -
Straight through to the end of the final day, #NewMetrics ’14 continued to introduce ideas and tools for gathering intelligence from previously unavailable or unusable data, as panelists from all over the world gathered to share their experiences, tools, tips and lessons learned.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
IKEA, Tetra Pak and Kingfisher are partnering to promote the benefits of legal, responsibly sourced, sustainable timber and clarify the role of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification in the delivery of these values.
The two-year Value and Impact Analysis (VIA) initiative will support the development of a methodology for assessing the impacts of FSC forest management certification and the piloting of this methodology in selected areas. It is supported by IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative and coordinated by the ISEAL Alliance.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
CorporateRegister.com, which hosts and manages the global online directory of corporate responsibility (CR) reports, today released its annual free CR Perspectives report, combining data, insight and opinion to reveal how global CR reporting has developed and where it might be headed.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
Philadelphia-based architecture firm KieranTimberlake has released a new software application that allows designers to measure the environmental impact of building materials directly in a Revit model.The application, called Tally, provides Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on demand, backed by GaBi data from PE International. Autodesk, the maker of Revit modeling software, supported development and testing for the application.
NEW METRICS -
In seven earlier parts of this series, we've discussed 17 pitfalls in the sustainability metrics field. We told sometimes painful stories from several fields outside of business with experience measuring things, such as education and criminal justice, and we discussed easy-to-miss things such as confirmation bias, mistakenly measuring the wrong thing, and failing to acknowledge complexity.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
San Francisco-based EOS Climate, which incentivizes the complete life cycle management of harmful refrigerants, on Tuesday announced the launch of its Refrigerant Asset System™ (RAS), the first cross-sector business model that focuses on refrigerants as assets.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
The World Resources Institute (WRI) has announced an update to its online tool that helps businesses measure their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).The Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, or CAIT 2.0, offers free online access to global GHG emissions and other climate data, enabling researchers, policymakers, media and others to download, visualize and share data for analysis and communications on climate change.WRI says the update features improved functionality and other upgrades. A streamlined interface allows users to more easily select and sort data by country, sector, type of gas, among other criteria. CAIT 2.0 also is more readily usable on a range of mobile devices such as iPads and other large tablets.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
While 7 out of 10 Americans say they always or almost always recycle, apparently a scant 1 in 5 consistently recycles bathroom items, according to a report commissioned by the Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies.To encourage consumers to be more mindful, Johnson & Johnson has launched Care to Recycle™, a recycling campaign that begins with a gentle reminder to recycle more items from the bathroom. It is the first recycling awareness campaign of its kind to be hosted exclusively on Tumblr.
WASTE NOT -
Each week leading up to our SB London conference, where the winner of the SB London Innovation Open (SBIOL) will be announced on November 18, we will get to know each of our four finalists. This week, meet the SBIOL public vote winner, O2E Technologies.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, has announced that it has teamed with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) to develop and implement a dynamic web-based solution for the SAC’s sustainability assessment tool, the Higg Index 2.0. Utilizing Schneider Electric’s sustainability and energy management software platform, StruxureWare™ Resource Advisor, the platform will be a groundbreaking tool for the apparel and footwear industries.
COLLABORATION -
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) today announced the launch of SNAP (Science for Nature and People), a collaboration aimed at solving the world’s most pressing conservation and human development challenges. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.SNAP is designed to find practical, knowledge-based ways in which the conservation of nature can help provide food, water, energy and security to Earth's fast-growing population. SNAP will tackle high-profile problems where the solution has a clear pathway to implementation.
WASTE NOT -
Global design and innovation firm Seymourpowell today announced a collaboration with leading global paint company AkzoNobel Decorative Paints to explore and improve the process of recycling used paint — thus closing the loop of paint production.As part of a project jointly funded by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, Seymourpowell has made an educational video highlighting the possibilities and benefits of paint recycling, and has also identified a completely new technology to help scale and speed up the paint-recycling process for greater business viability.
NEW METRICS -
When Avila Government Services, Inc. (Avila) decided they wanted to improve the sustainability of their meeting/event planning efforts, they turned to the latest event sustainability guidance. However, as many planners have discovered, the roughly 400 pages of long-awaited guidance can be overwhelming and confusing. The three sets of guidelines fall short of providing the necessary metrics for conducting and evaluating the event planning process. They lack specific policies, goals, measurable objectives and scoring systems for sustainable meeting planning. Instead, they require the organization and its planners to develop their own procedures and metrics for the process.
NEW METRICS -
Our economy assigns values to just about everything except for the things that matter most. As far as the current economy is concerned, a tree holds value only if it is cut down, an animal only if it is slaughtered and a person only if they contribute to the GDP. When we are given the price of an item, many values and certain costs are often excluded, which results in the destruction of natural resources, decline in human health and an economy that is less productive than it could be.
COLLABORATION -
Introducing the Communispace Client Index — an index designed to track the stock market performance of our top 25 clients (i.e., those clients investing the most in consumer collaboration) against the S&P 500. Our nerd-o-licious intent was to see if our clients — companies who are engaged in an ongoing collaborative relationship with their consumers — are doing any better than the rest of the companies out there.The Index by no means shows causality between our work and the share performance of any given company. However, it does say some pretty interesting things:
WASTE NOT -
Since 2006, Indianapolis-based RecycleForce has paid over $10 million in wages and employed 650 ex-felons to recycle over 20 million pounds of electronic waste. The non-profit social enterprise has a dual mission: to help people coming out of prison successfully transition back into civil society, and to keep as much electronic waste as possible out of Indiana’s landfills. RecycleForce deconstructs electronic waste and other recyclables provided by residents and corporate partners, separates the reusable materials, and disposes of the waste safely and cleanly.
WASTE NOT -
In the world of sustainable fashion, few designers are pulling off the business model with as much style and substance as Shannon South. BBMG’s proprietary community of Aspirational consumers, The Collective, recently partnered with Shannon for the Remake My Leather Challenge, and we sat down with her to discuss what makes Shannon’s line, Remade USA, different from other sustainably designed product lines.How did you get started as a handbag designer?
If you want to find hotbeds of innovation, just look where there’s tension and instability.Healthcare is a great example. On one hand, chronic conditions are spiraling out of control at the same dizzying rate as healthcare costs. On the other hand, there’s an unprecedented interest among citizens in taking control of their own health, working to stay well instead of waiting to get sick.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Since its launch in 2010, the Eco Rating scheme that Forum for the Future created with Telefónica UK/O2 has been helping consumers make more sustainable handset choices, whether they like it or not.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Last week, the Sustainable Travel Leadership Network (STLN), a group of leading companies from major travel industry sectors united to share knowledge on responsible tourism, unveiled a new tool to help the travel industry make informed decisions on investments in destination development.