MARKETING AND COMMS -
Morgan Stanley has announced that it closed on the issuance of a $500 million green bond, its first green bond, as part of the company’s strategy to advance market-based solutions to social and environmental challenges.Funds equal to the net proceeds of Morgan Stanley’s green bond will be allocated to various renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Much of these funds will correspond with investments in existing and future third-party renewable energy projects, primarily wind farms, including Route 66 Wind, a 150 MW wind farm under construction in Texas, and Rattlesnake Wind Energy Center, a 207 MW wind power project also under construction in Texas.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Each year, Scandinavian think tank Sustainia highlights leading-edge sustainability solutions, technologies and practices from around the globe in its Sustainia100. Published today, this year’s list, which highlights standouts from more than 151 countries, points to a new development: sustainability alternatives are increasingly becoming the affordable and convenient choice.
CLEANTECH -
Today Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a solar farm project in Virginia that will advance the company’s progress towards its recent commitment to powering its data centers with 100 percent renewable energy.
PRESS RELEASE -
Ecodesk, a global supply chain sustainability database and communication platform, today announced a partnership with The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) to launch a leading edge, cloud-based supplier assessment scorecard to drive increased engagement and analysis of supplier sustainability performance.The scorecard is the result of extensive collaboration, combining P&G’s in-depth, tried and tested methodology for measuring supplier sustainability performance with Ecodesk’s expertise in cloud-based sustainable supply chain technology platforms, supplier engagement and data collection and aggregation. It is easy to use for suppliers and easy for customers to manage, speeding up the whole supplier assessment process.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Oakland-based food startup Back to the Roots (BTTR) today announced the close of its first round of funding, raising $2 million to accelerate its mission to undo food and build the “new Kraft Foods.”
WASTE NOT -
UK grocery giant Tesco has announced a new scheme to mitigate food waste, where surplus food from its stores is redistributed to people in need.Tesco has partnered with UK food redistribution charity FareShare and Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to trial the FareShare FoodCloud app in the UK. Tesco has already been working in different areas of the supply chain to tackle food waste — including through its existing partnership with FareShare — and this new scheme will mean eliminating the need to throw away food in Tesco stores that could otherwise be eaten.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
335 million square kilometers of ocean waters.¹ 2.3 million square kilometers of forests.² Countless mountain peaks, wetlands and deserts. The earth is vast, and with so many areas of need, it can be difficult to feel like any one individual can make an impact. But there’s another, even larger, statistic that matters: 7 billion–the number of people on our planet.World Environment DayThis year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has selected the theme #7BillionDreams to celebrate World Environment Day (WED) on Friday, June 5th. When the dreams of the world’s population combined, we can become an unstoppable force for good on behalf of our planet.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
This #SB15sd Wednesday afternoon session on the circular economy convened a frank and open discussion about what is working, and what isn’t, when it comes to tweaking existing business ecosystems to accommodate circular models. Panelists compared notes on attempts to create new models, highlighted existing gaps, and discussed their visions for potential solutions.
LEADERSHIP -
Tuesday afternoon’s session led by Anne Kelly, Senior Director of Policy at Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), shed light on how corporations influence public policy and government regulation in support of a sustainable economy.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
As I settled in to the back right corner of the Mission Bay room for a Tuesday afternoon breakout session on Supply Chain Performance, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. All of my previous panels at SB ‘15 San Diego had focused on consumer or employee engagement, so I was bracing myself for much drier dialogue.
CLEANTECH -
Given the rate at which big data is evolving — it is being generated from multiple sources at such speed and volume that the term itself is becoming overexposed — it is little wonder that corporations are struggling to figure out how best to mine it for the type of information that can help enable a better world.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
In the words of John Ehrenfeld: “Sustainability is the possibility of human and other life flourishing on the earth forever.” But how many conversations actually lead to flourishing? A workshop on Monday afternoon, day one of SB ’15 San Diego, addressed the ever-present problem of “preaching to the (sustainability) choir.”
LEADERSHIP -
“What happens when you cut a hologram in half?” Maria Moraes Robinson and Simon Robinson asked as a prelude to sharing what holonomic thinking means. When you cut a photograph in half, you get two separate images, but when you cut a hologram in half, the whole image can still be seen in each piece. Holonomic thinking represents a shift in consciousness from understanding an organization as a collection of individual parts, departments or programs, seen separately, to seeing the organization as a whole that expresses itself and comes into presence in the various individual parts. It means “standing in front of a customer or partner and being able to express the organization as a whole, being different and at the same time being the same.”
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
William C. Ford II’s best decision as chairman of Ford Motor Co. was to bring in Alan Mulally as CEO in 2007 and watch the former Boeing manufacturing chief transform Ford from an also-ran into a global industry leader before he left last year.
But Ford Jr.’s “green” decision-making has been nearly as good. As CEO before Mulally’s tenure, and chairman before and until today, Ford has kept his company a leader in sustainability thinking and practice. He pushed Ford to produce some of the industry’s first hybrid-electric vehicles, for instance, and authorized a “living roof” on top of Ford’s original River Rouge Assembly complex in its hometown of Dearborn, Michigan.
CLEANTECH -
A majority (87 percent) of public sector sustainability professionals in the UK have begun to embrace smart technologies, but future projects are stymied by lack of finance and poor implementation strategy, according to new research by GE Lighting and the Carbon Trust.The most common areas where there has been significant smart technology adoption are building efficiency (77 percent), LED lighting (57 percent) and water and waste technologies (24 percent). The smart technologies most commonly installed include intelligent features such as sensors, which combined with internet connectivity and control systems, enhance performance and efficiency and reduce resource consumption, costs and carbon emissions.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
With the SB Innovation Open finals taking place this week at SB ’15 San Diego, we wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the amazing sustainable startups competing this year. From cricket-powered cookies to an app that helps you get the most from your purchases, this year’s crop of SBIO semi-finalists are set to revolutionize their respective industries (see part 1).
CLEANTECH -
Future improvements in information technology will lead to greater transparency, with sustainability reporting moving fully into the digital realm and occurring in real-time instead of annually, according to a new paper by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).Sustainability and Reporting Trends in 2025: Preparing for the Future examines future trends in sustainability and corporate reporting and disclosure following a series of thought-leadership interviews.
CLEANTECH -
Earlier this week, Ford’s vision for the future of personal mobility was on display at CES Asia in Shanghai.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Reputation, in a world where social media is the mainstream, can no longer be seen as just a “hygiene” issue where corporate comms and PR agencies handle a few annoying but easily identifiable stakeholders. Instead, when the whole online world can see and comment on your dirty laundry, reputation actually becomes a fundamental part of sustainability. Not least because, all too often, a corporate transgression has a direct effect on the wellbeing of customers, greater society or the planet.