ICT AND BIG DATA -
UPS has announced the launch of its route optimization software known as ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation), which the company expects will save more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 14,000 metric tons by the end of the year.ORION has a team of 500 dedicated resources to move the U.S deployment forward as UPS nears its busy holiday season. The rollout of ORION will optimize 10,000 delivery routes by the end of the year, reduce miles driven and reinforce UPS's sustainability efforts. A reduction of just one mile each day per driver over the course of a year saves the company up to $50 million annually, UPS says.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
When it comes to sustainability, Big Data is proving to be a big opportunity — businesses are now able to collect, store and process mind-boggling amounts of data. IBM estimates that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day, meaning that 90% of the data in the world was created over the last two years. Analysing, evaluating and understanding this level of information is providing insights that are transforming the way business is done.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Marriott International has awarded LG Electronics its 2013 Supplier Sustainability Award. The annual award recognizes the Marriott supplier that has made a significant impact on its guests and properties through innovative ideas toward helping Marriott meet its sustainability goals.Through improving television product development, manufacturing and usage, Marriott says LG supports the hotel chain’s sustainability objectives in 20 countries across a number of areas — including energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste, and using more sustainable materials to reduce the impact on the environment.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Choosing the right path to sustainable customer delight is no trivial task. After all, you have to arrive at a business model that delivers on customer expectations and is radical enough to make a dent in pressing sustainability challenges of the day. This channel discusses note-worthy principles, methodologies, processes and tools used in business model innovation around the globe.
PRESS RELEASE -
SAN FRANCISCO, October 16, 2013 – Sustainable Brands® recently announced program details for its pan-European conference to be held at the Lancaster London, November 18-19th. The conference will bring together over 500 senior-level brand marketing strategists, product designers, business model innovators and sustainability executives to collaborate and explore how environmental and social innovation is becoming an engine for business growth and brand value.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Microsoft says it achieved carbon neutrality after introducing an internal carbon fee for renewable energy and carbon offsets, which led the company to increase the purchase of green energy in the U.S. by 70 percent, from 1.1 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2011 to 1.9 billion kWh in 2012.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Italian textile manufacturer Canepa recently announced it has accepted the challenge set by Greenpeace during fashion week last February to create clean and sustainable fashion. The company voluntarily signed up to abide by the guidelines set forth in the Detox Solution Commitment, which aims to abolish the toxic chemicals currently used in the fashion industry by 2020. The challenge has already been accepted by a host of major retail, sportswear and luxury brands — including H&M, Mango, Patagonia and adidas — but this is the first public commitment made by a textile manufacturer.
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.
Intel Corporation has announced She Will Connect, a new program that commits to expanding digital literacy skills to young women in developing countries. Intel will begin working with a diverse set of partners including global and local NGOs and governments to launch the initiative in Africa, where the gender gap is the greatest, aiming to reach five million women and reduce the gender gap by 50 percent.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
Data, Data, DataSustainable business these days requires data, and lots of it. Companies are using sustainability data for a multiplicity of reasons: to inform corporate strategy, comply with regulations, evaluate investments, improve transparency, develop products and processes, manage risk, benchmark themselves against competitors, change organisational culture, and engage with supply chains.
ICT AND BIG DATA -
Climate change is a serious challenge for our society and for businesses around the world. As a company, we are focused not only on ways for us to reduce the environmental impact of our business, but also on the important business opportunity climate change presents.
NEW METRICS -
The usefulness of advanced data analytics — Big Data, small data and everything in between — is converging with the needs of corporate sustainability, and this is creating new opportunities for companies pursuing ambitious sustainability goals.
PRODUCTS AND DESIGN -
Products from ten companies have been selected as finalists for the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Product Innovation Challenge, sponsored by the Schmidt Family Foundation and the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Three winners will be selected from this group and will share a cash prize of $250,000.The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, in partnership with Make It Right, launched its first-ever Product Innovation Challenge in November 2012. By June, over 100 products had been entered for consideration.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
A Southern California-based start-up called Evo Eau says it has created a reusable water bottle that filters up to 99 percent of contaminants from municipally supplied tap water.The bottle is engineered for everyday use and does more than many of its mainstream competitors in terms of filtering out contaminants and harmful carcinogens such as Chromium 6 in tap water, Evo Eau claims.The start-up says that many filtering water bottles only conform to NSF42 standards, which only asks for filters to remove 50 percent of chlorine from water. Many do not even conform to these standards and bottled water companies are held to even fewer.
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 -
As many stakeholders — including investors, employees and consumers — begin to re-evaluate their perception of value, it is becoming imperative for companies of all industries to credibly measure, analyze and interpret the entire range of costs and benefits for which they are responsible. Below are 13 fairly (as of yet) uncommon types of data analysis that help businesses do just that. You have nothing to lose and much to gain by learning how to:
PRESS RELEASE -
PRé announced today a significant expansion of its Global Partner Network in North America and the distribution of SimaPro software. PRé is now offering its SimaPro software through its American office. The company is also entering into a strategic partnership with Quantis, designed to expand the companies’ reach, as they strive to further encourage sustainability adoption.
See full Press Release attached
MARKETING AND COMMS -
With the announcement of the first synthetic burger grown in a petri dish, would it be more or less shocking to say “human waste is the currency of the future”? “Carbon footprints” and “data footprints” are carving the way for “microbial footprints.” Consumers are paying to get dirty … germ-dirty, that is. “Going viral" is taking on a whole new meaning in marketing. Online communities are flourishing around “intestine communities.” Brand ecosystems now have as much to do with biology as technology."Rotten" Is the New "Improved"
ICT AND BIG DATA -
Kraft Foods, General Mills and Monsanto are among the first to join the World Food LCA Database (WFLDB), which aims to develop a comprehensive database for food and beverage life cycle assessments (LCAs).
Launched last week by the Swiss Federal Research Station Agroscope and consulting firm Quantis, the project is expected to be completed by 2015.
A slew of funding partners have already come on board, including Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez International, Bayer, Syngenta and Yara. The French Environment and Energy Management and Swiss Federal Office for the Environment have also committed to the program. Agroscope and Quantis say they hope to continue to recruit additional companies and government agencies to join the project.
WASTE NOT -
A team of Hong Kong researchers has found a way to use ground-up circuit boards from discarded cell phones, computers and other gadgets to absorb toxic heavy metals found in water, according to Chemical & Engineering NewsEach year, around 20 to 50 million tons of electronic waste is produced worldwide, most of which is incinerated or dumped into landfills. Burning the plastic/metal combo in printed circuit boards releases toxic compounds such as dioxins and furans. In landfills, the metals on the circuit boards can contaminate groundwater.