WASTE NOT -
On the final afternoon of an action-packed week at SB'16 San Diego, this panel brought together stakeholders working to address different facets of the global water crisis, both locally in California, and internationally. The panel provided an opportunity for each to describe the work of their respective organisations and the challenges they see for sustainable water resource management.
PRESS RELEASE -
POWER PLAY
Toyota’s New Plano Campus Drafts Impressive Energy & Environmental Line Up
PRESS RELEASE -
According to research from the EPA WaterSense® program, the average American adult spends 8 minutes in the shower, using about 18 gallons of water each time they lather up.* Kohler, a global leader in the manufacture of kitchen and bath products, encourages consumers to reduce their water usage by 25 percent by cutting their shower time by two minutes.
NEW METRICS -
A sustainability manager at a large auto parts manufacturer recently explained the company’s lack of interest in water management this way: “It's not worth our time. Water is too cheap and no one cares." Moreover, the executive acknowledged that even if they did care, they had no idea how to tackle an operational issue that is largely unseen and highly distributed. Doing nothing is a common response, and indicative of the second-class status water still has in much of the business world, including the boardroom.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Although roughly 70 percent of our planet is covered with water, drinkable water is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. The United Nations has defined access to clean water as one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals; BASF supports the SDGs and is committed to a responsible use of water along the entire value chain.
COLLABORATION -
As the world’s leading chemical company, BASF has products in all kinds of industries; it employs 112,000 employees globally, services a variety of customers, and has relationships with shareholders and a large numbers of societal stakeholders. Any company’s set of relevant stakeholders in business, government and civil society will change with time; a clear picture is essential for effective engagement. Rather than relying on inflexible stakeholder mapping tools, it might be more appropriate to have skilled people and organizational structures in place for ongoing stakeholder analysis and engagement.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
In light of this year’s Flint, Michigan water crisis and massive methane leak in Porter Ranch, California, along with increasing awareness of manmade toxicities in our environment, consumers are looking for better tools to control their health and be better armed for knowing and controlling what goes into their bodies.
Enter MyDx — aka “My Diagnostic” — a portable analyzer that acts like an electronic nose to measure and detect chemical molecules in vapor.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Diamonds may be forever, but they soon could change the way we power electronics by cutting e-waste, conserving water and fighting climate change.
Today, semiconductors usually are made of silicon, which, when disposed of as e-waste, poisons children, pollutes water and releases substances like lead and methane into the jetstream.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
In honor of World Water Day, major brands are making their pioneering water-saving and -purifying innovations available for more widespread use.
Kohler Co., a global leader in the plumbing industry, has shipped the first order of its ceramic filtration system, KOHLER Clarity, to Water Mission, a nonprofit, Christian engineering organization that provides sustainable safe water solutions to people in developing countries and disaster situations. Water Mission plans to distribute the filters in small communities in Haiti, Honduras and Peru.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
It takes just 30 minutes – using only a bucket, a spoon, a cloth and a four-gram Procter & Gamble sachet – to purify 10 litres of dirty, contaminated water.
Rose M lives in a semi-urban area in Kisumu County in Western Kenya with her husband and two teenage children. She and her husband, Sam, are HIV-positive, so they are particularly susceptible to waterborne diseases. Her entire family would often get sick from drinking the polluted water from a nearby river, which is contaminated by the local wildlife.
COLLABORATION -
Tomorrow, at a forum of the G7 Alliance on Resource Efficiency in Washington, D.C., Ford Motor Company will highlight its new Partnership for A Cleaner Environment (PACE), a program that aims to help the automaker’s suppliers minimize their impact on the environment by sharing details of Ford’s best practices for water, energy and carbon dioxide reduction.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
So far, El Niño has been unable to quell concerns over California’s drought, which is expected to persist or only slightly improve over the next few months. Reduced water flows have reduced hydroelectric power generation in the state at an estimated cost of $2 billion and 10 percent more emissions.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Water quality is an urgent national concern in the UK, where only 17 percent of water bodies currently meet ‘good’ standards. Several businesses are already working with farmers and others in their supply chains to improve the situation, but UK charity Business in the Community (BITC) is calling for more to be done.
CLEANTECH -
Last week, Veolia, The Water Council and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) announced the first-ever “Pow!
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
According to the United Nations, 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical water scarcity and another 1.6 billion people face economic water shortage or lack the infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers, making water scarcity one of the most significant global problems to be faced this century.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The negative environmental impacts of our rampant plastic water bottle use have been well-documented, and despite a growing number of efforts to discourage their use or develop alternatives such as boxed water and edible bottles, Americans alone use about around 50 billion each year, of which less than a quarter get recycled. According to the Pacific Institute, producing all of these bottles uses more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, or enough to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year.
CLEANTECH -
California’s drought is contributing to a dangerous cycle: Reduced water flows have reduced hydroelectric power generation, leading to an increased reliance on natural gas for the state to meet its energy needs. Since climate change is worsening California’s drought, and emissions contribute to climate change, well, the situation is not good, to say the least.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Leading up to her trip to the Parley Ocean School, adidas Group designer Jasmin Bynoe was unsure of what to expect. She was about to take to the seas for a 5-day adventure in the Maldives alongside 17 of her colleagues from adidas; they would be learning about plastic pollution and what they could do to help from Parley for the Oceans educators, and it was sure to be a unique experience.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Tyson Foods Inc. was the second biggest polluter of America’s waterways from 2010 to 2014, according to data the company submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Toxic Release Inventory.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
There are still 2.4 billion people without access to toilets, risking their health and safety on a daily basis. Costs, culture, and a lack of awareness of the dangers of unsanitary practices pose substantial challenges and have resulted in an ongoing search for a sustainable and affordable “next-generation” toilet.