THE NEXT ECONOMY -
“Use your city as a platform,” opened moderator and CSO for the City of Palo Alto Gil Friend.While local governments have gotten the bad reputation of being slow, bureaucratic animals, the panelists, representing four major cities across the United States — including Los Angeles and New York City- presented the business case for corporations to integrate their sustainability efforts with their cities for the success of shared goals.
NEW METRICS -
Led by Val Fishman, VP of Corporate Partnerships for the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), this panel congregated some of the most influential organizations that are driving change and collaboration within water stewardship. It also congregated a full room, which is not surprising considering that water scarcity has been pushed under the spotlight, having been named this year's top global risk by the World Economic Forum.
CLEANTECH -
When it comes to water usage, most industries today still pay little attention to managing their most precious raw material.
COLLABORATION -
Fresh from its successful collaboration with Southwest Airlines on its LUV Seat collection of bags and accessories upcycled from the airline’s leather seats, Looptworks has launched an email campaign to enlist its customers’ help in restoring the Colorado River.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Earth Day 2015 marked $6.22 trillion invested in the global green transition since 2007, on track to meet the Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS) goal of $10 trillion privately invested in the green economy by 2020 to effectively scale innovations and reduce costs in green technologies. The report, Breakdowns Driving Breakthroughs, focuses on Life Systems, a new category capturing system-wide interconnections, equaling 14 percent of the overall $6.22 trillion total.
LEADERSHIP -
San Diego, Calif., Aurora, Colo., Torrance, Calif., Poway Calif. and Hermosa Beach, Calif. are the cities with the highest percentage of residents that made pledges during a monthlong campaign in April to promote water efficiency.The 2015 Wyland National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation, organized by the Wyland Foundation and Toyota, involved residents from more than 3,900 cities making 391,325 pledges online to reduce their water use at home, around the yard and in their lives. The challenge addressed the growing importance of educating consumers about the many ways they use water, the organizers say.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
Water is essential to business of all kinds — from resource extraction to retail. Its scarcity poses collective risks; not just to a company’s facilities, but also to the municipalities in which it operates and the communities comprising its consumer base.
WASTE NOT -
Nestlé is investing in technology to help reduce the amount of water it uses in California at the five water bottling plants and four facilities where food or petcare products are manufactured.Work is underway to transform the Nestlé milk factory in the city of Modesto into a ‘zero water’ factory, meaning the plant will not use any local freshwater resources for its operations.The project is expected to save nearly 63 million gallons of water each year, equivalent to 71 percent of absolute withdrawals in 2014. Around $7 million has been invested in the project, which is due to be completed by the end of 2016, the company says.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Starbucks has become the latest corporation to move its water bottling operations out of California: Last Thursday, the company announced that it would move sourcing and manufacturing of its Ethos Water out of state due to the serious drought conditions and necessary water-conservation efforts in California. Over the next six months, Starbucks plans to move production to its Pennsylvania supplier, while exploring alternatives to transition to a new source and supplier to serve the company’s West Coast distribution.
COLLABORATION -
Hilton Worldwide today announced an initial three-year commitment with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to reduce its impact on the environment.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
More and more companies are beginning to acknowledge the importance of water stewardship to the longevity of their operations, regardless of industry. Consumer-facing brands can have added impact — and have added responsibility — to engage their customers on this critical issue, as well.
LEADERSHIP -
Unilever, Coca-Cola, General Mills and Nestlé rank highest among food and beverage businesses in managing scarce water resources, but most major companies need to adopt far stronger practices, according to a new report released Thursday by nonprofit sustainability advocacy group Ceres.
NEW METRICS -
According to a recent study in Ecosystem Services, businesses may pay more for less reliable sources of water in the future.
WASTE NOT -
A recent report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates the ocean’s value at $24 trillion, making it the world’s seventh-largest economy. The annual “goods and services” it provides, such as food, rounds out to about $2.5 trillion, a value that the report warns is at risk due to overfishing, pollution and climate change.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Today, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and Autodesk announced the winners of the inaugural Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge, which asked participants to design products made with materials that can return safely to industry or nature at the end of use, fulfilling a core criterion of “remaking the way we make things.”
CLEANTECH -
Aquion Energy, Inc., developer and manufacturer of Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI™) batteries and energy-storage systems, has announced that its AHI S20 and S20-P Product Lines are the first batteries in the world to be Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Certified™ Bronze. The product lines were evaluated by MBDC, creators of the Cradle to Cradle Certified Products Program, across five quality categories.
LEADERSHIP -
Coca-Cola on Thursday pledged an additional $35 million to support sustainable safe water access and sanitation programs for 4 million more people across Africa by 2020.This new funding builds on an original Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) commitment of $30 million to bring safe water access to 2 million people across the African continent by the end of 2015 made at the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul in 2009. Coca-Cola says this funding will help to improve the lives of more than a total of 6 million Africans through sustainable access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) by 2020.
WASTE NOT -
With California suffering one of its most dire water shortages on record, the Golden State’s political leaders are scrambling to find solutions to shore up an ever-diminishing supply of this precious resource. Some analysts suggest California only has about one year’s reserve of water left within its reservoirs.
COLLABORATION -
Among mounting concern over the dire water shortages in California and around the world, several well-known companies are taking matters into their own hands, reducing water in their production processes and educating consumers around water conservation.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) this week announced the stunning latest results of its Clean by Design program, a global model for sustainable manufacturing that is working with multinational apparel brand partners Target, Gap, Levi Strauss and H&M