The latest developments supporting a shift toward sustainable consumption, as well as specific ways brands are encouraging less wasteful behaviors.
This week, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report — authored by myself and UCS analyst Lael Goodman — that scored 13 fast food, retail, and food manufacturing companies on their deforestation-free beef commitments and practices.
Households in London toss an estimated 900,000 tonnes of food each year, of which 540,000 tonnes could have been eaten. Starting this month and set to run for three years, the latest initiative led by Resource London aims to reduce this avoidable food waste and increase awareness of more healthy and sustainable eating – all while saving Londoners up to £330 million.
While consumers have become more aware of food waste issues thanks to media campaigns and numerous initiatives led by startups and large companies alike, such efforts tend to overlook the intricate relationship between food production and water scarcity.
A decade ago something remarkable happened: Business leaders watched Al Gore present An Inconvenient Truth, and accepted that man-made climate change was real and catastrophic. CEOs said that something must be done and embraced carbon pricing and emissions trading. These same captains of industry were further encouraged when the UK Stern Review explained that early investment in low-carbon solutions would outweigh its costs and boost economic growth.
Unilever Australia’s latest iteration of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty focuses on the internet search terms used by young girls, which highlight the prevalence of negative body image and eating disorders.
One of the most vexing challenges in the sustainability movement is how to get people to do the right thing. Research by organizations such as GlobeScan suggest that the majority of consumers care about sustainability and want to do the right thing, yet the gap between desire and daily behavior remains a major obstacle to progress. I believe that we have been focused on getting people to do the right thing, when a more fruitful path would be to make doing the right thing the default choice.
While Olympians are desperately competing in Rio for the fastest times and highest scores, humanity has achieved a different world record – we have used up nature’s budget for the entire year in record time. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year and arrived earlier than ever, falling on August 8, 2016. Unfortunately, there are no winners in the race for natural resources.
Alcohol giant Diageo — whose brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan’s whiskies; and Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas; along with Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness — recently announced plans to roll out a first-of-its-kind immersive virtual reality (VR) technology that will allow consumers of legal drinking age to experience the many pitfalls associated with irresponsible drinking.
Behavior change charity Hubbub has launched a new global website designed to aid councils and businesses who are looking for solutions in their fight to tackle litter. Complete with statistics on impact and costs per campaign, the charity hopes the website will help reduce wasteful spending by providing guidance on best practices and inspiration.
Perdue Foods, one of the nation's largest poultry producers, recently unveiled a precedent-setting commitment to improving animal welfare, which involves much higher standards and requirements for its poultry facilities. Citing the "five freedoms," a set of ethical imperatives for farmed animal welfare, 2016 and Beyond: Next Generation of Perdue Commitments to Animal Care outlines the company's efforts to implement on-farm improvements such as environmental enrichment and natural light; curb malicious abuse; and eliminate cruel live-shackle slaughter.
The time has come to revisit REDD+ — the UN initiative that attempts to create financial value for the carbon locked in forests — to ensure that it is truly delivering on the momentum from Paris 2015.
In 2014, CVS made headlines when it rebranded to CVS Health and made the bold decision to discontinue the sale of all tobacco products. In September, the company claimed that the latter decision had a wider impact on public health; the data showed that cigarette sales were down across a variety of retailers in the states where CVS had greater than 15 percent market share.
I used to work in an office where the technical writer, a former environmental scientist, was so passionate about sustainability that she went out of her way to encourage and educate others about recycling. She even started a k-cup recycling program in the break room, and she personally carried home the bag each week and included it with her own recycling.
“Failure is temporary but change is real,” said Sophia Mendelsohn, head of Sustainability at JetBlue Airways, during the Wednesday evening plenary at SB'16 San Diego. While many Silicon Valley tech firms wear failure as badges of honor, many brands shy away from admitting their defeats. But this is beginning to change, as companies learn that confessing and even celebrating failure is is key to building sustainability strategies and purpose-driven innovation. “We need to communicate more about our failures,” said Monique Oxender, Chief Sustainability Officer at Keurig Green Mountain. However, this is easier said than done.
The purpose of business is changing. While historically, business students have been taught that the purpose of business solely is to increase investors’ profits — known as the Friedman Doctrine — the most successful brands are searching for a deeper meaning. Defining and activating purpose in business was the key theme of Tuesday evening’s plenaries at Sustainable Brands 2016. While Millennials often receive credit for compelling companies to embrace higher ideals, this actually is something all generations of demanded, said Shannon Schuyler, Chief Purpose Officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). However, because Millennials are such a large demographic and constantly communicate via technology, their voices are being heard.
Nick Aster, founder and publisher of TriplePundit, moderated a panel discussion Tuesday morning about activism and purchasing power, featuring Aria Finger, CEO of DoSomething.org; Shayna Englin, Managing Director of Change.org North America; Briana Quindazzi of BBMG; and Marlin Miller, COO of Care2.
Cross-Posted from Organizational Change. Organizations across the globe are becoming increasingly focused on delivering sustainable products and services to their customer base as a way to limit their environmental footprint and to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Though these are good policies, truly sustainable business is not simply an external matter, in the sense of producing and delivering responsibly produced offerings to markets. It is also very much an internal matter, in the sense of encouraging sustainable behaviour within the organization.
From a veg-loving hip-hop family from Atlanta, to butchers who support ‘Meatless Mondays,’ the new docu-series The Veg EffectTM features five unique, personal stories from across the United States. Through the series, frozen veggie foods brand Morningstar Farms aims to demonstrate how people making small changes to their eating habits “can lead to a world of difference.”
With hundreds of millions of individuals logging into social media accounts every day, using the medium as a platform for social change and activism is just common sense. Today, about 61 percent of consumers use social platforms to learn about sustainability issues. In this open forum-style digital environment, consumers are able to have open conversations about corporate social responsibility and other salient subjects in sustainability.
Waitrose has joined Tesco as the latest UK retailer to take seafood giant John West to task over its fishing practices, threatening to remove its canned tuna from store shelves if it does not follow through on its promise to improve. The decision will pile pressure on the embattled tuna company — which is Britain’s most popular tuna brand, accounting for a third of the UK market — following last week’s announcement by Tesco that John West would be banned if it continued using harmful fishing practices.