Chemistry, Materials & Packaging
The latest developments in safe and sustainable chemicals, new materials, fuels, and more.
Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize Winners Offer Viable, Marine-Safe Solutions to Thin-Film Waste
The three winners are sourcing and scaling biobased and degradable alternatives to traditional, thin-film plastic made from fossil fuels.
Crate Uplevels Sustainable Packaging with World’s First Label-Less Wines
Crate aims to shake up the industry — where most of the sustainability discussion is about the impact of plastic in packaging, but little acknowledgement that paper labels are also part of the problem.
New Guide Details Tangible Solutions for Retailers to Move ‘Beyond the Bag’
Cross-Posted from Product, Service & Design Innovation. Playbook highlights solutions from the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag that drive near-term, positive environmental impact and cost savings from eliminating single-use plastic bags.
3 Material Innovators Using Algae to Paint Greener Picture for Fashion
Living Ink, Algaeing and Mounid are changing the game with carbon-negative, fast-to-produce alternatives to carcinogenic, petroleum-based inks, dyes and textiles.
McKinsey: Circular Economy for Cement Could Be Worth €110B by 2050
Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. The concrete industry is responsible for 8% of all global carbon emissions; and 30-40% of today’s solid waste is created through the construction and maintenance of the built environment.
Red Carpet Fashion Needs to Be Green
Imagine if, the day after the Oscars, discussion of the best (and worst!) dressed attendees focused as much on the sustainability characteristics of their choices as on how they looked.
Truly Closing the Loop: The ‘Recyclable’ vs ‘Circular’ Distinction
The term 'recycling' has become ubiquitous in our daily lives, but the nuances between ‘recyclable’ and ‘circular’ are often misunderstood. Understanding the distinction between the two is crucial in achieving a sustainable future.
Apparel Brands Drive Circular Fashion Future with Recyclable, Renewable Fabrics
Pangaia and Filippa K are the latest to unveil collaborations with circular textile innovators — fueling progress toward closing the loop on fabric waste.
Algae May Be a ‘Brilliant’ Solution for Capturing Carbon at Gigaton Scale
By controlling and replicating natural processes, Brilliant Planet’s technology can permanently sequester CO2 from the air while also deacidifying the ocean.
Store Shelves of the Future: Packaging for a Circular Economy
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. We recently gathered leaders from McKinsey, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive to ponder what consumer products and their packaging will look like in 2035 and beyond.
Alaska’s Move to Eliminate Inflight Plastic Reveals Issues Within US Recycling Infrastructure
The airline quickly hit a roadblock in the unrecyclability of paper cups with an integrated plastic lining necessary for beverage service.
‘Clean Beauty’ Is Just a Pipe Dream If Sustainability Gets Left Behind
Every year, 3B trees are turned into paper packaging for the products we buy — including for many ‘clean’ beauty brands. These brands must take the same holistic approach to their packaging as their ingredients.
Tech Titans Embrace Responsible Forestry
While many companies focus sustainability efforts on their products and other consumer touch points, two of tech’s largest companies are including large facility construction and remodel projects as a foundation to their efforts having a ‘nature-positive’ approach.
2023 Design Trends: Balancing the Beautiful with the Responsible
The balance between luxury and sustainability has set a new bar for luxury packaging, making us all stop and think about how we can do things differently.
A Sustainable Future Requires Healthy Animals
The FAO estimates livestock emissions could fall by 30% through wider adoption of existing technologies and best practices in animal health and husbandry. Only by taking a holistic food-systems approach that includes sustainable livestock can we make meaningful progress toward Sustainable Development Goals around hunger, poverty and climate action.
Basecamp Research Helping Expand Global Access to Safe, Natural Chemicals and Proteins
With a goal of phasing out toxic and forever chemicals in consumer products, the UK-based biotech startup is spearheading the ethical, equitable discovery and utilization of the safe, effective chemicals and proteins waiting to be found in nature and developed for human use and benefit.
Modern Meadow Partners to Scale Sustainable Materials Development for Outdoor Apparel Market
The materials innovator and sustainable fabric giant Singtex are co-developing new biomaterials across a range of applications — starting with a sustainably produced, waterproof, membrane-based material for outdoor apparel.
Stella McCartney to Pilot Mixed-Textile Recycling Venture
Protein Evolution’s technology can turn unused polyester and nylon fabrics from Stella McCartney’s previous collections into good-as-new, infinitely recyclable fibers — and could present a new circular solution for the fashion industry.
Meet 2 Biomaterial Startups Cultivating a Circular, Climate-Friendlier Fashion Industry
Orange Fiber and Keel Labs are platforms for exploration and innovation that can reverberate across the fashion industry and prove that sustainable feedstocks and production processes can can create both financial and planetary prosperity.
6 Principles for Building a Pathway to Circularity for Plastics
Developing and optimizing a fully circular plastics value chain is a complex challenge that can’t be achieved with any single solution. We challenge our peers and other key stakeholders to be courageous and take risks, to explore new possibilities and partnerships, and persist until we have solutions.
