The constant stream of new models, products and processes that are helping organizations extend the useful life of resources and materials while reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms
As the pursuit of sustainability in business becomes more mainstream, it is intersecting with burgeoning and cutting-edge technologies that are transforming the way we interact with our planet, our things, our community, and more. Are these technologies just making it easier for us to live, or are they fundamentally shifting the way our lives work — ushering us into a new era of innovation and sustainability? Let’s take a look at six emerging technology trends that are reshaping the world we live in for the better.
Tomatoes are useful for a lot of things — mixing into salads, adding nutritional value to cheeseburgers, lobbing at struggling standup comics, and even making plastic for car parts. But a team of scientists at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology has come up with a powerful new application for the flushed fruit: electricity. At the recent 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the team presented their pilot project, which involves a bio-based fuel cell that uses tomato waste left over from harvests in Florida.
‘Fast fashion’ holds a prominent position in the apparel industry despite the many problems associated with it, from labor conditions to clothing waste. In the three years since the tragic Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, the revolt against fast fashion has gathered steam.
Campaigns near and far have been educating people on the – well, wastefulness – of food waste. Bad for both our wallets and the environment, the amount of food that is purchased by consumers only to go uneaten and get thrown out is estimated at 16 percent in European Union countries and up to 25 percent in the United States. The average family in the United Kingdom discards £700-worth (over US$1,000) of food a year, while the average American family of four tosses $1,365 to $2,275 per year.
Ethical Markets Media has revealed a stunning new total for its Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS), a metric that tracks private investments and commitments in creating more sustainable economies globally, showing the weight investors place on clean technologies driving the future of business and finance. The GTS’ goal is to see $10 trillion privately invested in the clean economy by 2020 to effectively scale innovations and reduce costs in sustainable technologies.
Last week, Sustainable Brands staff and corporate members took a trip to Detroit to celebrate the relocation of our flagship conference in 2017. Why are we moving from San Diego to Detroit? The answer is simple: We are inspired by the city’s revitalization; it is a place of burgeoning innovation where business can thrive and create a sustainable and flourishing future — what better place to convene our community? We spent three days in the city, witnessing many promising signs of its rebirth while also witnessing the challenges and opportunities for growth that remain.
One of North America’s largest outdoor advertising companies is partnering with a non-profit on the world’s first-ever live-stream billboard campaign. Lamar Advertising Company is donating the use of hundreds of digital billboards across the United States at no cost to Recycle Across America (RAA) to promote its “Let’s recycle right!” campaign during a live-streamed photo shoot event on April 21, 2016 and throughout Earth Week.
Whether climate stabilization and economic growth can coexist or promote each other is the subject of ongoing debate. Recent analyses by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) add to the evidence that we could indeed have the best of both.
Fetzer Vineyards, a leader in regenerative winegrowing, is revolutionizing the way U.S. wineries conserve water, announcing today that it will install the BioFiltro BIDA® System at its Mendocino winery. In doing so, Fetzer — a certified B Corp — will become the first American winery to use the closed-loop biological wastewater treatment system to process 100 percent of its winery wastewater.
Are we truly stuffed? Our obsession with ownership means we have become somewhat attracted to clutter. It is estimated that the average US home contains 300,000 items, yet this still isn’t enough for 1 in 10 Americans who have to additionally rent offsite storage.
Cross-Posted from Collaboration & Co-Creation. In February, the U.K.-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) announced the launch of a U.S. network to run in parallel with the Foundation’s successful international Circular Economy 100 (CE100) programme. Today, the CE100 USA network of business leaders, academics, innovators, policymakers and city authorities who aim to develop and act on circular economy opportunities held their launch workshop in San Francisco.
The 2016 FIRST® LEGO® League Arabia Open, the largest regional robotics competition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, took place this past weekend at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. More than 50 teams of children from eight Arab countries competed in this year’s 'TRASH TREK Challenge,' working to find solutions to the world’s waste problem.
The latest data and in-depth information about UK plastics recycling and reprocessing has been released in an updated Plastics Market Situation Report from resource efficiency experts WRAP. The report includes detailed analysis of recovered plastic flows, prices and the sustainability of end markets, including the risks and opportunities. It reviews trends past and present, and updates on data reported by the organization since the previous Plastic Market Situation Report was published in 2011. The three key themes covered in the report:
John A. Mathews and Hao Tan, both professors based in Australia, believe that the country that consumes the most resources in the world and produces the most waste also has the most advanced solutions. In a recent article for Nature, they summarized China’s progress on closing industrial loops to reduce its industries’ consumption of virgin materials and waste generation – in other words, the development of a circular economy. China’s levels of consumption and waste are completely unsustainable, and its resource use is inefficient. The authors provide several statistics for context:
The latest generation of descendants of oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller have denounced the industry upon which he built their fortune. The Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) announced this week it has sold its holdings in Exxon Mobil and plans to dump all of its other fossil-fuel investments “as quickly as possible.” Foundation director Lee Wasserman told Bloomberg that fossil-fuel investments comprise roughly 6 percent of the RFF’s $130 million in holdings.
To celebrate the first World Recycle Week April 18th to 24th, fashion retailer H&M is partnering with artist and singer M.I.A. on an ambitious global garment collection campaign. H&M aims to collect 1,000 tonnes of unwanted or worn out clothing items across its over 3,600 worldwide stores. To raise awareness, an exclusive M.I.A. music video will debut on April 11th at hm.com.
With the opportunity to curb over $80 billion in annual industry losses, a circular economy for plastics seems pretty appealing. Several projects in Europe are working to make this happen: Earlier this month, Sustainable Brands covered a collaborative effort between the cities of London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen to improve plastics capture, but companies, non-profits and research centres are also working together to improve traceability and create new materials to help facilitate the transition to a circular economy for plastics.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is transforming both consumers’ shopping carts and companies’ supply chains by allowing intelligent barcodes to talk to a networked system that tracks products from Point A to Point Z. A technology once limited to tracking cattle, RFID tags are now tracking consumer products worldwide. Many manufacturers use the tags to monitor the location of each product they make from the time it's made until it's pulled off the shelf and tossed in a shopping cart.
The UK’s resource efficiency charity WRAP, on behalf of the UK Government and Devolved Administrations, today unveils a pioneering commitment that brings together organizations from across the food system for the first time to make food and drink production and consumption more sustainable for the future.
The statistics on food waste — a top-of-mind issue governments, businesses and NGOs across the globe — are staggering: Every year, U.S. consumers, businesses, and farms spend $218 billion growing, processing, transporting, and disposing food that is never eaten. As a result, up to 52 million tons of food is sent to landfills annually, plus an additional estimated 10 million tons get discarded or go unharvested on farms. Meanwhile, 1 in 7 Americans is food insecure without reliable access to sufficient affordable, nutritious food.