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
Sustainability isn't all about sustainability, as I found out from Nudie Jeans — embedding it into the culture and telling a story is where it’s at.Walking past 29 D'Arblay St in London, a window is decorated with the words “Repairing is caring.” What might surprise you is that this isn’t on the outside of a seamstress’s workshop, but a jeans retailer.Yes, Swedish clothing brand Nudie Jeans is encouraging its customers to repair their denim in a bid to make them last, and subsequently, help them hold off buying new ones for a little bit longer.
UK grocery giant Sainsbury’s has partnered with Biffa, one of the leading waste-management companies in the UK, on an innovative facility that will allow Sainsbury’s Cannock superstore to run on power generated solely from the supermarket’s own food waste.Thanks to Biffa’s advanced anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities and a unique power link-up, Sainsbury’s says its Cannock store will be powered using electricity generated using food waste from Sainsbury’s stores across the UK. This groundbreaking project helps to close the loop on food recycling and Sainsbury’s goal to continue to send zero operational waste to landfill.
Ever thought twice about those pistachio shells that we so readily discard? Luckily Turkey, one of the world's largest producers of pistachios, has —and the country is planning to use the shells, currently waste from production of its beloved baklava, to create biogas to generate heat for its first eco-city.The planned city will be built in Gaziantep province (known informally as Antep) in southern Turkey, which happens to be the center of pistachio production, growing more than half of the country's 'green gold.' The new city will cover 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres), and house roughly 200,000 people.
This week, EKOCYCLE and 3D Systems (3DS) unveiled the EKOCYCLE CUBE — a 3D printer that upcycles post-consumer plastic bottles into items of your design.EDS says the Cube “is not just another tool for making, it is a revolutionary tool for RE-making, and encourages and helps us to change the way we think about recycling.” The printers are expected to be available online at Cubify beginning in the second half of the year.
Brazil has created the first Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL), a technical assessment that will measure the country’s reductions in global warming emissions from deforestation.Deforestation is responsible for an estimated 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and reducing deforestation emissions is a central part of mitigating climate change, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Last week, global closed-loop textile recycling company I:CO announced an expanded partnership with American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (AEO) to roll out its clothing and shoes recycling program in all of American Eagle’s 823 stores across the United States and Canada.As of June 14th, customers are now able to drop off used or unwanted clean clothing, shoes and textiles from any brand into the specifically marked I:CO boxes at any North American location. Participating customers will be rewarded with a text code for $5 off a pair of AEO jeans to be used in store that day. All proceeds from the program will be donated to the Student Conservation Association, one of AEO’s national charity partners.
Cross-Posted from Collaboration & Co-Creation. Shell has joined the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) “Methane Detectors Challenge,” a collaborative project between EDF and five other oil and natural gas companies aimed at identifying and bringing to market cutting-edge technologies that could ultimately help reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations.Shell joins Apache Corporation, BG Group, Hess Corporation, Noble Energy and Southwestern Energy as an industry partner in this effort to help catalyze new technologies for enhanced detection of oil and gas emissions.
Recycled water will account for roughly 85 percent of all water used in Levi’s Stadium — the new home of the San Francisco 49ers — and will be used for irrigation of the field as well as a 27,000-square-foot green roof, flushing toilets and cooling tower make-up water. Inside, the stadium is dual plumbed with recycled water used for flushing toilets.Following final testing by the City of Santa Clara Water and Sewer Utilities, Levi’s Stadium recently was connected to the city’s recycled water system, making it the first stadium in California to utilize the drought-proof water source. The milestone brings the facility one step closer to a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification.
The time when we were happily seduced into reaching far, far beyond our means with a promise of infinite everything and the glittering lure of a‘larger-than-life’ life, seems, to some of us at least, quite archaic now.But even in our socially enlightened, austerity-shredded, community-conscious, light-speed-connected present, we still struggle to get to grips with a smarter, lighter, less financially and materially burdensome style of life.We’re all still living ‘larger-than-life’ lives. We seem to struggle to find meaning in the things that exist comfortably within our means.
DirecTV, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony and Xerox are among the founding partners of the R2 Responsible Recycling Leader Program, which encourages companies to responsibly reuse and recycle electronics. The program is a coalition of 10 partners and includes Goodwill Industries International, Greeneye Partners, Keep America Beautiful, SourceAmerica and Wistron Corporation.The R2 electronics recycling standard and certification process is managed by Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI).
On the evening of June 5, an advanced copy of the Executive Summary of Valuing Plastic: The Business Case for Measuring, Managing and Disclosing Plastic Use in the Consumer Goods Industry will be shared with the Sustainable Brands community during SB’14 San Diego.
Monday, day one of SB ’14 San Diego, was jam-packed with thought-provoking workshops featuring dozens of experts sharing their latest research and insights on a variety of topics — from multi-sector anti-deforestation efforts to intrapreneurship to context-based sustainability.The day was dominated by a two-part, day-long session featuring market insights from top researchers. In part one, researchers from Shelton Group, GlobeScan, BBMG, Cone Communications and more shared their latest findings on customer attitudes and behavior, many of which not surprisingly still examined the stubborn gap between the two.
The challenge of creating a circular economy is, quite rightly, the focus for a lot of the current thinking at the cutting edge of sustainability. From large incumbents to small startups, remarkable changes are starting to take place.We are seeing innovative business models where yesterday’s waste becomes the revenue streams of today and tomorrow, and where products are redesigned for recycling, upcycling, repair or reuse. But while the pioneers are blazing a trail for how we can reconfigure the way we do business in the coming decades, the vast majority of the world’s economy currently follows a linear path.
At Sustainable Brands ’14 San Diego next week (June 2-5), the circular economy will be a major topic as we search for ways to decouple economic growth from resource consumption. In 2013, Philips committed to reimagining its products through the lens of a circular economy approach that focuses on customer access over ownership and business models for services and solutions, rather than transactions. The company also became a global partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to advancing the concepts of the circular economy.
Natural capital accounting is growing in popularity. Trucost has worked with more than 50 clients on how natural capital valuation can help them become more sustainable businesses.
RecycleBank announced this week that, through recycling innovations and incentives programs, it has helped the city of Rochester Hills, Mich., increase its pounds of materials recycled by 323 percent since 2008.The company has worked with Republic Services and Rochester Hills to reward residents for taking more sustainable actions, such as recycling, with discounts and deals at local and national businesses. Rochester Hills also expanded its household recycling program and implemented single-stream collection, which allows residents to put all types of recyclable materials into a single bin.
Chevron Energy Solutions has announced it will design and build a waste-to-energy plant at Broward County, Fla.’s wastewater treatment facility.The project will generate electricity from fats, oils and grease and is expected to generate almost 2 megawatts (MW) of power, reduce electricity usage by over 30 percent and save the county nearly $27 million in its first 17 years of operation.Chevron says the energy produced by the project will offset utility-purchased power and help achieve county-wide carbon-reduction benefits.
In the weeks leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 4th, where the runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will get to know our 11 semi-finalists. Today, meet CREW.
Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.— Adam FergusonCapitalism has no stated end-goal, no clear point or purpose, yet it dominates our planet; increasingly defining the prevailing norms of public policy, enterprise, social life and even ethics. This lack of purpose should be of great concern.
Bruno Sarda is Director of Sustainability Operations at Dell, where he oversees business integration, information strategy, measurement and reporting, as well as supporting advocacy, policy and objective-setting. He also manages Dell’s groundbreaking partnership with TGEN (Translational Genomics Research Institute) and leads the Global Context thread at Arizona State University’s Executive Master’s for Sustainability Leadership (EMSL) program.