The latest products, services and cleantech applications and how they are tackling some of our most pressing social and environmental issues.
In a world where more people have access to mobile phones than to safe water, how can technology help scale up sustainable supply chains? Here are four suggestions from an expert panel at the Sedex Global Responsible Sourcing Conference, held in March 2015.
Ceres has released a new search tool that enables users to access water risk disclosures in company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).The SEC Sustainability Disclosure Search tool allows users to find disclosures in 4,500 U.S. companies’ annual filings relating to water availability, scarcity, quality, pollution, regulation and innovation. The tool covers 10-K filings from 2009 to the present and helps stakeholders, including investors, companies, academics and analysts, better understand how businesses are measuring, managing and disclosing material water risks and opportunities.
If you’ve ever wondered about the energy powering your favorite websites, a new tool from Greenpeace is here to help. On Thursday, the advocacy group released a new browser extension tool that shows which of the most popular websites are moving most ambitiously towards renewable energy use. Users that download the extension (compatible with Google Chrome) can distinguish leaders from laggards by the color of a cloud icon that appears green, yellow, or red whenever they open a new site.
AT&T, IBM and Mueller Water Products have teamed up to use Internet of Things (IoT) technology to address water sustainability in cities. Their partnership combines Echologics sensors and sound technology from Mueller Water Products with AT&T’s LTE wireless network to detect water pressure, temperature and leaks in urban water systems. The IBM Water Management Center helps aggregate the water data, providing a complete view of past, present and future performance.
Today Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a solar farm project in Virginia that will advance the company’s progress towards its recent commitment to powering its data centers with 100 percent renewable energy.
With nearly 500 eco-labels in 200 countries and across 25 industry sectors, it is easy for both consumers and producers to get confused. A Thursday morning panel at SB ’15 San Diego featuring Sheila Bonini, CEO of The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), and Adam Gordon, Supply Chain Account Manager at CDP, shared two innovative ways of addressing that challenge.
Given the rate at which big data is evolving — it is being generated from multiple sources at such speed and volume that the term itself is becoming overexposed — it is little wonder that corporations are struggling to figure out how best to mine it for the type of information that can help enable a better world.
A majority (87 percent) of public sector sustainability professionals in the UK have begun to embrace smart technologies, but future projects are stymied by lack of finance and poor implementation strategy, according to new research by GE Lighting and the Carbon Trust.The most common areas where there has been significant smart technology adoption are building efficiency (77 percent), LED lighting (57 percent) and water and waste technologies (24 percent). The smart technologies most commonly installed include intelligent features such as sensors, which combined with internet connectivity and control systems, enhance performance and efficiency and reduce resource consumption, costs and carbon emissions.
When it comes to water usage, most industries today still pay little attention to managing their most precious raw material.
Future improvements in information technology will lead to greater transparency, with sustainability reporting moving fully into the digital realm and occurring in real-time instead of annually, according to a new paper by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).Sustainability and Reporting Trends in 2025: Preparing for the Future examines future trends in sustainability and corporate reporting and disclosure following a series of thought-leadership interviews.
Earlier this week, Ford’s vision for the future of personal mobility was on display at CES Asia in Shanghai.
Today, 24 companies with a substantial footprint in California, including Ben & Jerry’s, eBay, Gap, Levi Strauss, The North Face and Sungevity, announced their support for SB-350, the “Golden State’s Standard 50-50-50,” that sets new benchmarks for increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, and decreasing petroleum use by 2030. Their support was communicated in a letter sent to the bill’s author, Senate President pro Tempore, Kevin de León.
The United States leads the world in cleantech investments, patents, renewable energy generation and electric vehicle (EV) adoption, but still is slow to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new ranking by Next 10.Over the last two decades, however, the U.S. has become more energy productive, using less energy per dollar of GDP generated.
On Thursday, Bank of America Corporation announced that it has issued its second green bond for $600 million in aggregate principal amount, as part of its ongoing commitment to promoting a low-carbon economy by advancing renewable energy and promoting energy efficiency.
In 2010, Verizon set a goal to collect two million pounds — or 1,000 tons — of electronic waste in communities it serves by the end of 2015. The company has announced that that five-year goal was achieved today, eight months ahead of schedule, during Verizon's e-waste recycling rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, as area residents, businesses and Verizon employees safely disposed of tens of thousands of pounds of unwanted computer hardware, TVs and small appliances.The two million pounds collected for recycling over the past five years is equal to the weight of 500 average cars, or roughly 50,000 cathode ray tube computer screens.
From sustainability consultants to environmental compliance professionals, and from emissions or waste monitoring specialists to Vice Presidents of Sustainability, the challenge is the same: to tell their story. Perhaps the most difficult — and arguably the most important — part of their job is communicating: communicating with the media, with their executive team and in-house decision-makers, with professional partners, and with the general public.
Last week, Ford announced that its 2016 F-150 truck will have an available gaseous-fuel prep package that enables 5.0-liter, V8-powered models to run on clean, low-cost compressed natural gas (CNG) or propane, making Ford the only manufacturer of a CNG/propane-capable half-ton pickup.Next year’s F-150 will be available for order this summer. Along with the factory-installed, gaseous-fuel prep package, the new model includes upgraded intake and exhaust valves and valve seats to ensure the engine performs to customers’ expectations.
In 2012, we launched the Think Big Blueprint, our first sustainability plan that set big, ambitious goals that we hoped would transform our role in the world around us. We set three goals and 40 commitments, and gave ourselves three years to achieve them.The idea at the heart of the Blueprint is that not only do we need to continuously improve our own social and environmental impacts, we also have a unique opportunity to inspire and enable millions of others to live more sustainable lives through our products and services.
New York consumes too much energy, London and Paris use relatively fewer resources and Tokyo conserves water well, according to a new study on "megacity metabolism," as reported by ScienceDaily.As the world's first comprehensive survey of resources used and removed in each of the world's 27 largest metropolitan areas, the findings could point the way toward strategies to make cities more sustainable.
The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI) has published its new Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT 4.0), a multi-industry tool designed to facilitate transfer of information throughout the supply chain in support of conflict-free sourcing. It includes an updated Standard Smelter List and numerous translation improvements.