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Collaboration

Follow the growing amount of collaborative work — cross-functional, cross-sector, pre-competitive and more — bringing about massive, disruptive, needed shifts to business as usual.

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Challenges Can Help Foster Innovation in Sustainability, Environmental Protection

There have been many high-profile commitments by corporations to end deforestation in their supply chains and to transition to sources that preserve these valuable forest resources. And while most will agree that deforestation remains one of the greatest contributors to global climate change, not all are in agreement on how exactly businesses will make this transition in a way that continues to meet the demands of their customers.

Hilton, WWF Partner to Improve Sustainability in Hospitality Industry

Hilton Worldwide today announced an initial three-year commitment with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to reduce its impact on the environment.

In the Wake of Tragedy: Brands Come Together to Aid Nepal Earthquake Relief Effort

The 7.8 magnitude Nepal earthquake that hit on April 25th has yielded a death toll of over 6,000, with thousands still reported missing. Villages throughout the country have been destroyed as well as a large portion of the capital Kathmandu. The Guardian reports that 90 percent of clinics and schools in some districts have become completely unusable. “There are still injured there who have not been treated. Whole villages are flattened. They need tents very badly,” Kempo Chimed Tsering, a local religious leader, told the Guardian.

Mobilizing Around Climate Action: BICEP's Anne Kelly on Helping Brands Flex Their Advocacy Muscle

Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) is the foremost coalition of companies advancing energy and climate legislation in the US. A project of Ceres, BICEP convenes 34 member companies that advocate a low-carbon economy as a path to create jobs and stimulate growth.

Unilever Throws Weight Behind Social Movements to Demand Climate Action, End Poverty

Today, Unilever announced plans to partner with leading mass social movements Global Citizen and Live Earth: Road to Paris, which respectively commit to activating consumers to demand climate action at COP21 and reducing extreme poverty by 2030.

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#SolutionADay Campaign Aims to Celebrate Sustainability Progress

Effectively communicating sustainability must go beyond a dire series of predictions — it's about sharing real-world evidence of the economic, social and environmental challenges faced daily on our planet and the solutions for those challenges.In honor of Earth Day and the remarkable progress being made toward a myriad sustainability solutions, the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives at Arizona State University has launched a "Solution A Day" social media campaign, in the spirit of the Initiatives’ mission to engage a broad audience to celebrate those solutions.

Prince Ea Partners with Stand For Trees to Activate Grassroots Climate Action

As we approach the world’s 21st year of international climate change negotiations (let that sink in), it has never been more critical for citizens to begin demanding and building climate action. That is exactly why Prince Ea has teamed up with Code REDD's Stand For Trees campaign to create an unprecedented reflection on the consequences of our climate inaction, and an inspired vision of collective change.

Trending: Levi’s, Armani and SurfRider Speak Up for Water Conservation

Among mounting concern over the dire water shortages in California and around the world, several well-known companies are taking matters into their own hands, reducing water in their production processes and educating consumers around water conservation.

Turning Innovative Financing Into Principled Action: The Case for Safe Drinking Water

This year’s World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report lists water as the number one risk in terms of impact – it even surpasses failure to adapt to climate change, which currently sits at fifth place. The impact of water can already be seen and felt across different parts of society:

New Platform Aims to Help Companies Overcome Barriers to Living Wage for Garment Workers

On Tuesday, the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) — a Dutch non-profit that works with companies and factories to improve labor conditions for garment workers – launched the Living Wage Portal, a platform through which FWF aims to uncover and overcome the many obstacles that prevent garment workers around the world from earning a living wage.FWF says the best wage is a negotiated wage, set by businesses and workers together. But in major garment-producing countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, productive dialogue between workers and factories is rare — a key roadblock to better wages. Other major obstacles addressed in the portal include:

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What Do We Need to Agree Upon in Order to Work Together? The Principle of Minimum Consensus

“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.”— Isaac NewtonI agree 100%How many times can we honestly say that we really agree 100 percent with someone else on an issue? Often this is because finding points of disagreement with other people is one of the ways that we establish legitimacy and expertise in addition to our sense of self.Put simply, whilst we might almost totally agree with someone on an issue, we can also be motivated to find and highlight the nuances of where and how our understanding (unrecognised genius) and clear thinking provides us with a more accurate, pragmatic or relevant analysis.

Railsponsible Initiative Out to Rope Railroads into CSR Commitments

Last week, EcoVadis, operator of a collaborative, sustainable global supply chain platform, announced the launch of Railsponsible, an initiative to drive sustainability throughout the railway supply chain. Six companies in the railway industry - Alstom Transport, Bombardier Transportation, Deutsche Bahn, Knorr Bremse, Nederlandse Spoorwegen ("NedTrain") and SNCF - participated as founding members of Railsponsible for the launch on March 4th in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

MIT Climate CoLab Announces 22 Contests to Counter Climate Change

The Climate CoLab has announced twenty-two contests that seek high-impact ideas on how to tackle climate change.A project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Collective Intelligence, the Climate CoLab seeks to harness the knowledge and expertise of thousands of experts and non-experts across the world to help solve this massive, complex issue.The Climate CoLab has a rapidly growing community of over 30,000 members from across the world. Anyone is welcome to join the platform to submit their own ideas, or comment on and show support for other proposals on the site.

Conscious Alliance Launches Program with Plum Organics, Justin's, Suja Juice to Feed Hungry Kids

Three leading natural products brands — organic baby food company Plum Organics, nut butter and organic confections brand Justin’s, and organic, cold-pressured juice brand Suja Juice — are proud to announce a new initiative with Conscious Alliance (CA), a national nonprofit committed to supporting communities in crisis through hunger relief and youth empowerment. The coalition has banded together to launch one of the nation’s first Backpack Programs featuring only natural and healthy products.

General Mills, Coke, KB Home Launch Campaign Urging Bolder Business Action to Conserve Water

As California’s devastating drought enters its fourth year and local organizations are appealing to residents to rein in their water use, a diverse coalition of companies with skin in the game — food and beverage giants General Mills, Driscoll’s and Coca-Cola North America, Gap Inc., Symantec and home builder KB Home — are coming together to launch a new campaign urging companies to enact more aggressive measures to maximize California's local and state water resources.

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What Does the Future of Sustainability in Academia Look Like?

This is the final question from a roundtable discussion with the directors of sustainability research centers at six top business schools.Through Georgia Tech’s new QEP (Quality Enhancement Program), we will develop very deep educational partnerships with a few key institutions, be those NGOs or local government or corporations.

How Does Sustainability Research Fit Within Business Schools?

This is the fifth of six questions from a roundtable discussion with the directors of sustainability research centers at six top business schools.So there are a couple different ways that we support the research process as an Initiative.One is that we bring in funding and then disperse it to faculty for research on sustainability. We’ve done that with some corporate funding, as well as philanthropic individual donors or foundations. We put out those calls for proposals, and it helps us to identify who among the faculty is doing research and sustainability.

Connecting the Dots: Sustainability Crosses Business Disciplines at Duquesne

If the ideal business has sustainability embedded throughout, why not embed the same lens throughout an MBA program?That’s what faculty members had in mind for the Sustainable MBA program at Duquesne University’s Palumbo Donahue School of Business.

Georgia Tech Commits to Ambitious Sustainable Community Engagement Initiative

Within a few years, every undergrad at the Georgia Institute of Technology could understand what it means to create sustainable communities.That’s the goal of a new institute-wide initiative called Serve•Learn•Sustain.

How Do Sustainability Research Centers Influence Business School Curriculum?

This is the fourth of six questions from a roundtable discussion with the directors of sustainability research centers at six top business schools.We have a big opportunity to influence curriculum within the entire university right now. And in the context of that we’ll have the same opportunity within the College of Business.In a nutshell, as part of reaffirming its accreditation every 10 years, Georgia Tech needs to put together a five-year Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) that touches undergraduate education across all colleges.

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