Innovation & Technology
The latest products, services, design approaches and business models that are helping organizations of all sizes deliver on their sustainability ambitions and establish a new business as usual
Mosaic: Making Solar Power Accessible for and by the People
To prepare for this year's Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) competition, we're catching up with some of our favorite entrepreneurial ventures from competitions past ... ... View More
Boston Businesses Reduce Electricity Use by 7%
Boston firms participating in the Challenge for Sustainability have lowered their collective electricity consumption by seven percent in three years, the program says. ... View More
GM Plans To Cut Vehicle Weight Up to 15% by 2017
General Motors hopes to save as much as 12 billion gallons of fuel over the life of the vehicles it builds between 2011 and 2017 through reducing vehicle weight by up to 15 percent and other fuel efficiency upgrades, the company’s CEO Dan Akerson s... View More
Automakers Developing CO2-Based Refrigerant for More Climate-Friendly Air-Conditioning
As part of its goal of becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable carmaker by 2018, Volkswagen announced Friday that it will join Daimler and BMW in developing CO2 technology as a more climate-friendly refrigerant for its automotive air-... View More
The "Follower-Ship Challenge": Pavan Sukhdev on the Circular Economy
In this recent interview, guest editor Adam Werbach and Pavan Sukhdev — leader of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project and author of Corporation 2020 — discuss the shift in thinking, habits and values necessary for the wide... View More
Walgreens To Build First Net-Zero Energy Retail Store
Walgreens says it will build the country’s first net-zero energy retail store, producing energy equal to or greater than it consumes.The project is the latest of several sustainability initiatives for the company, including two stores that have ach... View More
FedEx Delivers on Fleet Fuel Efficiency Goal Years Ahead of Schedule
FedEx has trimmed its fleet’s cumulative fuel economy by more than 22 percent, exceeding its goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2020 seven years early. ... View More
One World Futbol: Saving Soccer in the Developing World
To prepare for this year's Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) competition, we're catching up with some of our favorite entrepreneurial ventures from competitions past ... ... View More
The Circular Economy: Reinventing Business Models for Broad Economic Change
Let’s start with where we are today. The state of the "economy," like the bible or the U.S. constitution, is granted semi-magical powers by most businesses, as if it were carved out of granite, solid and unmoving, never in flux. Yet we al... View More
LEDs Help Rooms To Go Reduce Store Energy Use Up to 45%
Rooms To Go has converted 115 of its retail stores to LED lighting, reducing average energy use by 35 to 45 percent in each store, the furniture company recently announced. ... View More
The Circular Economy: Driver of Business Model Innovation and Social Good
In this Issue in Focus, guest editor Adam Werbach and the SB editorial team explore the broad range of radical economic and business-model innovations emerging, through which both startups and some of the top global brands are rethinking the future o... View More
Manufacture New York: A New Sustainable Model for U.S. Fashion Production
Sometimes an industry simply can’t move forward without changing the conversation and embracing more sustainable business models. ... View More
AT&T, Carbon War Room Say ‘Internet of Things' Can Cut Emissions by 19%
Global greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 9.1 billion metric tons by 2020, or 18.6 percent of all emissions in 2011, through the widespread adoption of machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies, according to a recent report by AT&T and the ... View More
M&S To Initiate First Wide-Scale Green Lease Policy in the UK
Marks & Spencer will soon require all of its new retail stores to have green clauses in new leases to facilitate the sharing of waste information and utilities data in a collaborative effort to reduce carbon emissions. ... View More
Ecofiltro: Quenching Thirst in Guatemala One Family at a Time
To prepare for this year's Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) competition, we're catching up with some of our favorite entrepreneurial ventures from competitions past ...In most of the developed world, few of us give much thought to where our ... View More
SolarCity To Help Honda Customers Adopt Solar
SolarCity has partnered with Honda to establish a $65 million investment fund to make solar power more affordable and available to Honda and Acura customers in the U.S. ... View More
Macy's, Sprint Join Presidential Challenge To Increase Building Energy Efficiency
Macy’s, Sprint and Johnson Controls will upgrade more than 200 million square feet of building space to cut energy use by at least 20 percent by 2020, as part of the Obama Administration’s Better Building Challenge. ... View More
Assembling for Disassembly: Alcoa, Honda Back Automotive Manufacturing Research at OSU
Aluminum company Alcoa is lending its support to a longstanding research partnership between Honda and Ohio State University that could innovate auto manufacturing. ... View More
Greyhound Installs Telematics to Increase Fuel Efficiency in 1,775 Buses
Greyhound has begun integrating telematics program DriveCam across its entire fleet to optimize safety performance and increase fuel efficiency. ... View More
Biochar Pilot Program Aims for Carbon-Negative Coffee
With more than 2 billion cups consumed each day, coffee is one of the world’s most popular beverages. Most consumers of the black liquid hail from industrialized countries — over 90 percent of coffee production occurs in developing countries and ... View More
