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
With the world population projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, 70 percent more food will be needed, making sustainable food and agricultural solutions an imperative. Urban farming and alternative proteins are emerging as viable and intelligent approaches to meet growing nutritional demands with minimal environmental impacts.
A new online tool developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and social enterprise Searious Business could help stem the massive tide of microplastics entering the world’s oceans each year. The tool, dubbed Plastic Scan, allows businesses to measure their plastic emissions and provides recommendations on how to reduce impact across the textile supply chain.
Guided by its Sharing Beauty with All global sustainability program, beauty giant L’Oréal has revealed plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2019 for all 21 of its US manufacturing and distribution facilities.
Renewables are on the rise — according to new data published today by CDP, over 100 cities around the world are now getting at least 70 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as hydro, geothermal, solar and wind. The list includes large cities such as Auckland, New Zealand; Nairobi, Kenya; Oslo, Norway; Seattle, USA; and Vancouver, Canada; and is more than double the 40 cities who reported that they were powered by at least 70 percent clean energy in 2015.
"We want to create "radical impact", as we like to call it: create access to better quality coffee than the one sold by the leading multinationals and make sure that the people growing our coffee make a better living by bringing value-adding activities back to their countries. But how do we measure and show what we actually do with Moyee?” said Guido van Staveren van Dijk, CEO of Moyee Coffee, describing one of the key challenges his company is facing.
Imagine a drone, hovering high above your home. A package is released from its clutches and gently drifts to the ground, aided by a parachute. And just like that, the package you ordered only 30 minutes ago is delivered to your yard. The scenario sounds like something from a science fiction movie, but recently, e-commerce giant Amazon was granted a U.S. patent for this innovation.
Clean, efficient electricity is essential for constructing a low-carbon future, but more advanced technologies are needed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. Scientists around the world are rising to the challenge, delivering new energy solutions that could finally tip the scales in favor of sustainability.
power through two agreements with subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources, the world’s largest operator of renewable energy projects. Together, these deals constitute one of the largest corporate renewable energy purchases in the US. The agreement will see 220 MW of power sourced from the Minco V Wind Farm in Caddo County, Oklahoma, with the remaining 300 MW coming from a wind farm in Webb and Duval Counties in Texas. The projects are expected to generate savings equivalent to taking 350,595 passenger vehicles off the road or providing electricity for a quarter million homes in a year.
Cross-Posted from Materials & Packaging. The US’s infrastructure is falling apart beneath our feet. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave our infrastructure a “D-” on its infrastructure report card. There are so many considerations for infrastructure repair, it’s mind-boggling. From aviation to wastewater systems to public parks, it all needs work. There are two common threads throughout: energy and concrete.
The Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Products Innovation Institute has revealed the winners of the latest Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge.
We know that carbon emissions, particularly carbon dioxide and methane, are a major contributor to global climate change trends, and that the challenge of mitigating and even reversing this trend is highly complex. We also know that — like so many other sustainability challenges we face — managing carbon is a challenge faced by the natural world and solved through its own adaptive strategies that have evolved over 3.8 billion years. In short: Nature sees carbon as a building block — and we can, too.
My uncle once claimed he could magically tell you the day of the week if you gave him any calendar date (day, month and year). He said he could visually see the answer in his head and swore he didn’t have any quick calculation or trick. My father was skeptical. He bet my uncle $100 that he could develop an algorithm to do the same. The next day, my father produced a page of calculations that, lo and behold, would produce the correct answer. I was in awe; my uncle was not as impressed. But, my dad still won the money.
A new textiles economy is on the horizon as innovative textile and chemical firms develop new chemical- and petroleum-free processes to produce fabrics and materials.
Dutch financial firm Rabobank has shared the names of the 20 startups to participate in the FoodBytes! event in San Francisco on 1 March 2018.
Nissan is driving the future of mobility forward with a vehicle-to-grid (VG2) demonstrator project that could prove instrumental in helping the UK transition to low-carbon transportation and a smart energy system. The £9.8 million e4Futures project will allow drivers to feed energy back into the electricity grid during peak times.
A year after the launch of its Heathrow 2.0 sustainability leadership strategy, Heathrow Airport is encouraging UK businesses and organizations to apply for the first Sustainable Innovation Prize.
Furthering its mission to close the funding gap and help women launch startups and raise capital, nonprofit Women Who Tech has released the names of the 10 finalists selected for the sixth Women Startup Challenge. The finalists will pitch their ideas in a Shark Tank-style competition to top investors and an audience of tech industry executives at Google’s New York campus in March.
Many aspects of sustainability involve upending our conventional approaches to business — and the way we design, produce, market, distribute and service our offerings. This channel highlights products, services, design approaches and entire business models that are helping organizations of all sizes deliver on their sustainability ambitions and establish a new “business as usual.” It also examines forward-thinking principles, methodologies, processes and tools being leveraged in business model innovation around the globe.
This week, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the Carlsberg Group launched the Carlsberg Young Scientists Community in an effort to address some of the world’s biggest challenges surrounding climate change and water scarcity. The Community offers an opportunity for budding scientists to build on achievements made at the Carlsberg Research Laboratory and develop cutting-edge sustainability projects that set new standards for science-based and partnership-driven sustainability research, creating solutions for a low-carbon, circular future.
As global business leaders gather at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos this week to discuss energy and environmental challenges, Schneider Electric has released a new study revealing that while most organizations feel prepared for a decentralized, decarbonized and digitized future, gaps remain between intention and action.