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
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), deadlined for completion in 2015, have given way to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched in September at the UN General Assembly and an array of other events including the SDG Business Forum, the Social Good Summit and the Clinton Global Initiative.In evaluating the over 100 presentations at these events, I was struck by the following:
Psychology teaches us that humans are irrational, adaptable, constantly changing beings with cognitive abilities greater than any other animal. Economics would have us think we are rational, unchanging, robots devoid of empathy or feelings towards anyone else. So what happens when these two branches of the social science tree meet: welcome to behavioral economics.This is the third post in a short series on purpose. If you missed the first one, you should start here. The second post can be found here.
As a newborn startup, going it alone isn’t easy. Although the romantic conception of the birthplace of world-changing, disruptive businesses tends to be Harvard dorm rooms or parents' basements, this just isn’t the case for most fledgling firms.And having a great idea doesn’t guarantee that it will translate into a viable long-standing company. Often the devil is in the most mundane details, such as accounting, office space and legal services. In response to these growing needs, dozens of business “incubators” have sprouted up across the country to help nurture startups into the “next big thing.”
Around the world, more and more action is being taken to create a more sustainable clothing industry. In the U.K., waste reduction charity WRAP is seeing significant progress on its Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP). Meanwhile, two U.S.-based Kickstarter campaigns are offering sustainable, certified organic options: men’s denim made in America; and temperature-regulating base layers that use nanofibers from Austria.
Two new reports suggest that the best way to protect forests is to let indigenous and local communities manage them. Released Thursday, both reports provide evidence to support that community-led management is a financially and environmentally responsible approach to curbing deforestation.
A detailed analysis of 10 electric vehicle (EV) fast charging NRG EVgo Freedom Station sites at Whole Foods Market locations in the San Francisco Bay Area shows a 191 percent increase in EV charging over the last year.EV drivers also show a significant preference for DC fast charging, 12 to 1 when comparing the number of charging sessions to the Level 2 charging also available at those locations. In September 2015 alone there were nearly 6,900 DC fast charge sessions at those stations.
Up to 28 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be captured by existing operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects this year, according to a new report launched today by the Global CCS Institute.Now in its sixth year, the Global Status of CCS 2015 profiles two large-scale CCS projects: the Canadian Quest project and the Uthmaniyah CO2-EOR Demonstration Project in Saudi Arabia. Uthmaniyah is the first large-scale CCS project in the Middle East.At the launch of this year's report, the number of operational projects stands at 15, with another seven projects in various stages of construction and due to come online in the next 18 months.
On Monday, The Goldman Sachs Group released its ambitious new Environmental Policy Framework, which includes bold targets and initiatives related to climate-change mitigation, adaptation, risk management, and operational impact. The company reports it is on schedule to be the first U.S. investment bank to be carbon neutral across its operations and business travel by the end of 2015, and has already invested $37 billion in clean energy since setting its $40 billion capital deployment goal in 2012.
After nine years as a spokesman for Nespresso in Europe, actor and activist George Clooney has finally agreed to promote the brand in North America. Television advertisements began airing yesterday, and online videos promoting the company’s social impact and sustainability commitments are part of the deal. Clooney is a member of the Nespresso Sustainability Advisory Board.
It’s difficult to swallow the contradictory statistic that 50 million Americans are food insecure while 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is wasted, according to the NRDC. Food recovery entrepreneur and advocate, Dana Frasz — founder of Oakland, Calif.-based food-recovery non-profit Food Shift— suggests that the sustainable food movement could use a new recipe. Those working on hunger should not just look at providing food, but how they can create jobs.
Google, along with thinkstep, architecture and engineering tech company Flux and nonprofit Healthy Building Network (HBN), last week launched a new collaborative open data initiative to combine health and environmental impact data on building materials that empowers the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry to achieve greater sustainability.
Schneider Electric, global specialist in energy management and automation, announced the launch of a new brand campaign in North America to showcase the business and societal value of sustainability and efficiency. The brand campaign executes on the company's newly launched global brand strategy, Life Is On, which aims to clearly articulate how the company helps customers around the world transform the way they access and consume energy.
Fellows from the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps program this summer helped more than 90 organizations in the United States and China identify energy efficiency and clean energy opportunities that could decrease energy usage by 134 million kWh per year, according to a recent announcement. These energy savings could help cut these organizations’ collective energy bills by $90 million dollars, and reduce carbon emissions by 130,000 metrics tons per year — equivalent to the annual emissions of 27,000 cars.
A new eBook encapsulates the key learnings of a recent week-long digital ThinkTank (virtual dialogue) conducted on the Convetit online engagement platform, which grappled with many of the thorny questions emerging from early practice of Net Positive business.
Despite recent food-saving innovations such as FreshPaper, efforts to promote “ugly produce” and industry-wide commitments to reduce food waste, millions of tons of food are still discarded every year.
Recently, I was invited for a panel discussion on the future in brand communication at the renowned faculty of advertising and marketing, the ESPM, in São Paulo. I shared my view that society nowadays demands brands to positively contribute to the solution of societal issues. One of the questions raised was: “All very nice, but is it in companies not all about the financial results at the end of the month? So is the investment in purpose not the first cut a brand faces when financial results are down?”
Toyota recently announced a set of goals to be achieved over the next 35 years, which address key global environmental issues such as climate change, water shortages, resource depletion and degradation of biodiversity.The Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 aims to reduce the negative impact of manufacturing and driving vehicles as much as possible. The challenge is composed of six individual challenges across three areas: Ever-better cars, ever-better manufacturing and enriching lives of communities.Ever-better cars
Medical records, electronic or otherwise, might as well be Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to, well, just about anyone other than a medical professional. This makes it next to impossible for us to make sense of our personal health data.But a startup called Gliimpse says it has developed the “Rosetta Stone” for medical records, which helps translate the esoteric information into fluid, actionable data. I recently caught up with Gliimpse co-founder and CEO Anil Sethi, and co-founder and president Karthik Hariharan.
Today, Target announced a new collaboration with MIT’s Media Lab and global design firm IDEO that will explore the future of food. The work will focus on areas such as urban farming, food transparency and authenticity, supply chain and health. Target says the goal of the multi-year collaboration is to push the edges of science, technology and design to give people better control over their food choices and help them to eat healthier.
Haitian off-grid utility startup RE-VOLT is on a mission to bring affordable and reliable electricity to families in rural Haiti and is running a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the expansion of its service to more customers, according to a recent announcement.RE-VOLT recently launched a campaign on crowdfunding site Indiegogo in order to raise the working capital necessary to grow its customer base on La Gonave to 2,000 households or 10,000 people by January 2016.