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
We have been following Chile-based startup Bureo from its launch in late 2013 to its first incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign last year. Now the company, which got its start upcycling plastic marine waste lining Chile’s waters and shores, has expanded its product range to sunglasses.
Two years ago, billionaire CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX visionary Elon Musk made headlines when he released designs for the ‘Hyperloop’ Transport System, which would be capable of rapidly transporting people from Los Angeles to San Francisco via a tube in under 30 minutes.The proposed system would use pods about two meters, or around 6.6 feet, in diameter. Musk described the Hyperloop as a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table," instilling images of people-packed pods being blasted pneumatically through vacuum tubes.
Imagine living in a luxurious circular skyscraper, with a breathtaking view and without electricity bills on the table. As futuristic as that my seem, it may not be too far off, according to Lennart Graaff, director of Windwheel Corporation.The Netherlands-based consortium of companies BLOC, DoepelStrijkers and Meysters has plans to construct what it calls the “Dutch Windwheel,” a double-ring rotating edifice that is powered by the wind energy it generates.
Next month, H&M will introduce 16 new denim styles made using recycled cotton from textiles collected in the Garment Collecting initiative in H&M stores. The pieces for men, women and kids are the latest steps toward H&M’s goal of creating a closed loop for fashion, and will be available in all stores worldwide, as well as online.“Creating a closed loop for textiles, in which unwanted clothes can be recycled into new ones, will not only minimize textile waste, but also significantly reduce the need for virgin resources as well as other impacts fashion has on our planet,“ says CEO Karl-Johan Persson.
Cochin International airport in Kochi, India has become the world’s first airport to completely operate on solar power, according to a recent announcement.The airport is powered by a 12 MWp solar power plant comprising of 46,150 solar panels laid across 45 acres. It now will have 50,000 to 60,000 thousand units of electricity per day to be consumed for all its operational functions, which make the airport 100 percent power neutral.
Almost exactly 2 years ago I wrote about The True Cost of ‘Cheap.’ Last week a request came for more information: could you talk more about this issue and possible solutions? Two years ago I focused on Total Cost of Quality issues and advocated we begin to include social cost in our Cost of Quality measures. The basic premise is actually a Six Sigma principle — if you can't shift the mean, shift the goal.
Today, Fortune published its inaugural “Change the World” list of the top companies that are innovating business solutions to address complex social and environmental challenges. This list, developed with input from FSG and the Shared Value Initiative, illustrates a shift in business-as-usual among large corporations: For the first time companies are recognized for, and competitively ranked on, innovative strategies that positively impact the world.
Google is testing a new online tool to help homeowners explore whether they should go solar, according to a recent blog post by the search giant.Now available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno and the Boston area, Project Sunroof utilizes the same high-resolution aerial mapping used by Google Earth to help homeowners calculate their roof’s solar energy potential, right from their laptop or smartphone.
A new shoe based on textile biomimicry promises easy recycling and soft, robust textures with a single heat-treated material and 3D printers.Designer Amno Liao from the Royal College of Art in London has created the Bio-Knit shoe, which is knitted on a 3-D knitting machine and then treated to harden its various parts. Heat is used to change the stiffness of the threads, so a semi-rigid heel and sock-like textures are produced from the same material. Creating a shoe without composites, as most footwear contains, will dramatically reduce recycling costs.
Superfood social enterprise Kuli Kuli has announced a partnership with the Clinton Foundation and a Haitian nonprofit, the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA), to develop a new moringa supply chain in Haiti. Earlier this month, Chelsea Clinton met with Haitian women moringa farmers.
Patagonia Provisions — a initiative from conscientious outdoor apparel brand Patagonia aimed at rethinking our food chain — has launched a groundbreaking partnership with family-owned meat company Wild Idea Buffalo to conserve and restore the grasslands of South Dakota, while producing a sustainably sourced Buffalo Jerky. This is the latest addition to the company’s food line designed to create positive change in the food industry.
This week, Domtar Corporation released its 2015 Sustainability Report, highlighting its environmental leadership in fiber-based product production and its support of sustainable harvesting.Among its most notable accomplishments, the company self-generated 74 percent of the electricity used in its pulp and paper mills through cogeneration technologies and hydropower, outpacing the US pulp and paper industry average of 59 percent. Nearly two-thirds of this self-generated energy came from renewable fuel derived from its pulping chemical recovery process and from wood residuals left over from log debarking.
Today, Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) announced it is committing to retire roughly 7,000 hectares (~17,300 acres) of commercial plantation areas to protect threatened carbon-rich peatlands — the first time that plantations on tropical peatland have been retired for conservation purposes worldwide.Peatland development in Indonesia represents one of the single largest terrestrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the world1. Retiring these plantation areas will help support the Government of Indonesia’s target of a 26 percent reduction in emissions by 2020.
NYC/London-based production company Casual Films believes we have entered “a new era in branded communications.” As Managing Director Barnaby Cook asserts in a video on the company’s website: “In the future, all successful businesses will have to be sustainable.” Not only does the award-winning company help organizations tell their sustainability stories, Casual’s got one of its own, and Cook recently told us more about how his company aims to use the power of video to help responsible companies influence society and change the world.
Not to be confused with the Fruit Rollups many of us probably grew up with here in the States — we’re talking about a solution to one of South Holland's (not to mention the rest of the Western world’s) biggest social issues (food waste), developed by a group of undergraduates from Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam.
Highways England and Under Secretary of State for Transport Andrew Jones MP announced today that off-road (test track) trials of technology needed to power electric and hybrid vehicles on England’s major roads are due to take place later this year.The trials are the first of their kind and will test how the technology would work safely and effectively on the country’s motorways and major A roads, allowing drivers of ultra-low emission vehicles to travel long distances without needing to stop and charge the car’s battery.
Ahead of the COP21 meeting in December, diverse groups are taking action in support of action on global climate change. From business coalitions and CEO pledges to ambitious city-wide emissions reduction goals, pressure is mounting on national governments to deliver a substantive agreement.
In a creative attempt to protect California’s waning water supply, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti yesterday announced the release of 20,000 “shade balls” into the LA Reservoir. The deployment marks the final phase of a program to safeguard the 175-acre, 3.3 billion gallon reservoir by releasing 96 million of the balls onto its surface.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday announced $63 million in loans and grants for 264 renewable energy and energy efficiency projects nationwide that USDA is supporting through its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).Eligible agricultural producers and rural small businesses may use REAP funds to make energy efficiency improvements or install renewable energy systems, including solar, wind, renewable biomass, small hydroelectric, ocean energy, hydrogen and geothermal.
Agriculture consumes close to 70 percent of water demand, but a significant 10 percent goes to domestic applications, such as maintaining lawns and other landscaping.Arguably, the best and most sustainable course of action is to let your lawn die and plant indigenous landscapes but, realistically, not everyone is going to do that. The next-best thing, however, would be to find a way to maintain non-native landscaping using as little water as possible.A company called Blue Marble hopes to help people do just that by leveraging Internet of Things technology to conserve water during domestic irrigation.