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
Many business leaders today are trying to step up their game and do more than create profitable businesses; they are attempting to use their skills to better the world. Yet in the current business culture, return on capital and financial profit are the sole metric of success. But we can apply tools from cultural evolution to “redesign” business culture — beginning with startups — so that businesses are better equipped to solve social problems.
The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge last year achieved concrete results in cities in Australia, Ireland, Mexico and the United States, according to the company’s 2014 Corporate Responsibility Report.This included improving infrastructure and its effectiveness, integrating municipally-owned solar energy into the existing power grid, planning for economic development and reversing neighborhood decline while increasing tax revenue.The report details how the company’s technology and talent are transforming governments, institutions, communities and the quality of life for people around the world.
As a digital industrial company focused on answering the unique needs and scale of customers across aviation, energy, healthcare and transportation, GE has announced plans to enter the cloud services market with Predix Cloud. The world’s first and only cloud solution designed specifically for industrial data and analytics, this platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will capture and analyze the unique volume, velocity and variety of machine data within a highly secure, industrial-strength cloud environment.
San Francisco Bay Area startup ECOlunchbox has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $30,000 to bring to market its Blue Water Bento collection, a new line of lunch containers that combine no-leak silicone lids with non-toxic stainless steel bottoms.
Knowing how conventional cotton is grown and denim is made, always-a-better-way outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has set out to change the industry. The company has partnered with chemical company Archroma on a new denim collection, launched this week — which is Fair Trade certified and said to use 84 percent less water, 30 percent less energy and 25 percent less CO2 compared to conventional denim dyeing processes — as well as a campaign telling us all about it.
Nearly nine out of 10 higher education facility leaders expect to increase or maintain energy efficiency investments next year, according to a new study commissioned by Schneider Electric and the Alliance to Save Energy.The survey found that energy efficiency is recognized among U.S. higher education institutions as key to fulfilling their core mission.Notably, 88 percent of respondents also agree that energy efficiency is the most cost effective way to meet their energy needs while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting costs.
Today, President Obama hosted the first-ever White House Demo Day focused on inclusive entrepreneurship, welcoming startup founders from diverse walks of life and from across the country to showcase their innovations. The President also announced new public- and private-sector commitments that promise to provide more Americans with the opportunity to pursue their bold, game-changing ideas.
CVS Health and IBM have announced they will use predictive analytics and Watson cognitive computing to transform care management services for patients with chronic disease. The partnership will enable health care practitioners to use Watson to advance care management beyond programs and services typically available today.
Google and environmental sensor networks firm Aclima announced this week that they have partnered to map and better understand urban air quality.Three Google Street View cars equipped with Aclima’s mobile sensing platform took measurements of nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, particulate matter, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) — air pollutants which can affect human health or climate change.
Capping a decade of success employing people with criminal backgrounds and upending expectations in the bread category, Dave’s Killer Bread (DKB) this week launched the newly formed Dave’s Killer Bread Foundation. Powering what it calls “Second Chance Employment,” the Foundation will work to expand employment opportunities for people with criminal backgrounds, which make up 1 in 3 of Dave’s Killer Bread’s more than 300 employee partners.
On Tuesday, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) launched a multimillion-dollar media campaign against the EPA’s proposal to restrict ground-level ozone pollution limits. The new ads released by NAM indicate that some U.S. national parks have more pollution than the proposed ozone restrictions, and aim to spur lawmakers to discuss the ozone rule with constituents during Congress’s August recess.
Two major American automakers have formed innovative partnerships aimed at producing vehicles with lighter and more sustainable materials.First, Ford is in search of a sustainable alternative to rubber. Due to the extreme price fluctuations of natural rubber and the desire to lower the per vehicle environmental footprint, the company is testing several domestically sourced alternatives.
We live in an era of such dramatic, technology-enabled change that it’s hard, sometimes, to get a real handle on just how important the latest new platform or digital business trend will be.When it comes to 3D printing there is no longer any doubt. After all this is a technology that has been employed, on a specialist scale, within industry for decades. But, much like the way the modern personal computer grew out of, and disrupted, the mainframe computing industry, the advent of personal and portable 3D printers is set to radically change the world of manufacturing, fashion and even medicine.
This week, Bank of America (BoA) pledged to expand its $50 billion investment in low-carbon business to $125 billion by 2025, signaling its leadership in environmental finance.BoA’s environmental commitment focuses on addressing energy efficiency, renewable energy and transportation, and other critical areas including water conservation, land use and waste.Over the next 10 years, the bank’s environmental business initiative will support lending, investing, capital raising, advisory services and client financing solutions.
A new technology from a Bangalore-based scientist promises a cost-effective way to deliver clean drinking water by harnessing moisture from the atmosphere. The patented ‘Rain Tunnel Technology’ has been integrated into a household plug-in machine that will be available for commercial use in the next two months, according to inventor Dr. Rajah Vijay Kumar, Chief Scientific Officer at the De Scalene Research Organization.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Sunday pledged to construct half a million new solar panels within her first four years of taking office, Reuters reports.Clinton called for a decisive national shift to renewable energy sources, setting a goal of generating enough renewable energy to power every U.S. home within a decade after she takes office. She called for more solar, advanced biofuels and energy efficiency, among others.The two goals were the first elements of what Clinton said would be a comprehensive climate-change agenda to be released over the next few months, Reuters reports.
Sustainability reporting isn’t easy, and it’s rarely cheap. Large companies may have the finances and dedicated staffs to develop custom sustainability software, but small businesses often must make do without — relying on “old-school” technologies such as Excel spreadsheets.As one might imagine, this makes it difficult for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to practically track their sustainability performance.That’s why a company called Rapport created a cloud-based software platform that allows SMBs to more easily collect and track their own sustainability metrics, such as water usage or the number of commuter miles their employees drive each day.
This is the latest in a series of posts in which we will poll our global community of business leaders and practitioners — the “SB Vanguard” — on a variety of issues pertinent to the evolving sustainable business landscape.
Information technology company TruValue Labs has announced a major update to Insight360, a technology-based platform offering real-time environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability data.The new release allows the tool to substantially increased its coverage, from the 500 largest companies to now over 5,000 publicly traded companies in the United States, representing all companies that are traded on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges.
As water-dependent companies seek to cut their usage and survive through punishing droughts, Costco is finding solutions with the help of the latest computing technologies – the cloud, data algorithms, wireless tech and low-cost sensors. Through a partnership with Washington-based startup Apana, the retail giant is employing innovative water-conservation technology to cut water use and generate significant cost savings.Costco first tested the Apana technology on several of its buildings in Mexico. After saving thousands of dollars at each facility, the company has now expanded its use of the technology to over 50 buildings in North America.