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 nearly 500 eco-labels in 200 countries and across 25 industry sectors, it is easy for both consumers and producers to get confused. A Thursday morning panel at SB ’15 San Diego featuring Sheila Bonini, CEO of The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), and Adam Gordon, Supply Chain Account Manager at CDP, shared two innovative ways of addressing that challenge.
Talk about big players making big changes; CVS Health’s SVP of CSR and Philanthropy, Eileen Howard Boone; BASF’s Sustainability Manager, Denise Peterson; and Panera Bread’s Director of Public Relations, Jonathan Yohannan had a lot to share on their remarkable pivots this past year.
“We’re going to talk about systems change,” began Pam Wilhelms, owner of Wilhelms Consulting Group. Wilhelms moderated a panel of changemakers that have driven sustainability in the surf industry. “We don’t change by top-down, we change by finding leverage points,” she said.
If Tuesday’s SB’15 San Diego plenaries are any indication of the breadth and depth of sustainability work occurring across industries around the world, we can safely say that there’s a whole lot going on. Attendees of Tuesday’s plenaries heard from a diverse group of presenters who explored topics as varied as brand-building, closed loops, technology, sustainable condoms (that’s right), ecosystem services, sufficiency economies and celebrity influencers.
Given the rate at which big data is evolving — it is being generated from multiple sources at such speed and volume that the term itself is becoming overexposed — it is little wonder that corporations are struggling to figure out how best to mine it for the type of information that can help enable a better world.
For Ron Voglewede, Global Sustainability Director at Whirlpool, “doing the right thing the right way” is the only way, “because there is no right way to do the wrong thing.” For Voglewede, the ‘right thing’ means being net positive — where the resources that we produce are at least equal or greater than the resources that we consume; the ‘right way’ requires looking at all stakeholders using systems thinking. In order to do the ‘right thing the right way,’ Voglewede has found that one needs to work on three levels: optimize, innovate, and transform.
SB ‘15 San Diego kicked off Monday morning, with Paradise Point in Mission Bay serving as an inspirational backdrop to what promises to be a thought-provoking week of workshops, networking and breakout sessions.
This year, Sustainable Brands San Diego is all about the ‘How.’ Companies want to know how to act on sustainability imperatives in the most effective way, but navigating the jungle of buzzwords and complex strategic frameworks is no walk in the park, or so it seems. What I have found through extensive research is that when it comes to creating shared value, building the circular economy and measuring impact, the in-between is everything, and great business model design is remarkably easy once you have a few key principles down and understand how to fill in the gaps in evolving stakeholder relationships, i.e. your in-between. Allow me to take a step back and explain.
William C. Ford II’s best decision as chairman of Ford Motor Co. was to bring in Alan Mulally as CEO in 2007 and watch the former Boeing manufacturing chief transform Ford from an also-ran into a global industry leader before he left last year. But Ford Jr.’s “green” decision-making has been nearly as good. As CEO before Mulally’s tenure, and chairman before and until today, Ford has kept his company a leader in sustainability thinking and practice. He pushed Ford to produce some of the industry’s first hybrid-electric vehicles, for instance, and authorized a “living roof” on top of Ford’s original River Rouge Assembly complex in its hometown of Dearborn, Michigan.
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A majority (87 percent) of public sector sustainability professionals in the UK have begun to embrace smart technologies, but future projects are stymied by lack of finance and poor implementation strategy, according to new research by GE Lighting and the Carbon Trust.The most common areas where there has been significant smart technology adoption are building efficiency (77 percent), LED lighting (57 percent) and water and waste technologies (24 percent). The smart technologies most commonly installed include intelligent features such as sensors, which combined with internet connectivity and control systems, enhance performance and efficiency and reduce resource consumption, costs and carbon emissions.
In its 2014 Living Progress Report last week, HP outlined the human, economic and environmental impacts it has made in its pursuit of Living Progress — the company’s framework for integrating sustainability into its business strategy. I spoke with Chris Librie, Senior Director of HP’s Living Progress, about how the company’s holistic approach has informed the impacts made to date.
When it comes to water usage, most industries today still pay little attention to managing their most precious raw material.
With the SB Innovation Open finals taking place this week at SB ’15 San Diego, we wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the amazing sustainable startups competing this year. From cricket-powered cookies to an app that helps you get the most from your purchases, this year’s crop of SBIO semi-finalists are set to revolutionize their respective industries (see part 1).
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has joined forces with nonprofit sustainability leader Ceres to provide a guidebook for U.S. institutional investors on engaging with companies and policymakers on sustainability issues. 21st-Century Engagement: Investor Strategies for Incorporating ESG Considerations into Corporate Interactions includes tactics and case studies from 37 engagement experts spanning six countries.
Future improvements in information technology will lead to greater transparency, with sustainability reporting moving fully into the digital realm and occurring in real-time instead of annually, according to a new paper by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).Sustainability and Reporting Trends in 2025: Preparing for the Future examines future trends in sustainability and corporate reporting and disclosure following a series of thought-leadership interviews.
Just 13 of the 200 highest paid CEOs in the U.S. are female, according to data published recently by the New York Times. While gender parity in the workplace is advancing worldwide and many women are heeding the call to ‘Lean in’, progress in changing outcomes is generally slow.
Earlier this week, Ford’s vision for the future of personal mobility was on display at CES Asia in Shanghai.
Today, 24 companies with a substantial footprint in California, including Ben & Jerry’s, eBay, Gap, Levi Strauss, The North Face and Sungevity, announced their support for SB-350, the “Golden State’s Standard 50-50-50,” that sets new benchmarks for increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, and decreasing petroleum use by 2030. Their support was communicated in a letter sent to the bill’s author, Senate President pro Tempore, Kevin de León.
Over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a range of startup fashion brands doing inspiring work on developing sustainable and socially responsible business models. However, it’s hard to escape the fact that the textile industry’s notoriously poor reputation means that these innovators are currently the exception and not the rule.