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
India-based social enterprise Spring Health has announced plans to join the Business Call to Action (BCtA) and provide safe drinking water to two million customers in rural India by 2017 to improve the health outcomes of more than five million people in Eastern India by 2019.Spring Health is the Indian counterpart of US-headquartered Windhorse International, founded by entrepreneur Paul Polak with Indian partner Jacob Mathew and CEO Kishan Nanavati.
As we prepare to unveil the Top 25 Under 25 year-olds working in sustainable business as part of the 2degrees New Generation initiative later this year, the latest Sustainable Brands London event offered the perfect opportunity to discuss how a number of organizations are creating social value by inspiring, enabling and mobilizing young people.
Denmark has announced an ambitious goal to wean itself off of fossil fuels and power the entire country with renewables by 2050.What sets the Scandinavian country apart from other countries is that it is applying this goal to electrical production as well as transportation. Although some might argue the Danes are being overly optimistic, they are already above 40 percent renewable power on their electric grid and are headed toward 50 percent by 2020.
Only seven companies representing just a quarter of the total photovoltaic (PV) module market share responded to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition’s (SVTC) Fifth Annual 2014 Solar Scorecard, which ranks manufacturers of solar (PV) modules according to a range of environmental, sustainability and social justice factors.
In our inaugural post on the business-policy nexus, Tom Murray highlighted the implementation of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan as an opportunity for companies to be leaders. Why should companies be motivated to get involved? Because they care about having access to competitive, clean energy and tools and incentives for smart energy management, which will help them meet their sustainability and carbon goals while cutting costs.
Microsoft, Siemens and FuelCell Energy have come together to build what they claim is the first zero-carbon, waste-to-energy data center in the U.S.Microsoft's data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming uses biogas produced at the nearby Dry Creek facility, which is a byproduct of municipal wastewater treatment. Anaerobic bacteria produce the biogas while stabilizing solids removed from wastewater. The fuel cell electrochemically converts the biogas into electricity to power the Microsoft IT server container. Virtually no air pollutants are released because of the absence of combustion.
The circular economy and water stewardship dominated the morning’s agenda on the final day of SB ’14 London. After leading us through a host of thought-provoking plenary presentations Tuesday morning, our two event MCs - Forum for the Future chief executive Sally Uren and The Guardian’s executive editor Jo Confino – expressed their enthusiasm for the ideology that underpins the circular economy.Confino felt it was a concept that could go mainstream. “Business can buy into it easily as it doesn’t fight against the current capitalist system,” he said, while Uren was optimistic about the level of brand innovation it could potentially unlock.
On Tuesday at SB ’14 London, I was privileged to join Matt Loose and Zoe Arden of SustainAbility at their afternoon breakout workshop. They were presenting their recent publication Model Behavior, exploring the role and practice of business model innovation in the context of sustainability.Model Behavior is the result of extensive research, compiling information from 100 companies and documenting more than 80 examples of business model innovation, to create a framework of 20 potential models from which to consider the journey towards more adaptable, responsible and ethical businesses.
In her opening address Tuesday at SB ’14 London, Sustainable Brands founder KoAnn Skrzyniarz confronted the audience with a challenge: Reimagine what an economy might look like if it was based on trust.“The big root of the conversation we’ve been having this year is about connecting head and heart,” she said.Reflecting that it had been “an explosive year” on many fronts, with key battles on ideology taking place across the world, Skrzyniarz said the passion for interlinking sustainable business with social value was growing: “As we continue to have this conversation around the world, more communities are coming to us, asking us to localise the conversation,” she revealed.
Governments can keep climate change in check at manageable costs but will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2100 to limit risks of irreversible damage, according to a new UN report, as reported by Reuters.The 40-page synthesis is a summation of 5,000 pages of work by 800 scientists already published since September 2013, and says global warming is now causing more heat extremes, downpours, acidifying the oceans and pushing up sea levels.
The Philip Morris cigarette plant in Concord, North Carolina is switching to produce batteries to store energy for wind and solar farms, Fortune reports.The plant used to manufacture a billion cigarettes annually, but a reduction in the number of Americans smoking took its toll and Philip Morris stopped producing cigarettes at the plant several years ago.
The Bigger Picture is Sky’s approach to building not only a more responsible business for the long term, but contributing to a more sustainable society through inspiring action on the ground.The far-reaching programme has many highlights to draw on since its inception five years ago. These include its Sky Rainforest Rescue partnership with WWF that has raised over £8 million in fundraising, its Sky Academy initiative helping thousands of young people build skills and confidence, and the delivery of a 40 percent reduction in emissions intensity across the business.
Wecyclers, an initiative that enables low-income communities in Nigeria to make money from waste piling up in their streets, wins the 2014 Sustainia Award, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger. By deploying a fleet of cargo bicycles to collect and recycle unmanaged waste in Nigeria’s capital, Lagos, Wecyclers lets families exchange garbage for consumer goods via an SMS-based point system.
A team consisting of engineers, architects, urban planners, economists and plant scientists at MIT has set out to shift traditional farming from the distributed, water- and energy-intense practices of the present to a high-performing, affordable, urban agricultural system with the potential to feed many people.
With global fiber consumption expected to reach 96.4 million tons by 2020, it has become apparent that a linear economy where we produce, consume and dispose of products after a one-time use is not sustainable. Through Aquafil’s various collaborations with carpet and apparel industries, we’ve noticed an increased trend towards the use of sustainable materials and fabrics in product manufacturing. Companies that are looking to move beyond recycled post-consumer waste are starting to shift towards suppliers that are taking a unique but sustainable approach to production, such as the implementation of closed-loop manufacturing systems.
Skyonic Corporation has opened the world’s first commercial-scale carbon capture and utilization facility in San Antonio, TX.Located at Capitol Aggregates, an existing cement plant, the $125 million Capitol SkyMine will have a total carbon impact of 300,000 tons annually, through the direct capture of 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide and transformation into solid, usable products such as baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), bleach and hydrochloric acid (HCl).Using Skyonic’s patented, groundbreaking SkyMine® technology, Capitol SkyMine is expected to generate approximately $48 million in revenue and $28 million in annual earnings — all from greenhouse gas emissions that previously would have been released into the atmosphere.
With its ongoing water struggles, the vast amounts of energy and resources going toward recreating cities such as Paris and Venice, and its bawdy reputation as a party town, sustainability is the last topic that comes to mind when thinking about Las Vegas. But Sin City is drenched in sun, and the ample roof space throughout the city offers the local hospitality sector opportunities to reduce costs via solar power and demonstrate it can be a more responsible industry. To that end, MGM Resorts International announced last week it has completed the installation of what it’s calling the world’s largest rooftop solar array on a convention center.
The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) has announced that a comprehensive climate change adaptation and community development project, Living Breakwaters has been selected as the winner of the 2014 Fuller Challenge, what has been dubbed by the Institute as "socially responsible design’s highest award." The project was submitted by SCAPE / Landscape Architecture PLLC based in New York.
For businesses looking to make their businesses leaner and greener, taking a look at the drinking water they provide for their employees is one place to start. The average full-time employee drinks about 2.5 gallons of water per month at the office — and that does not include the water used to make coffee or other hot drinks. Clearly a business looking to be more sustainable is going to ditch bottled water because of the heaps of plastic involved. Tap water is the cheapest option, but the filtration systems often have their own costs and waste issues. Now a southern California startup, Skywell, is pitching atmospheric water-generator systems, which extract water out of the air with its advanced water generators.
Here at The North Face, we believe in making great outdoor gear in a sustainable and responsible way. That’s why we’ve set out to change the way outdoor apparel is made. We’ve set a bold goal to have 100 percent of our polyester (or 80 percent of all of the fabric we use for apparel) come from recycled content — from thousands of plastic bottles — by 2016. Repurposing plastic waste helps reduce carbon emissions and avoids using more open space for landfills.