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
Abengoa Bioenergy has announced the official grand opening of its second-generation cellulosic ethanol plant in Hugoton, Kansas, roughly 90 miles southwest of Dodge City. The biorefinery finished construction in mid-August and began producing cellulosic ethanol at the end of September with the capacity to produce up to 25 million gallons per year.
On Thursday, the first full day of Flourish & Prosper: The Third Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit in Cleveland, Ohio, the morning’s plenaries and CEO panels explored how business can move beyond how social and environmental responsibility are thought of today, to a new mindset of "full-spectrum flourishing" where “companies prosper, people excel, and nature thrives.”
One of the highlights of Sustainable Brands ‘13 London was Chip Walker’s talk about The Shifting Landscape of Consumer Values and Implications for Your Brand’s Future. The power in Walker’s delivery was, in common with all the best talks, that he provided insight into questions that everyone in his audience has. Specifically, he shed new light on how consumers think about brands.
I am sitting in the airport at Minneapolis, Minnesota, having just left the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Retailer Sustainability Conference, and my mind is awash in the list of challenges and risks that were reinforced over the past few days. The U.S. retail economy plays an enormous role in our daily lives — it employs 25 percent of the U.S. workforce, represents more than 66 percent of the country’s GDP and undoubtedly plays a critical role in our environmental stewardship.While the central theme of the RILA conference was sustainability, much was devoted to addressing recent advancements in technologies, the sharing economy, resource responsibility and transparency.
Rechargeable lithium batteries, used in everything from portable electronic devices to electric cars to large-scale energy storage, are convenient and efficient but less than stellar when it comes to resource and environmental impacts. Now researchers at Uppsala University’s Ångström Laboratory have come up with an entirely new battery concept based on recovery and renewable biological material, with an energy content corresponding to that of current lithium-ion batteries.
Impact investing is the all the rage in billionaire circles. Now as most of us aren’t billionaires, you might ask: ‘why do we care?’ Quite simply because this phenomenon is changing the face of both philanthropy and finance and has the potential to radically impact our communities, the causes we care about and the world at large.
By sharing a pool of kegs rather than owning their own, over 200 leading craft brewers have helped reduce their collective carbon footprint by over 3 million kg of CO2e in 2013. These findings, based on a study by John Heckman, Ph.D with PE International and commissioned by MicroStar Logistics, will be used as a benchmark to help the craft beer industry further minimize its carbon footprint each year.
Wolff Olins and Flamingo’s Game Changers series is an annual exploration of what’s driving change in the world of brands. The latest Game Changers report, The New Mainstream, looks at the evolving ways people are consuming products and interacting with brands. The research addresses the sense of uneasiness from companies about ‘giving up control to consumers’ in the age of social media. Some business leaders are embracing it, finding new ways to connect with their customers on an individual level — but most are nervous at the thought of potentially losing control of their brand.
Washington, D.C.-based clean energy company Arcadia Power has become the first nationwide clean energy B Corporation after meeting the rigorous social, environmental and legal standards of B Lab.Driven by a mission to democratize clean energy, Arcadia Power allows businesses and individuals to upgrade their offices or homes to 100 percent clean energy without any additional equipment, for just a 1.5 cents per kWh premium. The company’s proprietary software connects online utility accounts with a clean energy purchasing platform, imports all the energy data, and displays it in a web dashboard with information on rewards, savings and impact.
Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed last week that his company’s new headquarters in Cupertino, California would be the “greenest building on the planet.”Speaking at Climate Week NYC, when asked about Apple’s efforts to reduce its impact throughout its supply chain, CEO Tim Cook reportedly said: “We’re building a new headquarters that will, I think, be the greenest building on the planet. It’ll be a center for innovation, and it’s something clearly our employees want and we want. Apple at its roots has a very core value of leaving the world a better place than we found it.”
Ford Motor Company has begun installing 25,000 new LED fixtures to replace traditional high-intensity discharge and fluorescent lights, at its manufacturing facilities across the globe. The new fixtures, valued at over $25 million, are expected to reduce Ford’s energy use at manufacturing facilities by 56 million kilowatt-hours annually – enough to power more than 6,000 average-sized homes per year, and an up to 70 percent reduction in lighting energy consumption compared to traditional technologies. Annual energy costs are expected to be reduced by approximately $7 million.
A coalition of the world’s biggest companies has launched a global digital platform to drive conversation and momentum around sustainability — and to help reach the ever-elusive goal of making sustainable lifestyles the new normal.The idea for Collectively, launched today, emerged from conversations at last year’s World Economic Forum between Unilever, BT Group, The Coca-Cola Company, Marks & Spencer and Carlsberg, around how to engage more effectively with millennials to inspire and accelerate more sustainable ways of living.
For most people with skin problems, the solution is to try every possible remedy and product out there until they find one that works. But when the alternatives don’t work, some enterprising patients decide to make their own.Anita Redd took matters into her own hands when conventional remedies were no match for her infant son’s eczema — a painful condition causing inflamed and itchy skin. From birth, Kevin suffered from flaky and blistered patches on his body. When doctors recommended putting him on creams and steroids with potential side effects such as stunted growth, infections and hypertension, Redd decided to look elsewhere for alternatives.
Avery Dennison RBIS, a global provider of apparel branding, labeling, packaging, embellishments and RFID solutions, celebrated the opening of its Los Angeles-based Customer Design and Innovation Center (CDIC), a 15,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in the city’s Arts District.The LA center will offer a collaborative experience for apparel brands with access to deep consumer insights and the latest trend information from Avery Dennison RBIS. The CDIC will also equip the apparel industry with custom embellishment and analysis tools for intelligent, creative and sustainable designs that help communicate the power of their brand.
Southwest Airlines has signed an agreement with Red Rock Biofuels (RRB) to purchase approximately three million gallons of low carbon renewable jet fuel per year.The biofuels are made using forest residues that will help reduce the risk of destructive wildfires in the Western United States. RRB’s first plant will convert approximately 140,000 dry tons of woody biomass feedstock into at least 12 million gallons per year of renewable jet, diesel and naphtha fuels.The blended product will be used in Southwest’s San Francisco Bay Area operations with first delivery expected in 2016.
The deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Bangladesh in April 2013 was a tragic, overdue wake-up call to the fashion industry — not only to take action to ensure the safety of workers throughout their value chains, but also to illustrate the critical need for transparency as far as their operations reach throughout the world.
CO2 Solutions, an enzyme-enabled carbon capture technology company, has partnered with the University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) to test its technology at EERC’s testing facility using natural gas and coal flue gas in December.The program's goal is to evaluate several CO2 capture technologies that are among the most advanced systems under development for power and steam-generation plants.
The Tomorrow’s ValueTM Rating (TVR), published by DNV GL, assesses the sustainability performance of the world’s largest companies, evaluating how well companies understand their risks and opportunities, and how prepared they are to create future business value.For the second year running, Unilever tops the rating, with Intel, Nestlé and Swiss building materials producer Holcim in a three-way tie for second place.
Over the next decade, investments in clean technologies in emerging markets are estimated to exceed $6 trillion, of which $1.6 trillion represent business opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), according to a new report by infoDev/World Bank Group in collaboration with the Carbon Trust.
Cisco, 3M, Kimberly-Clark and Jackson Family Wines have announced commitments to deploy onsite solar energy and improve energy efficiency as part of an Obama Administration call to action.In total, 50 companies, states, communities and multifamily housing leaders from across the country have announced commitments representing more than 35 megawatts of solar deployed – enough energy to power thousands of homes – as well as energy efficiency investments that will lower energy bills for more than 400 million square feet of buildings.