How brands are successfully communicating their sustainability efforts — and how their stakeholders are asserting their own needs and preferences
What people want was the nub of the most exciting conversations at Sustainable Brands London earlier this week. Read More...
Extreme weather events cost the United States $100 billion in 2012, most of which went towards federal crop, flood, wildfire and disaster relief, according to a new report by Ceres called Inaction on Climate Change: The Cost to Taxpayers. Read More...
In honor of Universal Children’s Day (November 20), Unilever today launches a new long-term initiative, Unilever Project Sunlight, to motivate millions to live sustainably. With the help of pop star and new mom Fergie, Unilever aims to inspire people to help create a brighter future by making donations to help two million children. Read More...
In response to market demand and the release of LEED v4, LCA software pioneer Sustainable Minds has launched an innovative new way for manufacturers to transparently report the environmental performance of their products. SM Transparency ReportsTM is a new alternative to environmental product declarations (EPD) — with equivalent credibility and superior distillation of technical information for end users. NSF International, industry leader in product certification, is providing the LCA verification and report certification. Read More...
CorporateRegister.com, which hosts and manages the global online directory of corporate responsibility (CR) reports, today released its annual free CR Perspectives report, combining data, insight and opinion to reveal how global CR reporting has developed and where it might be headed. Read More...
Research presented this morning at the SB London conference reveals that many of the world’s consumers lay the responsibility of solving global environmental issues mostly at the door of businesses. Read More...
Earlier this week, Coca-Cola released its 2012/2013 Sustainability Report, which outlined progress the global beverage giant has made in the areas of water conservation and restoration, supporting sustainable community initiatives and empowering female entrepreneurs around the world.We caught up with Coke’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Bea Perez, for more on the company’s progress to date and the work that’s left to be done. Read More...
In this series, Christophe Fauconnier & Benoit Beaufils, respectively CEO & founding partner of brand consultancy Innate Motion, present the tools that the company uses to develop purposeful, mission-driven brands with their clients. Benoit & Christophe view their tools as a free “thoughtware” suite, and propose that readers borrow and reapply. Read More...
The UN Global Compact (UNGC) today released a guide for companies to manage and report on their direct and indirect influences on climate policy. Now for the first time, companies have guidelines to help them engage in climate policy in a transparent and accountable way that is consistent with their sustainability commitments. Read More...
Last month, BBMG, GlobeScan and SustainAbility released The 2013 Aspirational Consumer Index, a report that confirms the rise of nearly 2.5 billion consumers globally who are uniting style, social status and sustainability values to redefine consumption. According to the report, more than one-third of consumers globally (36.4%) identify as Aspirationals, defined by their love of shopping (78%), desire for responsible consumption (92%) and their trust in brands to act in the best interest of society (58%). Read More...
There’s nothing sexy about a Materiality Report. Delicately revealing your intimate water stewardship credentials is unlikely to get any one hot under the collar. And no one at your local is going to leap out of bed for a carbon-reduction conversation.Dream in a Box is a methodology I have been working on for some three years with Peggy Liu of JUCCCE and China Dream fame. It has its own dream: to help people re-imagine a more enduring, future-proofed model of prosperity at scale, a prosperity that aligns itself with a populist aspiration — a new aspirational concept of thriving within our own, our communities and our immediate world’s means. Read More...
Keep America Beautiful (KAB) is encouraging people to give their garbage another life on America Recycles Day, taking place this year on Friday, Nov. 15.The organization says the average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash in a single day, yet we recycle only 35 percent of the country’s waste. America Recycles Day encourages people to recycle more at home, at work and on the go. Read More...
There is an increasing need for public and private sector collaboration to create and implement recycling solutions across the country, as shown by a recent survey conducted by Research Data + Insights on behalf of the Carton Council of North America (CCNA). The survey revealed that consumers overwhelmingly believe that product companies and their brands play a crucial role in recycling: Of 1,000 adults surveyed across the U.S., 86 percent responded that they expect food and beverage brands to actively help increase the recycling of their packages. Read More...
Coca Cola improved water efficiency by 21.4 percent since 2004 and supported an estimated replenishment of approximately 52 percent of the water used in finished beverage products through 2012, according to the company’s tenth annual Sustainability Report and third Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Report.Earlier this year, the company was among the first to receive the Carbon Trust Water Standard for achieving its lowest-ever water-use ratio and reducing water usage by nearly 15 percent since 2007. Read More...
It’s been a busy fall for Patagonia — the outdoor apparel company kicked off October with the launch of its “Responsible Economy” campaign, which challenges consumers and businesses to think more consciously about disposability and resource allocation, and ended the month by announcing its plans to offer Fair Trade Certified™ apparel, beginning in Fall 2014. Read More...
Here’s a novel idea: Paying people enough to live off comfortably motivates them to not only work harder, but stick around longer.In a recent letter published by the Financial Times, investors from local authorities, unions and charities, such as the CCLA, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Pensions Trust, said they wish to invest in companies that focus on the longevity and productivity of their business operations. The investors claimed there is “considerable evidence that paying the living wage helps to achieve these objectives.” Read More...
The perfect family. The perfect home. One huge mistake.As the battle rages on over the Keystone XL project, 350.org teamed up with True Climate Stories in an attempt to convey the truly terrifying implications of the potential pipeline. Read More...
Although business leaders expect exponential growth in consumer interest and business action on sustainable lifestyles within five years, they are struggling to make the case for action, according to survey results released earlier this year by BSR and global sustainability agency Futerra. Read More...
Hilton Worldwide has saved nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from energy efficiency projects over the past 4 years, according to its 2012-2013 corporate responsibility report.Since 2009, the hospitality company reduced energy use by 12.2 percent and carbon output by 12.8 percent. In the U.S., Hilton purchased more than 450 million kilowatt hours of renewable power through December 31, 2012 — enough to meet 94 percent of the annual electricity use in its owned hotels in the United States. Read More...
The Federal Trade Commission recently announced enforcement actions against six companies — five of which address biodegradable plastic claims for the first time — as part of the agency’s ongoing crackdown on false and misleading environmental claims.The cases include a complaint against a biofilms company that claims its additive makes its plastic products biodegradable, as well as four complaints and proposed consent orders against companies marketing various plastics with allegedly false and unsupported biodegradability claims. The civil penalty case involves a complaint and consent order against a company that has since violated a 1994 FTC order prohibiting it from making unsupported “green” claims for its paper plates and bags. Read More...