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.
NIKE, Inc. has announced a new strategic partnership with private equity firm Apollo Global Management, LLC, aimed at building a transparent and ethical apparel supply chain in the Americas. Through the partnership, Nike aims to increase regional manufacturing capabilities, enable quicker delivery of more customized product to consumers and drive investment in sustainability.
Ethical apparel brand PACT | ORGANIC today launched a new campaign that aims to show how dirty the fashion industry really is. “The Skidmark,” a new digital campaign produced by the creative firm Denizen Company, shines a light on the proverbial (and in this case, literal) stain the $3 trillion global fashion industry is leaving on the environment and people affected by its production. What starts as your basic sexy underwear ad quickly shifts gears, and (fair warning) comes to a rather explosive conclusion.
The average American emits 17 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year just by going about their daily life – breathing, blow-drying their hair, cooking, and so on. The figure is similar for Australians (16.5 tonnes) and not much better for Canadians (14.1 tonnes), and for most people, it is impossible to reduce this figure to zero. At the same time, many understand that we face an imperative to reduce our impact and help cool the planet. So what are we to do?
These three facts should give pause to anyone who wants to see a resource-efficient clean energy future become a reality:
In our last article, we explained why it’s important to make sure that your purpose is thoroughly grounded in the political, economic, social and technological context in which you operate. We call this the “dig” phase: intensively researching and analysing your external environment. The “dig” phase doesn’t stop with the outside world, however. It’s just as important to look inwards. For your purpose to have any hope of gaining real purchase on the day-to-day operations of your business – to have any hope of being authentic - it must be fully aligned to the truth of your business.
Each year, a new wave of computers, smartphones and accessories spill onto the market with smaller components made from increasingly complex materials. Even as awareness of e-waste has grown and the circular economy has begun to spread its wings, progress is being undermined by a disposable culture in the tech industry.
As communications partners, we at Edelman are often asked by clients to help them bring their sustainability stories to life. But despite decades of progress on environmental initiatives, many companies still face challenges building CSR programming that resonates across the organization.
As an industry, we’re ignorant at best or utterly demagogic, one-sided and irresponsible at worst. The majority of do-good efforts from brands are little more than a cheeky pick-up line to charm consumers into buying more. How can we continuously ignore the societal or environmental consequences of our craft? I often hear marketing execs talk about advertising as a mirror of society despite its omnipresent impact. Advertising unquestionably promotes screwed-up beauty ideals, preys on people’s insecurities and egoism, and pushes a material arms race in which people are considered backward if they don’t have the newest gadget.
With the potential to change how businesses think about their waste, circular economy models could be an effective means of emissions reduction towards the commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement in addition to economic benefits, waste reduction, and reduced consumption of virgin materials.
A water- and space-efficient gardening system has been announced as the inaugural winner of the student Living Product Prize, a new initiative of the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. The AquaCity Garden is a modular hydroponic system designed to grow food and plants on indoor walls.
Two products have earned unprecedented recognition from the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program, raising the bar for building materials. This week, the program awarded its first-ever Platinum-level certification and named the first homogenous flooring product to earn Gold-level certification.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) launched the Living Progress Challenge (LPC) last year to inspire entrepreneurs across the globe to create software applications and digital services that improve lives.
Mark Manning, former oil industry insider and director of acclaimed Iraq war documentaries The Road to Fallujah and Caught in the Crossfire, has turned his lens to another battle taking place in the Gulf, this time on the U.S.’ Gulf Coast. The upcoming feature-length documentary, The Rising, details the devastating effects not only of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, but of the company’s cleanup efforts following the spill and the apparent large-scale cover-up of their health impacts on the coastal communities.
Product-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represented 74 percent of sports retailer Decathlon’s total emissions in 2015. With a new goal to stabilize its emissions by 2019, the company estimates it will need to reduce product-related impacts by 20 percent per year if it is to meet its target. Decathlon says its design teams have taken up the challenge and are progressively integrating environmental criteria into the quality-price combination of all of its products.
Roughly a decade ago, Hamdi Ulukaya was just beginning his journey to popularize Greek yogurt in the United States as a healthier alternative to the sugar-loaded, artificial preservatives-filled cups and tubes of yogurt Americans were consuming. After 18 months of studying and recipe-testing, he launched Chobani in 2007. Now, the company is worth somewhere between $3 and 5 billion, and Greek yogurt makes up about half of the American yogurt market.
News Deeply, in partnership with Sustainable Brands, has produced a series of profiles looking at how brands are tackling some of the world's biggest challenges. The goal is to examine trends and gather insights from a new wave of corporate citizenship – in an era when the private sector is increasingly expected to play a positive role in improving our lives and societies. This is the 3rd article in the series.
Anellotech, a sustainable technology company focused on producing cost-competitive BTX (benzene, toluene and xylene) – petrochemical-based aromatic hydrocarbons - from non-food biomass, has announced Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a member of the Toyota Group, as a multinational strategic equity investor and corporate partner in the renewable aromatic chemicals supply chain.
The United States, the world’s second-largest emitter of CO2, is faced with the task of converting its energy system from black to green. Offshore wind can help get the job done. Danish energy company DONG Energy believes that the US has the perfect conditions for exploiting the potential of offshore wind. The company, which has built roughly a quarter of the world’s current offshore wind capacity, has acquired the rights to establish wind farms in two areas off the country’s east coast, and expects offshore wind energy to be cheaper than fossil energy within 10 years.
When you set out on your purpose journey, what steps can you take to ensure that your purpose will be genuinely transformational for your business? In the ten years that we’ve been championing purpose and helping organisations to craft purpose-led visions, we’ve learned lessons about how to ensure that purpose sticks. Above all, we’ve seen how vital it is for purpose to be grounded in reality. Right from the start, you must root your purpose in the political, economic, social and technological context in which you operate. We call this the ‘dig’ phase: a period of intensive research and analysis of the current environment and future trends that affect your business.
Currently, 663 million people lack access to safe drinking water, and by 2025, half the world’s population could be living in water-stressed areas.