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Product, Service & Design Innovation

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.

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How to Make the SDGs Truly Sustainable: Social Entrepreneurs as Critical Achievement Engines

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), deadlined for completion in 2015, have given way to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched in September at the UN General Assembly and an array of other events including the SDG Business Forum, the Social Good Summit and the Clinton Global Initiative.In evaluating the over 100 presentations at these events, I was struck by the following:

Our Brain on Purpose

Psychology teaches us that humans are irrational, adaptable, constantly changing beings with cognitive abilities greater than any other animal. Economics would have us think we are rational, unchanging, robots devoid of empathy or feelings towards anyone else. So what happens when these two branches of the social science tree meet: welcome to behavioral economics.This is the third post in a short series on purpose. If you missed the first one, you should start here. The second post can be found here.

Business Incubators Helping Sustainability Startups Thrive

As a newborn startup, going it alone isn’t easy. Although the romantic conception of the birthplace of world-changing, disruptive businesses tends to be Harvard dorm rooms or parents' basements, this just isn’t the case for most fledgling firms.And having a great idea doesn’t guarantee that it will translate into a viable long-standing company. Often the devil is in the most mundane details, such as accounting, office space and legal services. In response to these growing needs, dozens of business “incubators” have sprouted up across the country to help nurture startups into the “next big thing.”

Trending: Sustainable Clothing Sees 12% Water Use Reduction in UK, New Products on Kickstarter

Around the world, more and more action is being taken to create a more sustainable clothing industry. In the U.K., waste reduction charity WRAP is seeing significant progress on its Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP). Meanwhile, two U.S.-based Kickstarter campaigns are offering sustainable, certified organic options: men’s denim made in America; and temperature-regulating base layers that use nanofibers from Austria.

Indigenous Communities May Offer the Most Affordable, Effective Forest Protection

Two new reports suggest that the best way to protect forests is to let indigenous and local communities manage them. Released Thursday, both reports provide evidence to support that community-led management is a financially and environmentally responsible approach to curbing deforestation.

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New Clooney Ad, Video Promoting Nespresso and Its Sustainability Program in the US

After nine years as a spokesman for Nespresso in Europe, actor and activist George Clooney has finally agreed to promote the brand in North America. Television advertisements began airing yesterday, and online videos promoting the company’s social impact and sustainability commitments are part of the deal. Clooney is a member of the Nespresso Sustainability Advisory Board.

Food Shift Launching Systemic Approach to Food Recovery with Alameda Kitchen

It’s difficult to swallow the contradictory statistic that 50 million Americans are food insecure while 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is wasted, according to the NRDC. Food recovery entrepreneur and advocate, Dana Frasz — founder of Oakland, Calif.-based food-recovery non-profit Food Shift— suggests that the sustainable food movement could use a new recipe. Those working on hunger should not just look at providing food, but how they can create jobs.

The Power of Positive: New eBook Explores Concept, Practice of Net Positive Movement

A new eBook encapsulates the key learnings of a recent week-long digital ThinkTank (virtual dialogue) conducted on the Convetit online engagement platform, which grappled with many of the thorny questions emerging from early practice of Net Positive business.

Spoiler Alert: Can This App Close the Food Waste Loop?

Despite recent food-saving innovations such as FreshPaper, efforts to promote “ugly produce” and industry-wide commitments to reduce food waste, millions of tons of food are still discarded every year.

Want Your Brand to Survive? View Purpose as an Asset, Not a Cost

Recently, I was invited for a panel discussion on the future in brand communication at the renowned faculty of advertising and marketing, the ESPM, in São Paulo. I shared my view that society nowadays demands brands to positively contribute to the solution of societal issues. One of the questions raised was: “All very nice, but is it in companies not all about the financial results at the end of the month? So is the investment in purpose not the first cut a brand faces when financial results are down?”

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Target Launches Collaboration with MIT Media Lab, IDEO to Explore the Future of Food

Today, Target announced a new collaboration with MIT’s Media Lab and global design firm IDEO that will explore the future of food. The work will focus on areas such as urban farming, food transparency and authenticity, supply chain and health. Target says the goal of the multi-year collaboration is to push the edges of science, technology and design to give people better control over their food choices and help them to eat healthier.

Off-Grid Solar Startup Bringing Affordable, Reliable Electricity to Haiti

Haitian off-grid utility startup RE-VOLT is on a mission to bring affordable and reliable electricity to families in rural Haiti and is running a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the expansion of its service to more customers, according to a recent announcement.RE-VOLT recently launched a campaign on crowdfunding site Indiegogo in order to raise the working capital necessary to grow its customer base on La Gonave to 2,000 households or 10,000 people by January 2016.

Report: Food Companies Gaining Ground on Product Sustainability

Food production dominates fresh water use and is a primary driving force for soil and biodiversity loss – and food demand is on the rise. The good news is that while faced with such challenges and often considered to be lagging on sustainability, the food and beverage industry stands out as most-improved in a 2015 survey.

‘The Best Ideas Might Not Be Ours’: DiCaprio Produces Film on Biomimicry

As more and more organizations with sustainability missions are discovering, getting a celebrity to help spread your message could be the difference between creating a tiny ripple and engaging millions around the world (see recent examples around deforestation, the Sustainable Development Goals, clean drinking water, and eating more produce, to n

Investors Gave This Sustainable Food Startup $108M to Do the 'Impossible'

Sustainable food startup Impossible Foods recently raised $108 million in Series D funding, bringing their total funding to date to $183 million. The Redwood City, California-based company is creating meat and dairy alternatives from plant ingredients that are remarkably similar to the real thing.

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Skeleton Tech's Graphene-Based Ultracapacitors Could Revolutionize Long-Life Storage

Out of 37 nominated startups, Skeleton Technologies won the Gold ECO15 London Award at the Ecosummit 2015 conference. The company manufactures high-performance, graphene-based ultracapacitors — energy storage devices with much higher power and longer life cycles than batteries.

The Making of Fairphone 2 (or How to Design Products to Tell Sustainability Stories)

“I want our new phone to be a storytelling product.” This was the exciting and daunting challenge laid down to us by Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel, just over a year ago, in the first briefing for their new ethical phone handset design.

New App Aims to Disrupt Retail by Cutting Out Big Box Middlemen

Flipping the business-to-consumer (B2C) model on its head, San Francisco-based startup WUSIC wants to disrupt the retail industry through a “consumer-to-business” (C2B) model where consumers go straight to manufacturers for the largest savings possible. Consumer demand would dictate supply quantity and price from online marketplace Alibaba’s network of global factories, effectively cutting out big box middlemen such as WalMart and Target.

Loliware’s Edible Drinkware Attracts $600K Deal on ‘Shark Tank’

Frustrated by the amount of disposable packaging discarded at events and the amount of time it takes for disposable cups (including biobased plastics) to degrade, Chelsea Briganti and Leigh Ann Tucker created a “biodegredible” – biodegradable and edible – cup. Last week, the women pitched their startup, Loliware, on the ABC show “Shark Tank” and secured a $600,000 deal for 25 percent of their company.

Farm-to-Air Fresh: JetBlue, TERRA Launch Blue Potato Farm at JFK Terminal 5

JetBlue Airways and TERRA® Real Vegetable Chips today revealed the T5 Farm – a blue potato farm and produce garden at Terminal 5 (T5) at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. An experiment in ‘farm-to-air’ innovation, the farm will promote New York agriculture and enhance the JetBlue customer experience with more green space.

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