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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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soleRebels: Rising to the Top of the Footwear Industry Through Decent Work

“It was pretty basic. We self-financed. Five workers plus myself working inside a workshop situated on my grandmother’s plot of land inside our village of Zenabwork,” recalls Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, now CEO and managing director of soleRebels, one of the first global footwear brands to emerge from a developing country.“Right from the start of 2004, we aimed to create, grow and control a world class footwear brand that would bring even more jobs and prosperity for the workers by leveraging the artisan skills of our community.”

Walmart.com Launches New Shop to Help Shoppers Find and Support Sustainability Leaders

On Tuesday, Sustainable Brands joined a couple hundred Walmart team members and industry influencers at Walmart’s eCommerce headquarters in San Bruno, CA to learn about an important milestone on the journey shared by those attending. What drew these players together was a shared interest in helping shift the world toward a sustainable economy — and an awareness of the key role Walmart has, and is playing, in spurring this shift along.

Beyond Incremental: Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan Takes Innovation to Scale

Once companies tackle the low-hanging fruit of operational improvement — carbon footprints, energy-efficiency retrofits and waste reduction — they are ready to address deeper sustainability challenges.

#BusinessCase: Big Savings Through Waste Reduction Enables Rapanui to Drop Prices

L-R: Mart and Rob Drake-Knight | Image credit: RapanuiAs more and more brands begin to tout their sustainability credentials, increasingly savvy and conscientious shoppers are looking for companies that are walking their talk, with products and practices that reflect an authentic commitment to doing better business.

Startup Develops World’s Thinnest Speaker

A startup called Soundlazer claims to have developed the world’s thinnest speaker, made from a new class of plastic polymer. With the ability to reproduce a large range of audio frequencies, the company says it can be used to deliver audio in tight or unique spaces.

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'Soft Sustainability': How Brands Are Successfully Communicating Their Efforts by Steering Clear of the 'S' Word

Back in the late 1980s, Harvard professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe the US’s ability to influence the world through the marketing power of its global consumer brands and Hollywood’s razzle dazzle rather than the US military’s big stick.Today, as companies begin to shape a narrative that makes sense to the public, Nye’s language could well be applied to sustainability.Welcome to the era of Soft Sustainability.The term could be used to describe the approach of some of the world’s biggest companies as they seek to communicate their own sustainability work while also providing their consumers and greater community a roadmap to sustainable living.

Dow Pilot Program Shows Plastic Waste Can Be Turned Into Fuel

The Dow Chemical Company recently completed a pilot program aimed at showing how certain plastics such as juice pouches, candy wrappers and plastic dinnerware — which are not easily recyclable under traditional models — can be converted into synthetic crude oil for fuel.As part of the Energy Bag Pilot Program, Dow partnered with the Flexible Packaging Association, Republic Services, Agilyx, Reynolds Consumer Products and the city of Citrus Heights, Calif. to drive a collection pilot program meant to divert non-recycled plastics from landfills and to optimize their resource efficiency across the lifecycle.

Kuli Kuli Shines Through in Crowded ‘Super Food’ Market

The term “super food” has become trite in today’s health-crazed dietary marketplace — used to describe everything from kale to blueberries. The word is rarely used by dietitians or nutrition scientists because few foods pack enough of a nutritional punch to merit “super” status.But there still are a few deserving of the title — and a plant called moringa is one of them. The moringa tree is a plant native to parts of Africa and Asia renowned for its nutritional value — each leaf contains seven times the vitamin C of oranges, four times the vitamin A of carrots, four times the calcium of milk, three times the potassium of bananas and twice the protein of yogurt.

Nestlé USA Removing All Artificial Flavors, Colors from Its Chocolate Candy by the End of 2015

This week, Nestlé USA boldly committed to removing all artificial flavors and FDA-certified colors from all of its chocolate candy products by the end of 2015. The change will affect the food giant’s current portfolio of more than 10 chocolate brands and 250 products, including Nestlé Crunch, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Skinny Cow, Raisinets, Goobers, Sno Caps, 100 Grand, Oh Henry and Chunky. New versions of the products will begin appearing on store shelves by mid-2015, and will be identified by a “No Artificial Flavors or Colors” claim featured on-pack.

Report: Reusing and Remanufacturing Mobile Devices Can Cut CO2 by 50% While Increasing Sales

New strategies for reuse and remanufacturing of mobile devices can cut the carbon footprint of each device by up to half while expanding sales, according to a new report from the Green Alliance.A circular economy for smart devices identifies how laptops, tablets and smartphones up to five years old can be profitably recovered and resold in the UK, US and India. It describes six business models that companies can use to adapt to consumer preferences for lower cost, longer-lasting electronics and how reuse can bring the benefits of internet connected devices to new consumers in the developing world.

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Why Social Design Is the Innovation Business Needs Now

"Business and social innovation live in separate worlds, and speak different languages. As the need to make humans more creative and society more resilient becomes central to corporations' ability to grow, it's time to change that. This is an invitation to learn how. Cheryl Heller, Chair, MFA Design for Social Innovation, SVATo put you at ease, if you are a good business person, this is about profit, not nonprofit. It's about creating markets, not philanthropy or charity or cause marketing. It's about using design to benefit people, both inside companies and in society, and in the process, strengthening business.

Closed-Loop Fabric Producers Still Ironing Out Wrinkles in Circular Textile Supply Chain

Interest is growing in new synthetic fabrics and textiles made from waste materials that have the potential to be used again and again. Designed from the outset to work within closed-loop supply cycles, Returnity and Econyl are perhaps the two best-known examples of branded products in this field. The level of innovation that is built into these regenerative fabrics is impressive – they outline a wealth of environmental benefits and savings. In the case of Econyl, there is a clear social value driver in terms of delivering a more community-minded, inclusive business model.

tonlé's Creative Approach Showing Fashion Industry How Zero Waste Is Really Done

Cambodian fashion brand tonlé is revolutionizing the textile industry not only with its ethical business model, but also a creative approach to zero-waste.

New App OpenLabel Aims to Replace Product Labels

Silicon Valley startup OpenLabel has just launched a free iPhone app and website that lets consumers and non-profit partners attach information and product ratings directly onto any barcoded product.After closing half a million dollar seed investment from investors at Google, Amazon, and MicroVentures, OpenLabel released its free mobile app and web platform that helps smart shoppers make healthier, more responsible, and more informed decisions.

Show Me the Money: Sustainability and Financial Outperformance

“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.”— Ada LovelaceAt the leading edge of sustainability best practice some leading companies are already developing meaningful pathways towards truly sustainable business models. For the followers, there is perhaps a perceptible acceptance that sustainability is an important aspect of good corporate management. However, there still remains a need to demonstrate, within the current modes of capitalism, how sustainability impacts financial performance.

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How Cryptocurrency Is Lifting Hope for South Africa's Women

Digital currency, aka cryptocurrency, is shaking up the financial industry’s entrenched institutions, and now its potential for doing good is dawning — as it enables accountability and financial sovereignty one mobile click at a time.Stellar, a nonprofit building a global digital platform for money transfer, is partnering with open-source text messaging network, Vumi, to empower young women in South Africa in an aptly titled program, Give a Girl a Savings Account.

Coffee Ground Yarn, Rice Husks and More in M&S' First Sustainable Footwear Collection

UK retailer Marks & Spencer has launched its first sustainable footwear collection, called Footglove Earth — the latest component of the company's ongoing Plan A initiative to become the world's most sustainable retailer by 2020.

On the Ground: Cornell Center Demonstrates Benefits of Applied Research

To the uninitiated, persuading those living in malaria-prone parts of the world to buy low-cost insecticides seems simple: Explain the benefits and the products will, to use the old phrase, “sell themselves.”For many years, the traditional theory for selling to bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) consumers, 4 billion of whom earn less than $1,500 annually, has espoused, “low price, low margin, high volume.”

What Can You Do to Create Positive Change in the Fashion Industry?

“What does it mean to be ‘eco’ or ‘green’ today? We need to redefine that. We need to modernize the fashion industry. This is where we need to be in the 21st century — all products need to be created with thought.”This statement was made by actress, fashion icon and social entrepreneur Amber Valletta at the public launch for Fashion Positive in New York on November 14, 2014. The occasion was the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute’s Innovation Celebration and the audience was a room full of the next-generation thinkers of sustainability, fashion icons, industry leaders and vision makers.

Documentary Looks at Innovations, Sustainable Practices in Fashion That Could Become 'The Next Black'

The Next Black, a documentary that explores how out-of-the-box thinking and more conscious design are shaping the future of our clothes, had its first screening in Brooklyn earlier this week. The event kicked off a weeklong exhibit at the BF+DA about the growing intimacy between technology and fashion.

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