Candice McLeod
How Timberland Partnered with Smallholder Farmers to Scale Sustainable Development in Haiti
Organizational Change / On Wednesday, over an intimate, invite-only lunch at SB ’15 San Diego, Timberland and the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) screened the trailer for their documentary, KOMBIT: The Cooperative, scheduled for release in October 2015.KOMBIT means “pulling together” in Haitian Creole. Timberland says this is the perfect description of the partnership among local Haitians, as well as its work with them and SFA to rebuild the island nation’s environmental and economic landscape through small-scale farming. - 7 years ago
How New Engagement Tools Are Making Carbon Offsets More Accessible for Business
Collaboration / Given the packed room for Wednesday afternoon’s panel discussing carbon offsetting, it’s evident that as organizations become increasingly aware of their environmental risks, carbon management has become a critical tool. - 7 years ago
How to Build a Branded Peer-to-Peer Marketplace
The Next Economy / Couldn't make ittoSB '15 San Diego?View this session'spresentationhereand catch up onthe week's - 7 years ago
How to Utilize Cities as Partners, Customers for New Sustainable Solutions: The City Perspective
The Next Economy / “Use your city as a platform,” opened moderator and CSO for the City of Palo Alto Gil Friend.While local governments have gotten the bad reputation of being slow, bureaucratic animals, the panelists, representing four major cities across the United States — including Los Angeles and New York City- presented the business case for corporations to integrate their sustainability efforts with their cities for the success of shared goals. - 7 years ago
#SB15sd: How to Stay Afloat in Water Management
New Metrics / Led by Val Fishman, VP of Corporate Partnerships for the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), this panel congregated some of the most influential organizations that are driving change and collaboration within water stewardship. It also congregated a full room, which is not surprising considering that water scarcity has been pushed under the spotlight, having been named this year's top global risk by the World Economic Forum. - 7 years ago
New Moop + Thread Bags First Products to Feature Thread's Plastic-Turned-Fabric
Product, Service & Design Innovation / SBIO 2013 finalist Thread, which creates fabric from plastic bottle waste collected in the developing world, has released a line of special-edition bags with its first partner, canvas bag manufacturer Moop. Each waxed canvas Moop + Thread bag — available in Messenger No.1 and Paperback styles, all designed and hand-manufactured at Moop’s Pittsburgh-based studio — is lined with fabric made from 16 plastic bottles. - 8 years ago
Isidore Slashing E-Waste, Recidivism in LA While Planning Broader Impact
Product, Service & Design Innovation / In the lead-up to this year’s SB Innovation Open, we’re catching up with some of our favorite paradigm-disrupting startups from past years. This week, we have an update from SBIO 2013 finalist Isidore Electronics Recycling.Our last encounter with SBIO finalist Isidore was fairly dramatic. Right before the SBIO finals in San Diego last year, the young company experienced a warehouse fire, forcing them to regroup and relocate in a short period of time. - 8 years ago
LaborVoices Continues to Provide 'SmartLine' of Insight Into Supply Chain Issues
Product, Service & Design Innovation / In the lead-up to this year’s SB Innovation Open, we’re catching up with some of our favorite paradigm-disrupting startups from past years. This week, we have an update from LaborVoices. - 8 years ago
True to Its Name, Thread Now Spinning Plastic Waste Into Fabric
Product, Service & Design Innovation / In the lead-up to this year’s SB Innovation Open, we’re catching up with some of our favorite paradigm-disrupting startups from past years. This week, we have an update from Thread. When we last met SBIO 2013 finalists Thread, the burgeoning social enterprise had taken up the task of transforming the tons of plastic waste littering Haiti not only into local jobs but also quality products for consumers in the US and eventually around the world. - 8 years ago
3 Startups Offering Simple, Scalable Solutions to One of the World's Biggest Problems
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Wrinkled veggies. Rotting fruit. Containers that you wouldn’t dare open because of the smells that might escape. How many times have you cleaned out your refrigerator and been dismayed at how much food has spoiled? Every year, billions of dollars are wasted because of food spoilage. In fact, the EPA notes that “in 2011 alone, more than 36 million tons of food waste was generated, with only four percent of food waste generated diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting.” Meanwhile, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) paints a wider picture by noting that one-third of food produced for human consumption is wasted, which translates into 1.3 billion metric tons of food per year. - 9 years ago
The Story of Stuff's 'The Good Stuff' Examines Roadblocks to Greener Chemistry
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / Do you read the ingredient labels of your products? Here are some from a popular baby shampoo:“Purple paraben, quarternium-15, sorbitan laurate…,” rattles off Annie Leonard, co-director of The Story of Stuff Project, during the most recent episode of their “Good Stuff” podcast, which discussed green chemistry.Now, what do those ingredients mean? Where do they come from? If companies are allowed to sell them on the shelves, is that not an indication that they are safe to use? What about the ingredients that aren’t listed … and what does “fragrance” really mean? - 9 years ago
GravityLight: A People- and Planet-Friendly Bright Spot for Many Without Electricity
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Each week leading up to our SB London conference, where the winner of the SB London Innovation Open (SBIOL) will be announced on November 18, we will get to know each of our four finalists. This week, meet GravityLight.UK-based social enterprise Deciwatt is certainly living up to its goal of “doing more with less”: The company is capitalizing on the intangible but powerful natural phenomenon, gravity, to produce light for those who need it most. - 9 years ago
Water Scarcity: Dealing with the Long-Term Business Risk
Collaboration / Yesterday, in an attempt to stimulate dialogue and increase awareness around global water risk, CDP held its Global Water Forum 2013, “Investing in Water Security.”The impetus for the conversation, and in general CDP’s water program, is to catalyze sustainable global water stewardship.Water scarcity is a long-term business risk which has not, quite frankly, been gaining the same level of attention as other sustainability issues, such as energy efficiency and carbon reduction.However, unlike carbon, water is not a renewable resource.“I am very passionate that water is not carbon,” said Will Sarni, Director and Practice Leader, Enterprise Water Strategy at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “There is no replacement for water. Carbon is renewable. Water is not.” - 9 years ago
F-Cubed: Poised to Save the World from Pathogens
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Chicago start-up F-Cubed, LLC (F3) is helping to stem the recurrence of infectious diseases across the food, health and environmental testing sectors with its disruptive invention — a portable diagnostic device that can analyze raw samples for pathogens in less than an hour.What does that mean?As an example of environmental testing, F3’s innovative analyzer can help swimmers avoid unforeseen illnesses by testing the bacteria levels within bodies of water. - 9 years ago
Ed Begley, Jr Chronicles Building of LEED Platinum Family Home in New Series, "On Begley Street"
Marketing and Comms / On Sunday, evōx, (pronounced e-vokes), the new online marketplace and entertainment network geared toward sustainable lifestyles, hosted the premiere of “On Begley Street” at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA.Produced by Make it Happen Productions, the show features one of the most prominent eco-celebs, Ed Begley Jr., and his family as they build a LEED Platinum home, with the specific goal of building the ‘most sustainable house in North America.’ - 9 years ago
The Evolution of Social Impact Metrics: Where Math and Computer Science Meet the Humanities
New Metrics / The usefulness of advanced data analytics — Big Data, small data and everything in between — is converging with the needs of corporate sustainability, and this is creating new opportunities for companies pursuing ambitious sustainability goals. - 9 years ago
Does Your Sustainability Pitch Make Enough Sense to Your CFO?
New Metrics / Many experts have observed in recent months that innovating for sustainability seems to be attracting mainstream attention, particularly at Fortune 500 companies and among forward-looking social entrepreneurs. The growth of the Sustainable Brands community certainly supports that claim, with an audience of over 2,800 boasting more than $4 trillion in combined annual revenue represented at SB’13 earlier this summer. At the same time, however, in the majority of cases sustainability is still not part of firms' core strategies. And we can’t expect to be on the right long-term trajectory if all we do is encourage employees to switch to double-sided printing. - 9 years ago
Sustainability Investing Grows Quickly, Though Measuring ROI Remains a Challenge
New Metrics / As a growing slice of a larger corporate push to develop more creative solutions to sustainability challenges, impact investing encourages financial actors to consider social and environmental issues when making investment decisions.These financial actors can range from first-generation entrepreneurs who have already integrated sustainability into their company DNA to foundations, family offices and institutions that invest in portfolios that align with their mission, as well as Fortune 500 companies. - 9 years ago
Delaware Combines Power of Business and Social Good With New Benefit Corporation Legislation
Marketing and Comms / As The New Metrics of Sustainable Business Conference draws closer, we will be building up the conversation around industry developments to explore future investments in sustainability. One of the latest developments is the enactment of benefit corporation legislation in Delaware on July 17th. Benefit corporation legislation seeks to protect for-profit companies that want to do well and do good at the same time, by allowing them the freedom to pursue higher corporate purposes, aside from maximizing profits.While DE is the 18th state to sign benefit corporation legislation into law, it is undoubtedly one of the most important states to do so. - 9 years ago
Ecopia Working to Reduce Plastic Waste, Increase Quality of Life for Small Farms in Developing Countries
Waste Not / In the final week leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 5th, where the runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will feature daily articles introducing our semi-finalists. Today, meet Ecopia.Minnesota-based start-up Ecopia offers environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional plastic and paper products, while also driving social value within the communities that create its goods. - 9 years ago