Hannah Furlong
Editorial Assistant
Sustainable Brands
Blaxtar Offers 'Frank' Distillation of Heineken's Sustainability Progress in New Video
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Move over Prince Ea, there's a new spoken word artist promoting sustainability. To help reach a wider audience for its newly-released 2015 sustainability report, Heineken recruited Dutch rapper and vocal artist Kevin "Blaxtar" de Randamie to transform the report into his own artistic expression. - 7 years ago
Apparel Startup Forgoes Ad Budget to Plant Trees, Feed Kids, Provide Water
Product, Service & Design Innovation / When you’re shopping for your next hoodie, this startup is hoping you’ll choose to plant as many as 93 trees: ch8se (choose) is a new experimental fashion brand from Amsterdam that has decided to donate its would-be advertising budget towards planting trees or providing food or water to those in need. “This is an attempt to democratise consumer activism. We believe that conscious consumerism is our most effective tool for making a change and it's currently extremely under-utilized,” ch8se co-founder David Eros told Sustainable Brands in an e-mail. - 7 years ago
Ad Campaign Encourages Creatives to Think Beyond Consumerism
Marketing and Comms / Artist network Brandalism believes that the talent, energy and creativity of ad agency employees is “sinking into an ever-expanding black hole.” The network recently launched a campaign to appeal to those who feel the same, by placing several posters in front of ad agency offices in Manchester and London. - 7 years ago
Unilever, Kellogg, Mars Drop Major Palm Oil Supplier After RSPO Revokes Its Certification
Supply Chain / Six years after NGOs released a scathing report on Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Group, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) decided to suspend IOI last Monday. - 7 years ago
G-Star, Ted Baker Lead Fashion Sustainability Disclosure with MADE-BY’s Revamped Scorecards
New Metrics / Fashion brands’ sustainability performance has lacked independent verification and true transparency. European non-profit MADE-BY is hoping their ‘ground-breaking’ new tool, called MODE Tracker, will change that. - 7 years ago
Utility Companies Turn to ‘PR Guru’ for Help Cleaning Up Their Reputation
Cleantech / The trade organization representing investor-owned electric companies, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), has hired a communications consultant who will help utilities rebrand themselves into something more appealing to the public. The changes will include shifts in messaging, such as from “utility-scale solar” to “community solar.” A new communication plan is expected to be presented to the organization’s members within a month. - 7 years ago
Report Reveals 67% of Cans Contain BPA; Campbell Soup, Del Monte to Switch Packaging
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / A report released today by six non-profit organizations found that 67 percent of nearly 200 tested food can linings contained Bisphenol A (BPA). The report also identified the replacement materials and to what extent their safety has been studied. Ahead of the report’s release, both Campbell Soup Co. and Del Monte Foods announced plans to switch to BPA-free packaging. - 7 years ago
How the World’s Most Wasteful Country Is Leading the Shift to a Circular Economy
The Next Economy / John A. Mathews and Hao Tan, both professors based in Australia, believe that the country that consumes the most resources in the world and produces the most waste also has the most advanced solutions. In a recent article for Nature, they summarized China’s progress on closing industrial loops to reduce its industries’ consumption of virgin materials and waste generation – in other words, the development of a circular economy. China’s levels of consumption and waste are completely unsustainable, and its resource use is inefficient. The authors provide several statistics for context: - 7 years ago
New Tools Benchmark Corporate Efforts to Eliminate Modern Slavery
Supply Chain / Modern slavery has been a popular topic in corporate responsibility lately, and with good reason: Forced labor affects roughly 21 million people around the globe, and 71 percent of companies believe there is a likelihood of modern slavery occurring at some point within their supply chains. - 7 years ago
UK Announces Tax on Sugary Beverages; Industry May Sue
Behavior Change / In a surprise announcement on March 16, the UK government unveiled a tax on sugary drinks amidst its budgetary plans. Companies have 2 years to reformulate their products, but the director general of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision and called it “a piece of political theatre.” Soft drink makers, including Coca-Cola, are reportedly considering suing the government to force the tax to be scrapped. - 7 years ago
Criticism Over Coffee Cup Waste Leads to Starbucks Discount, Call to Go Biodegradable
Behavior Change / A successful campaign led by chef-turned-activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall drew attention to a big problem: coffee cup waste. Fearnley-Whittingstall claims that in the UK, less than 6 million takeaway hot beverage cups are recycled each year, while 7 million are thrown out each day. As part of his Hugh’s War on Waste initiative (which includes a television show), he took to the streets of London on March 14 in a “coffee cup battle bus.” - 7 years ago
Methane-Eating Bacteria Could Be a Win-Win for Reducing Emissions, Impacts of Fish Farming
Supply Chain / A non-animal, non-vegetable feed for fish farms could help reduce the negative impacts of our fish consumption. Fish is likely an inevitable part of how the world will meet the protein demands of over 9 billion people by 2050, and the World Bank predicts that fish farms will produce nearly two thirds of global supply by 2030. - 7 years ago
General Mills, ‘Disappointed’ by Lack of National Solution, Will Label GMOs
Marketing and Comms / On Friday, General Mills announced that it will “soon” start labeling its products that contain genetically modified organism (GMO) ingredients nationwide. With the rationale that it is impractical to label its products for just one state, the company plans to disclose GMO ingredients according to the law set to go into effect in Vermont on July 1. - 7 years ago
Consumers ‘Actively Seek’ Natural Ingredients, Clean Label Packaging
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / Products that can be positioned as ‘natural,’ ‘organic,’ and/or ‘free from additives/preservatives,’ are part of a movement that is here to stay, according to global ingredients solutions company Ingredion. Research commissioned by the company reveals that European customers are paying more attention to food packaging and ingredients, with a preference for clean label positioning – a short, simple ingredient list that features minimally processed ingredients. “Our research tells us that consumers are actively looking for products with clean label claims,” said Mona Schmitz-Hübsch, European Marketing Manager at Ingredion. - 7 years ago
Study: More Conscious Living Increases Happiness; Tetra Pak Challenges Consumers to Find Out
Behavior Change / New findings from a survey and a social experiment suggest that ‘the key to happiness’ may be as simple as making small lifestyle changes that help protect Earth’s natural resources. 70 percent of the survey respondents and all of the participants in the social experiment reported that ‘making eco-minded choices’ led to significant increases in personal happiness. - 7 years ago
Trending: New Materials, Traceability Could Help Mould Circular Economy for Plastics
The Next Economy / With the opportunity to curb over $80 billion in annual industry losses, a circular economy for plastics seems pretty appealing. Several projects in Europe are working to make this happen: Earlier this month, Sustainable Brands covered a collaborative effort between the cities of London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen to improve plastics capture, but companies, non-profits and research centres are also working together to improve traceability and create new materials to help facilitate the transition to a circular economy for plastics. - 7 years ago
GRI: The Next Era of Corporate Disclosure Is Real-Time Interaction
Cleantech / Scores of sustainability data are collected and reported, but much of its value is still buried. According to GRI, sustainability performance data will be pivotal in solving society’s key challenges – and with the help of technology, the way it is captured, analyzed and used is all about to change. - 7 years ago
Unilever, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Join Market Research Partnership to Tackle SDGs
Collaboration / There is yet another new group that can be filed under Sustainable Development Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Yesterday, Unilever and several industry partners announced the creation of an open platform to share their ideas, data, and insights on addressing key global challenges. - 7 years ago
DNA Tests Bolster Credibility of MSC-Labeled Seafood
Supply Chain / Mislabeled seafood products have become a widespread problem: A recent study found that across 4,500 global samples, 30 percent of seafood products are mislabeled. The issue threatens reputable and sustainable fisheries and seafood traders, and can allow illegal and unregulated fishing practices to go undetected. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has been estimated at 11-26 million tonnes of landed fish each year, representing losses of $10-23.5 billion to the fishing industry. - 7 years ago
Americans #DidntNotice When Kraft Mac & Cheese Went All-Natural: A Great Lesson for Big Food
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Kraft Heinz followed through on its promise to remove artificial flavors, preservatives and dyes from its iconic macaroni and cheese – three months ago. In what the company is calling “the world’s largest ‘blind taste test,’” Kraft Mac & Cheese quietly changed its recipe and the ingredients listed on the box in December, and sold over 50 million boxes before making a formal announcement about it. - 7 years ago