Jennifer Elks
Managing Editor
Sustainable Brands
‘We Believe’: Communicators Weigh In on P&G’s Controversial New Ad
Marketing and Comms / We reached out to communication leaders in the SB community for their take on P&G’s spotlight on toxic masculinity. - 2 months ago
Global Practitioners Gather to Compare Notes on Redesigning the #GoodLife
The Next Economy / Last year, the Sustainable Brands community gathered around the world throughout the year to share insights on how they – and their customers – were “redefining the good life.” This year, the conversation has progressed from the ‘what’ to the ‘how’ of designing the sustainable future in which we all want to live. - 5 months ago
On 30th Anniversary of 'Just Do It,' Nike Puts Kaepernick Where Its Mouth Is
Marketing and Comms / Nike’s 30th anniversary edition of its iconic “Just Do It” campaign, released this week, features embattled football star Colin Kaepernick, in a move practically designed to stir up controversy — but which ultimately aligns perfectly with Nike’s ethos of living courageously. - 6 months ago
Q&A: Will We Go 'All In'? The Past, Present and Future of Sustainability Leadership
The Next Economy / Written by three leading thinkers in the field of sustainability — Chris Coulter, CEO of GlobeScan; David Grayson, Emeritus of Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield University School of Management; and Mark Lee, Executive Director of SustainAbility — All In: The future of Business Leadership (Taylor & Francis, 2018) identifies the essential attributes of high-impact corporate sustainability leadership and describes how companies can combine and apply those characteristics for future success. - 9 months ago
Third Year of REI's #OptOutside Movement Gives the Power to the People
Walking the Talk / With the launch of its #OptOutside campaign in 2015, REI set a new precedent in retail, shuttering its stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, giving its employees a paid day off and – on a day that has come to represent consumerism at its most extreme – encouraging staff and consumers alike to forgo the shopping frenzy in favor of the great outdoors. The move epitomized the company’s ethos and kickstarted a movement to drive positive behavior change and impacts. - 1 year ago
Redefining Ethical Business, Education, Activism, Customer Experiences All Key to 'The Good Life'
Walking the Talk / Last week, at the third and final SB Buenos Aires event of 2017, perspectives from the worlds of arts, finance, education, big business, healthcare, urban planning, consumers, activist brands and more provided a 360-degree look at how organizations around the world are working to manifest our changing vision of “The Good Life” – and highlighted the amount of work yet to be done. - 1 year ago
Could RFID Eliminate Food Waste – or All Product Waste – from Producer to Consumer?
Business Case / Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, which dates back to World War II radar systems, is increasingly being used to track goods throughout complex global supply chains. - 1 year ago
Kavita Shukla: Fighting Food Waste with FreshPaper; Rallying Women Innovators with FreshVoices
Product, Service & Design Innovation / What started as a simple home remedy and a middle school science project has exploded into a viable and affordable solution for fighting food waste across the globe. During a trip to India to visit family when she was 12 years old, Kavita Shukla’s grandmother gave her a homemade tea of different spices to ward off illness after having ingested a glass of unfiltered tap water. The spicy concoction prevented Shukla from becoming sick and ultimately became the inspiration behind years of experimentation with rotting fruits and vegetables that would lead to the creation of Shukla’s revolutionary FreshPaper. - 1 year ago
Creating the Win-Win: How Startups, NGOs and Global Brands Are Planting Seeds for 'The Good Economy'
The Next Economy / It was standing room only on Tuesday at Buenos Aires’ MALBA modern art museum, for the second of two ‘InFocus’ events this year by the Sustainable Brands Buenos Aires team. Last month’s event at MALBA presented “Good to the Core” as a collective construction that can be achieved when all of society’s stakeholders work together to achieve it. - 1 year ago
#BusinessCase: Dow Continues to Show Positive Return on Pursuing Sustainability Goals
Collaboration / Last week, The Dow Chemical Company released its 2015 Sustainability Report, which examined the company’s journey toward reaching its 2015 goals and what it’s already achieved looking ahead to 2025. I caught up with corporate VP and Chief Sustainability Officer Neil Hawkins to learn more. - 2 years ago
Janine Benyus: What Businesses Can Learn from the 'Optimization Engine of Evolution'
Organizational Change / In 1997, biologist Janine Benyus popularized the term “biomimicry,” with her groundbreaking book of the same name, and spearheaded the growth of the discipline dedicated to applying Nature’s designs and processes to create a healthier, more sustainable world. I recently spoke with Janine about some of her favorite biomimetic innovations, about asking more from our design interventions, and some of the yet untapped areas in which Nature’s genius could help solve our most intractable problems. - 2 years ago
Timberland Extends Rigorous Environmental Standard Across Entire Product Portfolio
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Global outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland prides itself on its commitment to innovate and operate in an accountable and responsible manner — in terms of its products, the communities in which it operates, and the outdoors. As part of this commitment, the company today announced the implementation of its rigorous environmental standard — the Timberland Environmental Product Standard (TEPS) — across all of its product categories, beginning with its Spring 2016 collection. - 2 years ago
Play Your Part: Activating on Purpose Key for Successful Engagement for Sports, Brands
Marketing and Comms / The popularity of team sports in the U.S. — and the idolatry surrounding star players — makes them a perfect platform for reaching fans and encouraging behavior change on a massive scale. With 190 million fans expected to tune in on Sunday, the Super Bowl represents a unique opportunity to engage a large and somewhat unruly portion of the population to live and act more consciously. - 3 years ago
Why a Circular Economy Is Key to Sustainable Development (and Why Business Must Lead the Way)
The Next Economy / This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post, "What's Working: Sustainable Development Goals," in conjunction with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed set of goals will be the subject of discussion at the UN General Assembly meeting on Sept. 25-27, 2015 in New York; they cover 17 key areas of development — including poverty, hunger, health, education, and gender equality, among many others. - 3 years ago
Video Production with a Heart: How Casual Films Helps Responsible Companies Tell Their Stories
Product, Service & Design Innovation / NYC/London-based production company Casual Films believes we have entered “a new era in branded communications.” As Managing Director Barnaby Cook asserts in a video on the company’s website: “In the future, all successful businesses will have to be sustainable.” Not only does the award-winning company help organizations tell their sustainability stories, Casual’s got one of its own, and Cook recently told us more about how his company aims to use the power of video to help responsible companies influence society and change the world. - 3 years ago
Employee Engagement for Purpose-Driven Business 101 (or 5 Reasons Clif Bar Employees Are So Damn Happy)
Organizational Change / While more and more companies are becoming focused on a triple bottom line — in which they prioritize the health of people and planet in addition to profit — Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson took the sentiment further back in 2000, when he decided to not take a $120 million payout and instead focus on sustaining the health of five bottom lines: Business, Brand, Community, Planet and People. As CEO Kevin Cleary said during a recent “Feed Your Adventure” tour of Clif’s Emeryville headquarters: “In any given year, we incent ourselves and say we have to deliver on all of them — if you deliver on Business, but you don’t deliver on the rest, that isn’t delivering shareholder value.” - 3 years ago
BASF, thinkstep Scaling Collaborative Approach to Sustainable Product Portfolios: Part 2
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / At SB ’15 San Diego last month, chemical giant BASF and sustainability software and consulting company thinkstep announced their collaboration in making BASF’s Sustainable Solution SteeringTM method — for management of, and transition to, a sustainable product portfolio — available for wider use. - 3 years ago
Trending: After Finding Redemption Abroad, Ugly Produce Now Being Vindicated in the US
Waste Not / As awareness has grown of the reprehensible amount of food we throw away in the western world (an estimated 40 percent), efforts to combat food waste have emerged from a variety of places along the food value chain, particularly at the retail level, and primarily in Europe: Last year, French supermarket chain Intermarché led the pack with its ingenious “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign, which aimed to prove to picky shoppers that less than perfect produce is still just as delicious and nutritious (and slightly less expensive). - 3 years ago
41 Factory Owners, Safety Officials Charged with Murder in Rana Plaza Tragedy
Supply Chain / On Monday, Bangladeshi police charged 41 people, including the owner of the Rana Plaza complex, with murder over the 2013 factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 people. - 3 years ago
'No One Company Has All the Answers': How Exchange of Ideas Has Helped HP Make Living Progress
Product, Service & Design Innovation / In its 2014 Living Progress Report last week, HP outlined the human, economic and environmental impacts it has made in its pursuit of Living Progress — the company’s framework for integrating sustainability into its business strategy. I spoke with Chris Librie, Senior Director of HP’s Living Progress, about how the company’s holistic approach has informed the impacts made to date. - 3 years ago