Jennifer Elks
Managing Editor
Sustainable Brands
BPI Launches New Catalog of Compostable Products
Marketing and Comms / Composters, consumers and foodservice companies now have unprecedented detail — and confidence — in BPI Certified Compostable Products thanks to the industry’s first item-level online database of products.Funded by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), the new Compostable Products Catalog features more than 3,300 different compostable product SKUs (shelf keeping units), including food serviceware (cups, cutlery, plates and trays), resins and coatings, compostable bags and films.The catalog is believed to be the world’s first web-based catalog to offer searchable product-level information on compostable products, according to BPI. - 9 years ago
Levi's, Unilever, Patagonia Among Companies Calling for Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants
Collaboration / Nearly two-dozen major U.S. companies and nearly 50 investors with more than $900 billion in collective assets announced their support last week for new carbon pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for new power plants. The group, which includes Unilever, Levi Strauss & Co., Symantec, Patagonia, The North Face and the country’s largest public pension fund, CalPERS, urged President Obama to finalize the rule soon and proceed with plans to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants. The standards are open to public comment. - 9 years ago
Republic of Tea Launches 95% Biodegradable Single-Serve Pod
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / Socially conscious tea purveyor the Republic of Tea has announced a new line of environmentally friendly, single-serve One Cuppa™ tea pods, that are 95% biodegradable and compatible with most single-serve coffee- and tea- brewing machines. The company says the pods will be available beginning October 1.“We listened to our Citizens who have requested that our premium teas be available for single-serve use. We are so happy to now provide our Citizens with this new, innovative way of enjoying a cup of premium tea. We are also being mindful of the environment with our earth-friendly, 95% biodegradable One Cuppa,” said Republic of Tea CEO Ron Rubin. - 9 years ago
McDonald’s Agrees to Phase Out Polystyrene Cups
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / McDonald’s Corp. has confirmed that it will replace all polystyrene beverage cups with paper cups at its 14,000 U.S. outlets, according to As You Sow (AYS), a nonprofit organization that promotes corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy. The move comes in response to a shareholder proposal filed by AYS in 2011, asking the fast-food giant to stop using foam. After agreeing to a test replacement of its foam cups with a double-walled paper hot cup at approximately 2,000 restaurants, primarily on the West Coast, in 2012, McDonald’s deemed the pilots successful and the paper cup will now become the standard hot beverage cup at all U.S. outlets. - 9 years ago
Jones Lang LaSalle Illustrates Commitment to Responsible Business in Latest Sustainability Report
Marketing and Comms / Jones Lang LaSalle last week released its 2012 Sustainability Report, “Moving toward a more sustainable enterprise,” which details the company’s services, operations and client-focused strategies to achieve long-term sustainable solutions across five sustainability categories: energy and resources; client service excellence; green buildings; community and supply chain; and workplace, well-being and diversity. - 9 years ago
Solazyme and Unilever Sign Supply Agreement for Tailored Algal Oil
Collaboration / Solazyme, maker of algae-based oils and bioproducts, today announced a commercial supply agreement with Unilever for the first partnered Solazyme Tailored™ Algal Oil, a culmination of five years of collaboration between the companies. The agreement covers the first of Solazyme and Unilever's jointly developed tailored oils with an initial supply of at least 10,000 metric tons (MT), which Unilever says it will use in its Dove and Brylcreem brand personal care products, according to the New York Times. - 9 years ago
SNAP Answers: How Can Protecting Nature Help Ensure Food, Energy, Water Security for Nine Billion People?
Collaboration / The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) today announced the launch of SNAP (Science for Nature and People), a collaboration aimed at solving the world’s most pressing conservation and human development challenges. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.SNAP is designed to find practical, knowledge-based ways in which the conservation of nature can help provide food, water, energy and security to Earth's fast-growing population. SNAP will tackle high-profile problems where the solution has a clear pathway to implementation. - 10 years ago
Microsoft, Diageo Among Latest Companies Urging Policymakers to Address Climate Change
Collaboration / Business calls for strong climate change action are getting louder. A half-dozen more leading global companies including Microsoft, Owens Corning, Diageo, Thornton Tomasetti, and Acer America Corporation last week joined hundreds of other U.S. businesses in signing the Climate Declaration, which calls on federal policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of addressing climate change, according to CERES. - 10 years ago
Investors Ask General Mills to Step Up Packaging Responsibility
Waste Not / This week, investors are asking General Mills to take responsibility for recycling its post-consumer packaging waste. - 10 years ago
New Animated Video Asks: 'How Much Is (Your Mother) Earth Worth?'
New Metrics / Joss Tantram, partner at UK sustainability strategy firm Terrafiniti, LLP, has conceived and written a short animation on the challenges of pricing nature — comparing it to getting a good price for selling your mother. “How Much is Your Mother Earth Worth?” takes a fresh look at one of the most complex issues of our time.“The idea of pricing the value we get from ecosystems, literally pricing the Earth, has been with us for a couple of decades,” said Tantram. - 10 years ago
M&S the First of Few Companies That Come to UK Consumers’ Minds as Being Environmentally Responsible
Marketing and Comms / New research released this week by the Carbon Trust reveals that, while consumers see business as the key to economic recovery, they do not yet see it as key to fixing our environmental problems, with over two-thirds (68 percent) of respondents unable to name a company taking the issue of environmental sustainability seriously.Respondents who could name companies they thought were walking the sustainability talk were quick to mention retailer Marks & Spencer (the most popular answer), followed in order by the Co-operative Group, Tesco, BP and Sainsbury’s. - 10 years ago
NGOs Challenge Asia Pulp and Paper to Prove It Has Turned Over a New Leaf
Supply Chain / Global environmental organisation WWF is urging Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) — the largest paper company in Indonesia and one of the largest in the world — to agree to a list of performance targets in order to improve its current status as one of the world’s most notorious deforesters and back up its commitment to become an environmentally and socially responsible company, the NGO announced today. The performance targets, released by the European and North American Environmental Paper Network today, provide guidance for the assessment of APP’s implementation of its 2020 Sustainability Roadmap and Forest Conservation Policy (FCP). - 10 years ago
Clariant Releases Paraben-Free Alternative to Cosmetics Preservatives
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / Swiss chemical giant Clariant today announced the launch of Nipaguard® Zero — a powerful line of optimized preservative blends for cosmetics that contain no parabens, yet deliver a comparable performance.Clariant offers a broad portfolio of single actives and optimized blends under the brand names Phenonip®, Nipagin® and Nipaguard. Due to growing end-user demand for alternatives to parabens, the company has developed four Nipaguard Zero blends for use in rinse-off and leave-on applications, wet wipes and difficult-to-preserve formulations, including an Ecocert®-approved option. - 10 years ago
USDA and Coca-Cola Partner to Replenish One Billion Liters of Water to Nature
Collaboration / The USDA and Coca-Cola Americas have announced a public-private partnership to restore and protect damaged watersheds on national lands. The goal is to return more than a billion liters of water to the National Forest System, which provides drinking water to more than 60 million Americans. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and CCA president Steve Cahillane made the announcement last week at Midewin Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois. - 10 years ago
M&S Establishing Link to Workers Throughout Its South Asian Supply Chain
Marketing and Comms / Marks & Spencer (M&S) has signed a one-year deal to work with social enterprise technology provider Good World Solutions to facilitate direct communications with workers in its clothing supply chain via mobile technology.M&S will use Labor Link, technology that returns anonymous, quantitative survey results to M&S direct from supply chain workers. Workers listen to questions on their mobile phones in Hindi, Sinhalese, or another local language, and respond using their touch-tone keypad. - 10 years ago
Sustainia Announces Its Top 10 Sustainability Innovations for 2013
Marketing and Comms / Intelligent streetlights that turn off when streets are empty; an electric city bus with a 250 km range; and a piece of paper that reduces food waste. International innovation platform Sustainia has launched its list of the top 10 best sustainability innovations for 2013, featuring projects and technologies from Europe, Israel, Zambia, USA, China and the Philippines.The selected projects will compete for the Sustainia Award, presented by the Sustainia 100, a committee headed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN’s panel on climate change (IPCC). - 10 years ago
AdAge Releasing New Report on Navigating FTC Green Guides
Marketing and Comms / Advertising Age is releasing a report today entitled “How to Make Credible Green Marketing Claims: What Marketers Need to Know about the Updated FTC Green Guides.” Co-authored by Jacquelyn Ottman of J. Ottman Consulting and David Mallen from the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau, the report comes just in time for the one-year anniversary of the most recent update of the Guides.The FTC published the first edition of the Green Guides in 1992, to help advertisers avoid deceptive or misleading environmental marketing claims. These Guides are now the go-to standards for green marketing claims and have counterparts in Canada, UK and Australia. - 10 years ago
Nestlé, Volkswagen, SAP, Air France Named Industry Leaders in 2013 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices
Marketing and Comms / S&P Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s largest providers of financial market indices, and RobecoSAM, an investment specialist focused on sustainability investing, today announced the results of the annual Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) review. Launched in 1999, the DJSI were the first global indices to track the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. - 10 years ago
Project Recover Exploring Viability, Options for Eliminating Paint Waste
Waste Not / Global design and innovation firm Seymourpowell today announced a collaboration with leading global paint company AkzoNobel Decorative Paints to explore and improve the process of recycling used paint — thus closing the loop of paint production.As part of a project jointly funded by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, Seymourpowell has made an educational video highlighting the possibilities and benefits of paint recycling, and has also identified a completely new technology to help scale and speed up the paint-recycling process for greater business viability. - 10 years ago
General Mills Launches $1.1 Million Sustainable Sourcing Program in Peru
Supply Chain / As part of General Mills’ long-term sustainable sourcing program, the consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant and its Foundation on Thursday announced a four-year joint commitment with supplier partner AgroMantaro to provide $1.1 million to help smallholder artichoke farmers in Peru increase yields and improve profitability.The goals of the new program, which will reach nearly 100 small-scale artichoke farmers in Peru, are to: - 10 years ago