Mike Hower
Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
BASF, Boeing Join DOE Program to Develop Advanced Composites
57 companies, including BASF, Boeing and Ford, have joined the Department of Energy’s new Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Advanced Composites. A consortium of companies, nonprofits and universities led by the University of Tennessee-Knoxvill... View More
CH2M Hill, Tetra Tech Top Environmental Consulting Firms Ranking
CH2M Hill and Tetra Tech lead the global environmental consultancy market for the second consecutive year, which saw a 0.8 percent decrease to stand at $28.7 billion in 2013, according to new research by Environment Analyst. ... View More
Columbia Developing Modeling Platform to Assess Water Risk in the Mining Industry
The Columbia Water Center, a center of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, has received a 3-year grant from Norges Bank to develop a modeling platform to quantitatively assess mining-related water and environmental risks and their financial i... View More
22 Million People Displaced by Climate Change in 2013
Twenty-two million people were displaced by extreme weather events in 2013, three times more than the number displaced by war, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), as reported by Reuters. To put this in perspective, in the... View More
Hershey Exceeds Sustainable Cocoa Goals in 2014, Sets New Targets
The Hershey Company has announced that 30 percent of its globally sourced cocoa was independently certified and verified in 2014—this reflects an accelerated pace for achieving its goal of sourcing 100 percent of its cocoa supply from certified and... View More
Canadian City Moves Toward First Closed-Loop Organics Waste Management System
The Canadian city of Surrey has chosen Iris Solutions to build what the city claims will be the first closed-loop, fully-integrated organics waste management system in North America.The Surrey Biofuels Processing Facility will process 115,000 tons of... View More
Electronics Industry Will Conduct Shadow Audits to Root Out Forced Labor in Malaysia
The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), a nonprofit coalition of electronics companies dedicated to supply chain responsibility, has announced that it will conduct shadow audits and increase its industry and government engagement in Mal... View More
White Coffee Introduces Organic Coffee in Biodegradable, Compostable Single-Serve BioCup
White Coffee Corporation has introduced a new line of single-serve organic coffees in a new BioCup that is completely biodegradable when aerobically composted.Consumers committed to sustainable packaging will have a large selection of blends and flav... View More
Toyota Opens Up 5,680 Patents to Spur Hydrogen Fuel Cell Innovation
Toyota has announced it will invite royalty-free use of approximately 5,680 hydrogen fuel cell related patents held globally, including critical technologies developed for the new Toyota Mirai.The list includes around 1,970 patents related to fuel ce... View More
Cashew Nut Byproduct Could Help Trap Tsetse Fly, Create New Value for African Farmers
Researchers have developed a new chemical method applied to a byproduct of cashew nuts that could make it easier to trap tsetse flies and open new revenue streams for nut producers in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report. ... View More
Tetra Pak Launches Environmental Benchmarking Service for Food & Beverage Companies
Tetra Pak has launched a new environmental benchmarking service to help food and beverage companies assess the environmental performance of their production operations, and to identify opportunities for improvement.The service provides an audit of th... View More
AkzoNobel Develops Reflective Paint That Keeps You Cool
AkzoNobel, the paint, coatings and specialty chemical company, has developed exterior wall paints that reflect more infrared light to reduce heat absorption and reduce energy consumption.With this technology, an average house can save up to 15 percen... View More
As ‘Internet of Things’ Grows, So Do E-waste Concerns
The Internet of Things (IoT) will include some 30 billion connected devices by 2020, according to analyst firm Gartner. Although the IoT holds promise for promoting global sustainability, there is a growing concern of what becomes of these devices wh... View More
McDonald's Taps Local Partners to Pilot Sustainable Beef Program in New Zealand
McDonald's has initiated two sustainable beef integration programs with Beef + Lamb New Zealand, ANZCO Foods and Silver Fern Farms as part of its aspiration to source verified sustainable beef around the world.The program will highlight a range of be... View More
Royal Caribbean Retrofitting 19 Ships With Sulfur Dioxide Scrubbers
Royal Caribbean Cruises has announced it will retrofit 19 of its ships with advanced emissions purification (AEP) systems, also known as scrubbers, which will remove more than 97 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions generated by the ships' diesel ... View More
PURELL® Hand Sanitizer Producer Hits Sustainability Goals 2 Years Early
Hand hygiene and healthy skin company GOJO Industries, maker of the PURELL® Hand Sanitizer, has exceeded its 2015 sustainability goals two years early, according to the company’s new sustainability report.The company reduced water usage by 40 perc... View More
Survey: Packaging Pros Have Limited Understanding of Biz Impacts of Resource Scarcity
Packaging professionals within consumer packaged goods companies report growing awareness around the business impacts connected to natural resource scarcity, but robust knowledge and understanding is still absent, according to a recent survey by Tetr... View More
BatteryVampire Wants to Give Second Life to Your AA Batteries
A start-up called BatteryVampire wants to give renewed life to your discarded batteries by taking advantage of a little known fact — when alkaline batteries appear to be dead, there is sometimes still up to half the energy left. BatteryVampire’s ... View More
Tradeshift Waiving Fees for Companies Building Circular Economy Apps
Tradeshift, which digitally connects enterprises with their suppliers via a cloud-based platform, announced on Tuesday that it will waive the 30 percent revenue share it receives, for organizations that use its platform to build apps that help to sup... View More
Google, Microsoft, Walt Disney and BMW Have Best CSR Reputations
Google, Microsoft, Walt Disney and BMW have the best CSR reputations globally, according to new research from the Reputation Institute (RI).Although this year Google beat out Microsoft for the top spot, the same companies remain in the top four as la... View More
