Mike Hower
Managing Director, Sustainability & Social Impact
Deutsche Bank
Mike Hower is tagged in 1051 stories.
Page 17 of 53.
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
A team of researchers from Purdue University's Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) has developed a new catalytic process that converts biomass waste into chemical products that can be used in fragrances, flavorings or to create high-octane fuel for racecars and jets, Phys.org reports.The process uses a chemical catalyst and heat to spur reactions that convert lignin—a durable and complex molecule that gives the plant cell wall its rigid structure—into valuable chemical commodities.
- 9 years ago
Supply Chain /
Global alcoholic beverage company Diageo—maker of such iconic brands as Guinness, Bailey's, Tanqueray and Johnnie Walker—has announced 20 new sustainability and responsibility targets in three core areas to be achieved by 2020: leadership in alcohol in society, building thriving communities and reducing environmental impact.The targets draw on the company’s achievements to date and are aligned with the emerging United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Diageo says the targets focus on the areas of greatest material impact to its business and represent an evolution of its approach to better measure and evaluate the tangible difference its programs make to people’s lives.
- 9 years ago
ICT and Big Data /
It will take around 11 trillion gallons of water—about 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest U.S. reservoir—to recover from California's continuing drought, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data.The finding was part of an update on the state's drought made possible by space and airborne measurements and presented by NASA scientists today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Such data are giving scientists an unprecedented ability to identify key features of droughts, which can be used to inform water management decisions.
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
The traditional business model of chemical suppliers selling their products in the largest possible quantities, while profitable, encourages the overuse of chemicals and places a strain on human health and the environment. But another model has emerged that decouples payment from consumption.Chemical leasing is a business model in which chemical manufacturers and distributors charge for the function that the chemicals perform rather than selling chemicals. Companies that use the chemicals pay for the service that the chemicals provide instead of buying the chemical. The model reduces the waste and inefficiency that often occur with the conventional approach to buying and handling chemicals.
- 9 years ago
ICT and Big Data /
Sustainability software firm CRedit360 has helped global chemistry company Solvay to introduce a consistent, group-wide approach to sustainability reporting, following its acquisition of Rhodia.Equipped with the CRedit360 system, Solvay is set to streamline its data management, improve the quality of the group’s sustainability disclosures and promote greater collaboration between business units. With the time saved, the company says it will place a greater focus on analysis and strategy, as it seeks to make progress on its overarching Solvay Way sustainability policy and move towards integrated reporting.
- 9 years ago
Leadership /
Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk has opened its eleventh Diabetes Support Center, improving access to affordable diabetes treatment in some of the largest cities in Ghana and Nigeria.The new Diabetes Support Center at Holy Family Hospital in Nkawkaw, Ghana will provide insulin and glucose testing equipment at a reduced cost, access to trained healthcare professionals and free diabetes screening for the general public. The centers are part of the company’s Base of the Pyramid project to help improve diabetes care and lessen the financial burden of diabetes treatment for low-income groups.
- 9 years ago
Supply Chain /
Sedex Global has partnered with anti-corruption NGO Transparency International UK, and training, consulting and research NGO, Verité, to publish a new briefing which explores the impact of corruption risks on global supply chains and highlights opportunities to address these.The Sedex Business Ethics Briefing explores some of the most commonly-occurring corruption risks in global supply chains and makes the link between corruption and other supply chain challenges. The briefing identifies opportunities for businesses and their investors to improve performance on business ethics, and to tackle corruption risk in global supply chains. These include:
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
Google, Facebook, Genentech and several other companies and organizations comprising a working group of The Building Health Initiative are actively using their collective market influence to create demand for new and innovative products that improve the health of the built environment.The working group, which also include Adobe, CalPERS, Kaiser Permanente, Troon Pacific and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Mission Bay, met on Thursday at the inaugural Building Health Forum at UCSF.
- 9 years ago
Leadership /
For the first time in over a decade, the majority of executives anticipate resources for every corporate citizenship dimension to increase over the next three years, according to a new report from The Carroll School of Management Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.
- 9 years ago
Waste Not /
Nestlé, Kraft Foods and Mondelez International are helping fund a new commercial-scale recycling plant that can turn old toothpaste tubes into aluminum and fuel in only three minutes.This type of plastic-aluminum laminate waste, often used in drink pouches and pet food packaging, typically ends up in the landfill. Each year, around 16,000 tons of aluminum is wasted in the UK alone.To address this waste problem, researchers at the University of Cambridge have been exploring how laminate packaging would react to intense heating, called microwave-induced pyrolysis.
- 9 years ago
Waste Not /
One out of five (20 percent) of Americans will forgo wrapping holiday gifts this year to reduce holiday waste, according to a new survey from ecoATM, a nationwide network of device recycling kiosks.More than half (52 percent) of respondents said they will reuse gift wrapping, ribbon and gift bags from previous holidays. Some 17 percent plan to use newspaper or other recycled paper to wrap gifts. Almost three quarters (74 percent) plan to do something this season to reduce their waste.
- 9 years ago
Cleantech /
Boeing and South African Airways (SAA) have announced that South African farmers will soon harvest their first crop of energy-rich tobacco plants, an important step towards using the plants to make sustainable aviation biofuel.Boeing and SAA, along with partners SkyNRG and Sunchem SA, also officially launched Project Solaris, their collaborative effort to develop an aviation biofuel supply chain with a nicotine-free tobacco plant called Solaris. In Limpopo province, company representatives and industry stakeholders visited commercial and community farms where 123 acres of Solaris have been planted.Oil from the plant’s seeds may be converted into bio-jet fuel as early as next year, with a test flight by SAA as soon as practicable.
- 9 years ago
Cleantech /
The world's first public road that includes embedded solar cells has opened in the town of Krommenie in the Netherlands, NPR reports.The crystalline silicon solar cells are encased in two layers of tempered safety glass, set in a concrete housing. The road is a bike commuter path on a special roadway outside Amsterdam. Power generated by the panels will be funneled into the national energy grid.
- 9 years ago
Collaboration /
Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture has announced goals to advance the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, committing its membership of 66 grower organizations to driving sustainable outcomes for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, potatoes and other crops in six key areas:
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
A group of corporate and NGO leaders today released a new tool for assessing leadership in corporate chemicals management.The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemicals management and profiling leadership companies. The CFP will enable purchasers to preferentially select suppliers and investors to integrate chemical risk into their sustainability analyses and investments. Its results enable brands to market their progress and success in using safer chemicals.
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
BASF and recycled cardboard company Schuster have announced they are working on a solution for a combined migration and grease barrier on recycled cardboard.The biopolymer ecovio® PS 1606 is applied to recycled cardboard in an extrusion coating process. This enables the proportion of recycled paper fibers in fast food packaging to be increased while simultaneously making it industrially compostable. The polymer coating applied to the cardboard is several times thinner than a human hair, but provides the packaging with good protection against potential migration of undesired substances while also offering high greaseproofness and liquid tightness. This cardboard is more than 90 percent biobased, recyclable and industrially compostable.
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has announced it is developing an affordable and environmentally friendly alternative for polystyrene from PLA bioplastic, which is derived from organic sources.Although expanded polystyrene (EPS) is currently used all over the world as a light packaging and insulation material, it poses a significant waste problem. The annual production volume of EPS is 5 to 6 million tons per year, and the non-biodegradable material typically ends up on waste tips or is disposed of by burning, which results in toxic compounds.
- 9 years ago
Chemistry, Materials & Packaging /
The GW4 Alliance—a consortium of four leading research universities in the South West of England and Wales—has announced a new project to clean up water from a Cornish tin mine using algae to harvest the precious heavy metals and produce biofuel at the same time.Researchers from universities in Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), are now working with the Coal Authority and Veolia to take untreated mine water samples from Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall into the laboratory and grow algae in them. The research will explore whether algae is effective in removing materials such as arsenic and cadmium from the mine water.
- 9 years ago
Cleantech /
Boeing has carried out the world's first flight using "green diesel," a widely available sustainable biofuel already used in ground transportation. The company powered its ecoDemonstrator 787 flight test airplane on Tuesday with a blend of 15 percent green diesel and 85 percent petroleum jet fuel in the left engine.Sustainable green diesel is made from vegetable oils, waste cooking oil and waste animal fats. Boeing previously found that this fuel is chemically similar to HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) aviation biofuel approved in 2011. Green diesel is chemically distinct and a different fuel product than "biodiesel," which also is used in ground transportation.
- 9 years ago
Waste Not /
VWR, provider of laboratory products, services and solutions, has launched a new recycling initiative that allows U.S. customers to recycle a variety of single-use garments.Through "Gown Up, Give Back”, VWR hopes to help reduce the millions of pounds of single-use garments sent to the landfill each year. The plastic waste from these garments is recycled into resin that is used to make permanent infrastructure, including composite decking, railroad ties and drainage pipes. The recycling program provides a waste collection, shipment and recycling solution for most single-use garments as long as they are free from contamination and purchased from VWR.
- 9 years ago