SB Brand-Led Culture Change 2024 - Discount ends April 7th!

Mike Hower

Managing Director, Sustainability & Social Impact
Deutsche Bank

Mike Hower is tagged in 1051 stories. Page 38 of 53.
Unilever Pledges 100% Traceable Palm Oil by End of 2014
Unilever Pledges 100% Traceable Palm Oil by End of 2014

Supply Chain / In a major move towards sustainability for one of the world’s largest purchasers of palm oil, Unilever on Tuesday announced that all of the palm oil it buys globally will be traceable to known sources by the end of 2014.The company says it purchases roughly 1.5 million tons of palm oil and its derivatives annually, which represents about 3 percent of the world’s total production, for use in products such as margarine, ice cream, soap and shampoo. - 10 years ago

New Process Developed by GE, Sasol Producing Biogas from Wastewater
New Process Developed by GE, Sasol Producing Biogas from Wastewater

Collaboration / Sasol, a South African chemical and energy company, and General Electric’s GE Power & Water have developed technology that will clean wastewater while also producing biogas as a by-product.The technology, known as Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Technology (AnMBR), will be further developed at a new demonstration plant at Sasol's R&D Campus at its Sasol One Site in Sasolburg, the companies say.The partnership with GE leverages GE's ecomagination-qualified ZeeWeed 500 membrane and decades of membrane bioreactor experience, and Sasol's expertise in biological treatment of effluents derived from the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, a key component of gas-to-liquids (GTL) conversion technology. - 10 years ago

New Wastewater Mining Tech Isolates Biosolids for Use as Paper, Pulp, Plastic, Fuel
New Wastewater Mining Tech Isolates Biosolids for Use as Paper, Pulp, Plastic, Fuel

Waste Not / A Dutch wastewater treatment facility (WWTP) and paper mill are testing out a new sewage recycling system that reduces sludge formation by half, cuts operational costs by 30 percent, significantly increases treatment capacity and yields biosolids that can be used in a host of applications.Developed in Israel, Applied CleanTech’s Sewage Recycling System (SRS) converts the bio-solids found in wastewater into Recyllose — a new sterilized product based on cellulose extracted from the wastewater, which is automatically packed into a reusable commodity and transported to paper, construction, plastic and energy industries.Allow us to provide a visual aid: - 10 years ago

Coke's Latest Sustainability Report Highlights Progress on Company's 'Me, We, World' Commitments
Coke's Latest Sustainability Report Highlights Progress on Company's 'Me, We, World' Commitments

Marketing and Comms / Coca Cola improved water efficiency by 21.4 percent since 2004 and supported an estimated replenishment of approximately 52 percent of the water used in finished beverage products through 2012, according to the company’s tenth annual Sustainability Report and third Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Report.Earlier this year, the company was among the first to receive the Carbon Trust Water Standard for achieving its lowest-ever water-use ratio and reducing water usage by nearly 15 percent since 2007. - 10 years ago

Advertisement
Report: $5B Invested in FinTech for Financially Underserved Americans
Report: $5B Invested in FinTech for Financially Underserved Americans

ICT and Big Data / Investment activity in financial services technology ("FinTech") companies for financially underserved consumers totaled more than $5.2 billion in allocated capital between July 2012 and June 2013, according to a recent report by the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and Core Innovation Capital (Core).Investment Activity in FinTech for the Financially Underserved shows that there is substantial investor interest in a growing market for financial products and services aimed at helping to meet the needs of financially underserved consumers. - 10 years ago

Starbucks Plans to Hire 10,000 Veterans Over the Next 5 Years
Starbucks Plans to Hire 10,000 Veterans Over the Next 5 Years

Starbucks this week became the latest company to announce a special hiring program for veterans, which aims to hire 10,000 veterans or their spouses over the next five years.JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Boeing and several other companies have announced similar special hiring programs for veterans. Many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars face high unemployment when they return home, which has compelled some companies to try to understand the skills of service members. - 10 years ago

Investors Tell UK Firms Paying Living Wage Can Increase ‘Longevity and Productivity’
Investors Tell UK Firms Paying Living Wage Can Increase ‘Longevity and Productivity’

Behavior Change / Here’s a novel idea: Paying people enough to live off comfortably motivates them to not only work harder, but stick around longer.In a recent letter published by the Financial Times, investors from local authorities, unions and charities, such as the CCLA, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Pensions Trust, said they wish to invest in companies that focus on the longevity and productivity of their business operations. The investors claimed there is “considerable evidence that paying the living wage helps to achieve these objectives.” - 10 years ago

Hilton Worldwide Saves $250 Million from Energy Efficiency in 4 Years
Hilton Worldwide Saves $250 Million from Energy Efficiency in 4 Years

Marketing and Comms / Hilton Worldwide has saved nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from energy efficiency projects over the past 4 years, according to its 2012-2013 corporate responsibility report.Since 2009, the hospitality company reduced energy use by 12.2 percent and carbon output by 12.8 percent. In the U.S., Hilton purchased more than 450 million kilowatt hours of renewable power through December 31, 2012 — enough to meet 94 percent of the annual electricity use in its owned hotels in the United States. - 10 years ago

WRI Launches Upgraded GHG Emissions Tool
WRI Launches Upgraded GHG Emissions Tool

ICT and Big Data / The World Resources Institute (WRI) has announced an update to its online tool that helps businesses measure their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).The Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, or CAIT 2.0, offers free online access to global GHG emissions and other climate data, enabling researchers, policymakers, media and others to download, visualize and share data for analysis and communications on climate change.WRI says the update features improved functionality and other upgrades. A streamlined interface allows users to more easily select and sort data by country, sector, type of gas, among other criteria. CAIT 2.0 also is more readily usable on a range of mobile devices such as iPads and other large tablets. - 10 years ago

Advertisement
Sochi 2014 Pledging to Be First Carbon-Neutral Olympic Games — For Real, This Time
Sochi 2014 Pledging to Be First Carbon-Neutral Olympic Games — For Real, This Time

Chemistry, Materials & Packaging / The upcoming Sochi 2014 Olympics will be the first in history to achieve carbon neutrality, according to a recent announcement by The Dow Chemical Company, the Official Carbon Partner for the Games. This includes carbon footprints associated with the travel of athletes, spectators and media from all over the world traveling to Russia for the Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games, between February and March 2014 — amounting to roughly 160,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. - 10 years ago

UK Industry Leaders Found ‘Research Council’ to Promote Social Sector Investment
UK Industry Leaders Found ‘Research Council’ to Promote Social Sector Investment

Leadership / Five major organizations active in the social investment market — the Big Lottery Fund, Citi, Big Society Capital, the City of London Corporation and the Cabinet Office — have come together to launch the Social Investment Research Council (SIRC), which aims to “generate powerful and practical insights for the benefit of social sector organizations and investors.”The research body will seek to maximize the benefits for socially motivated investors by enhancing knowledge within the sector, the founders say. During the organization’s first year of operation, it will focus on better understanding the investment products currently on the market and the kind of investors they seek to attract. - 10 years ago

Envirofit Expands Access to Clean Cooking Tech in Kenya
Envirofit Expands Access to Clean Cooking Tech in Kenya

U.S.-based social enterprise Envirofit International has announced it will join the UN-supported anti-poverty program Business Call to Action (BCtA), with plans to reduce greenhouse gases by 193,500 tons of carbon through the sales of 150,000 clean cookstoves across Kenya in the next two years.Envirofit International is a multinational corporation that develops and disseminates technologies aimed at reducing pollution and enhancing energy efficiency in developing countries. By introducing clean cook stoves as a less costly fuel alternative, the company says it will help low-income consumer households that have been traditionally overlooked. - 10 years ago

UPS Cuts GHGs by 14,000 Tons Using Big Data
UPS Cuts GHGs by 14,000 Tons Using Big Data

ICT and Big Data / UPS has announced the launch of its route optimization software known as ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation), which the company expects will save more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 14,000 metric tons by the end of the year.ORION has a team of 500 dedicated resources to move the U.S deployment forward as UPS nears its busy holiday season. The rollout of ORION will optimize 10,000 delivery routes by the end of the year, reduce miles driven and reinforce UPS's sustainability efforts. A reduction of just one mile each day per driver over the course of a year saves the company up to $50 million annually, UPS says. - 10 years ago

Nearly 75% of General Mills' U.S. Retail Sales Volume Nutritionally Improved
Nearly 75% of General Mills' U.S. Retail Sales Volume Nutritionally Improved

General Mills says it has improved the health profile of 73 percent of its U.S. retail sales volume since 2005, which includes enhancing nutrition such as increasing protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, or reducing limiters such as calories, sodium, sugar and fat.In fiscal 2013, the company claims it improved more than 20 percent of its U.S. retail sales volume and the nutritional improvements touched all General Mills U.S. retail platforms, including Baking, Cereal, Dairy, Meals and Snacks.Reductions in sodium and calories, and increases in whole grain were among the main health improvements General Mills achieved in fiscal 2013. As with past years, all reported improvements were significant, meaning a 10 percent or more improvement was achieved. - 10 years ago

Advertisement
REI Data Center Retrofit Reduces Cooling Energy Use by 93%
REI Data Center Retrofit Reduces Cooling Energy Use by 93%

ICT and Big Data / REI says a retrofit of its data center, which houses servers and backup systems for computers, software systems, REI.com and point of sale for its 132 stores in 33 states, has resulted in a 93 percent reduction in the cooling energy used to operate the facility.The outdoor retailer says the retrofit uses “free cooling” via a rooftop evaporative cooling tower to keep servers at optimal temperatures. The system reduces the need for mechanical cooling nearly year-round, or about 8,672 hours annually.The retrofit saves 2.2 million kilowatt hours each year — enough to power six REI stores. Improved efficiencies also mean improved business resiliency and stability in the event of a regional power outage, the company says. - 10 years ago

Starbucks, Unilever Push White House to Follow Through on Climate Action Plan
Starbucks, Unilever Push White House to Follow Through on Climate Action Plan

One year after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast, 20 major U.S. brands including Starbucks, Unilever and Mars, Inc. are calling for the White House to follow through on climate change preparedness efforts outlined in the Climate Action Plan announced by President Obama on June 25. - 10 years ago

Walmart Now Produces More Solar Power Than 38 U.S. States
Walmart Now Produces More Solar Power Than 38 U.S. States

Leadership / Walmart now has more than 180 renewable energy projects in operation or development around the world and generates 89 megawatts (MW) of solar across 215 locations, according to a report last week by the Solar Energy Industries Association. This is enough to power 22,250 U.S. homes and is more than is produced in 38 U.S. states. Earlier in 2013, Walmart partnered with SolarCity to install solar on another 60 stores in California, part if the company’s goal to have solar power on 75 percent of its stores in the state. The company also is testing other projects, such as micro wind, large-scale wind farms, solar water heating and solar thermal to maximize the renewable energy potential of each location. - 10 years ago

Cleantech 2.0: Less Flashy, More Lucrative
Cleantech 2.0: Less Flashy, More Lucrative

What do you think of when you hear the word cleantech? Does it conjure images of shiny rows of solar panels, slow-turning wind turbines, flashy electric cars — or maybe even Elon Musk?Well, you’re not wrong. These cutting-edge technologies (minus Musk) largely represent the first wave of cleantech, which began around the beginning of the new millennium and gained momentum once Al Gore started telling us inconvenient truths – and even more so when President Obama entered the White House.With investors’ (and the public’s) attention mostly fixated on cutting-edge technologies, the less sexy but much more ubiquitous non-market disrupting cleantech innovations were often overlooked. - 10 years ago

Best Buy, Dell Win CEA’s First eCycling Leadership Award
Best Buy, Dell Win CEA’s First eCycling Leadership Award

Waste Not / Best Buy, Dell, HP and Samsung have won the Consumer Electronics Association’s (CEA) inaugural eCycling Leadership Award, which recognizes consumer electronics companies that recycle above and beyond levels mandated by government.In 2011, CEA announced the eCycling Leadership Initiative to increase the amount of recycled consumer electronics to one billion pounds annually by 2016, an effort known as the Billion Pound Challenge. CEA says the industry is on track to meet this goal by recycling 585 million pounds of products in 2012. - 10 years ago

Advertisement
Investors Ask Fossil Fuel Companies to Assess Plans For Low-Carbon Future
Investors Ask Fossil Fuel Companies to Assess Plans For Low-Carbon Future

Marketing and Comms / A coalition of 70 global investors managing more than $3 trillion in collective assets on Thursday launched the first-ever coordinated effort to spur 45 of the world’s top oil and gas, coal and electric power companies to assess the financial risks that climate change poses to their business plans.The investors make up the Carbon Asset Risk (CAR) initiative, which is being coordinated by Ceres and the Carbon Tracker initiative, with support from the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change. - 10 years ago