Mike Hower
Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
EDF Climate Corps Helps Businesses and Governments Uncover $90M in Energy Savings
Fellows from the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps program this summer helped more than 90 organizations in the United States and China identify energy efficiency and clean energy opportunities that could decrease energy usage by 134... View More
Mars, FAO Partner to Make Food 'Safe and Sustainable' Worldwide
Mars has signed a new partnership agreement with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to help make food safer across the globe, with a specific focus on the developing regions of the global South.The partners will do this... View More
General Mills, IKEA Among Latest Global Players to Join White House Climate Action Pledge
General Mills, IKEA and Best Buy are among the 81 companies to recently join the White House-led American Business Act on Climate Pledge, which sets significant greenhouse gas reduction and renewable energy sourcing goals for 2020 and beyond.The pled... View More
Toyota Sets Goals for Better Cars, Manufacturing and Communities
Toyota recently announced a set of goals to be achieved over the next 35 years, which address key global environmental issues such as climate change, water shortages, resource depletion and degradation of biodiversity.The Toyota Environmental Challen... View More
Q&A: Gliimpse Wants to Translate Your Medical Records Into Actionable Data
Medical records, electronic or otherwise, might as well be Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to, well, just about anyone other than a medical professional. This makes it next to impossible for us to make sense of our personal health data.But a startup c... View More
Off-Grid Solar Startup Bringing Affordable, Reliable Electricity to Haiti
Haitian off-grid utility startup RE-VOLT is on a mission to bring affordable and reliable electricity to families in rural Haiti and is running a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the expansion of its service to more customers, according to a recent... View More
Report: Solar+Storage Can Increase Energy Resiliency in Affordable Housing
Solar combined with energy storage systems (solar+storage) can help protect vulnerable populations during power outages in multifamily affordable housing and provide an economic return to building owners, according to a new report by nonprofit Clean ... View More
Tesla Battery Packs to Power World’s First Hybrid Electric Buildings
Tesla “Powerpack” battery systems will be used to power part of 24 office buildings in California, according to a recent announcement, as reported by Edie.Real estate firm The Irvine Company, which has properties throughout California, will insta... View More
Climate-Smart Tech Improving Livelihoods of Kenyan Women Farmers
Equator Kenya, a food-processing company that produces African Bird’s Eye Chilies for export, has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to provide climate-smart technologies, training and market linkages to 8,000 smallholder f... View More
Coca-Cola, Dow, Nestlé Commence Testing of New Natural Capital Protocol
Coca-Cola, Dow and Nestlé are among the 10 companies testing the new draft of the Natural Capital Protocol against specific business applications.The Protocol will provide decision-making support to businesses in their risk-management processes, exp... View More
Report: Hotel ‘Greenwashing’ is Off-Putting to Customers
Greenwashing practices, combined with claims of corporate social responsibility, have reduced the trust of U.S. consumers who are increasingly recognizing hotels’ green claims may be self-serving, according to a new study in the Journal of Contempo... View More
U.S. Renewable Energy Rises to Historic Levels While Coal Use Sags
U.S. reliance on wind, solar and other renewable sources of energy has reached historic levels and is poised to make even greater gains in the near future, according to new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).A Tectonic Shift in Am... View More
Solar, Wind Now Cheapest Electricity to Generate in Germany and UK
Wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce in both Germany and the U.K., even without government subsidies, claims a new analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). This is the first time that threshold has been crossed by a G7 econom... View More
Berkeley Researchers Developing Artificial Leaves to Produce Carbon-Neutral Fuel
Researchers at UC Berkeley have created a synthetic leaf that uses water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to make liquid fuels such as methane, butane and acetate — and releases oxygen into the air, The Los Angeles Times reports.Lead researcher on the ... View More
Kuli Kuli's Moringa Green Energy Shots Create Jobs, Fight Deforestation in Haiti
Energy shots such as 5 Hour Energy have proliferated in recent years as they have taken up an increasingly large portion of the multibillion-dollar energy drink market. The smaller, sugar-free energy shots often position themselves as a healthier alt... View More
Hershey Joins Partnership to Help African Companies Improve Food Nutrition and Affordability
The Hershey Company has announced it is joining Partners in Food Solutions (PFS), an international public-private partnership that connects volunteer experts from the world’s leading food companies with their counterparts in Africa to help them imp... View More
Amazon, Panera Have Best CSR Reputations in the U.S.
Amazon, LEGO, BMW, Sanofi, Schneider Electric and Panera Bread have the best public perception for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the United States, according to a new report by the Reputation Institute. The U.S. CSR RepTrak highlights the ... View More
Ocean Conservancy Plan Could Cut Ocean Plastic Waste 45% by 2025, 100% by 2035
Ocean Conservancy on Wednesday released a report that proposes a four-point solution to cutting ocean plastic waste by 45 percent by 2025 with the ultimate goal of eradicating the issue by 2035. Stemming the Tide: Land-based strategies for a plastic-... View More
Report: 91% of Top Firms View Climate Shocks as Business Risk
Ninety-one percent of companies in the S&P Global 100 Index see extreme weather and climate change impacts as current or future risks to their business, but many struggle to translate long-term, global climate data into short-term and local risks... View More
New Tool Helps Businesses Act on Sustainable Development Goals
GRI, the UN Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have launched a new tool to help companies navigate and contribute to a new set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations... View More
