Sheila Shayon
How Cryptocurrency Is Lifting Hope for South Africa's Women
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Digital currency, aka cryptocurrency, is shaking up the financial industry’s entrenched institutions, and now its potential for doing good is dawning — as it enables accountability and financial sovereignty one mobile click at a time.Stellar, a nonprofit building a global digital platform for money transfer, is partnering with open-source text messaging network, Vumi, to empower young women in South Africa in an aptly titled program, Give a Girl a Savings Account. - 8 years ago
Solomon to Sustainability Laggards: Catch-Up Will Become Harder to Play
The Next Economy / Joel Solomon, a pioneer in social venture capital, is chairman of Renewal Funds, Canada’s largest organization in the sector.With $98m in assets under management, Renewal Funds invests in organic food, responsibly made products and environmental innovations. Its portfolio includes Alter Eco, Aquatic Informatics, Elevation Brands, Sensible Organics, Seventh Generation and Sweet Earth, to name a few. - 8 years ago
Marketers Cleverly Crafting Brand Messaging to Broaden Appeal of Better Products
Marketing and Comms / As Super Bowl XLIX shapes up to kick off on Sunday, NBC is selling 30-second spots for $4.4-4.5 million, and 95 percent of in-game ad inventory is already sold on what has become digital advertising’s biggest day.By leveraging a massive event such as the Super Bowl, which last year set a record as the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 111.5 million viewers, more marketers are betting millions on shifting those viewers’ perception and understanding of sustainability with their carefully crafted ads. - 8 years ago
For Clifford, Hope Springs Eternal for 'The Greening of Asia'
Organizational Change / Mark Clifford’s forthcoming book, The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency (Columbia Business School Publishing, March 2015), offers a hopeful take on major trends in the region, such as entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies working together to generate solutions in energy, land and water conservation that are efficient and sustainable. - 8 years ago
Drones: Sustainability's New Wingmen?
Product, Service & Design Innovation / Drones have already disintermediated the aerospace/defense industry and have crossed the threshold from commercial to consumer, delivering to the average person the world’s most powerful personal computer. The potential for good in industrial agriculture, wildlife conservation and animal poaching, monitoring of factory farms, and prevention and early detection of forest fires is unprecedented.Drones can make granular crop maps for farmers, monitor illegal logging, track sometimes elusive endangered species in their habitats, and even drill down to track the sounds of animals as small as bats. - 8 years ago
Sustain Condoms Calling on Young Women to Treat Their Bodies Like Temples
Marketing and Comms / Since launching in 2013, Sustain Condoms, the first Fair Trade-certified brand of condoms, has been cheekily encouraging its target market — women ages 25-35 — to “Do what’s natural.” - 8 years ago
Two Film Contests Aiming to Teach the Importance of 'Real Food'
Marketing and Comms / Recognizing the power of film as an educational tool, two contests — both geared towards highlighting the importance and complexity of the world’s food system — through short films are accepting submissions.The first, the Real Food Media Contest, is part of the Real Food Media Project, a collaborative initiative with both online resources and grassroots events nationwide for sharing stories of sustainable food and farming, and ‘myth-busting’ in the process.“The Contest taps into the growing interest about food from all corners of the country and inspires up-and-coming filmmakers alongside established ones to create original, bold — and super short — content,” said founder and director Anna Lappé. - 8 years ago
Almost 400,000 Fill NYC Streets to Drive Home the Need for Climate Action
Collaboration / Almost 400,000 people turned out in NYC yesterday for the US edition of the People's Climate March, the largest protest in the history of the issue, joined by more than 2,000 events in 166 countries worldwide.The streets began to fill up about 10:30am, with the official start scheduled for 11:30am, at 59th Street and Columbus Circle. - 8 years ago
Klein: Capitalism Is Unsustainable and Driving Climate Disaster
The Next Economy / In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (due in stores September 16), author and social activist Naomi Klein espouses that capitalism, rather than carbon, is the core issue and key driver in imminent climate disaster. Klein argues that current carbon trading programs, for example, offer perverse motivation, enabling manufacturers to produce excess greenhouse gases, which they are then compensated to reduce. Therefore, a fight against climate change is a fight against the inherent values of capitalism. - 8 years ago
Food Forward: The Food Revolution Is Being Televised
Marketing and Comms / A new documentary TV series, “Food Forward,” highlights the range of issues created and affected by our increasingly unsustainable food ecosystem, as well as the “food rebels” helping to transform it. The 13-episode series premieres on PBS on September 4.“Food Forward” highlights farmers, ranchers, chefs, scientists, teachers and fishermen in more than 50 US communities who are part of a rising urban agriculture, building local food systems and contributing to a cleaner, more sustainable economy. Interestingly, many of the methods modeled by these food revisionists emulate more traditional farming, ranching and fishing models. - 8 years ago
RPGs Tapping Energy, Smarts of Gamers to Generate Understanding of Global Problems
Marketing and Comms / Gaming, particularly role-playing games (RPGs), is increasingly serious business — US retail revenue from the video game industry was estimated at $887 million as of February 2014, and the global video game industry now exceeds $76 billion with projections of $86 billion plus by 2016. - 8 years ago
Effective Sustainability Initiatives Garner Accolades from Cannes, IPA
Marketing and Comms / The word sustainability, first used around 1727, is derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold; sus, up). By that definition, sustainability just got a boost at the recent Cannes Film Festival as superstar musician/activist Bono was awarded the inaugural Cannes LionHeart award for his humanitarian work.Bono used the occasion to call on the global advertising community to become the "creative engine of capitalism" and "the world’s thermostat" to tackle problems such as AIDS. - 8 years ago
Starbucks Jumps on the Sustainably Sourced Wagon with New Origins Campaign
Marketing and Comms / Continuing a positive trend of transparency in the food industry, Starbucks' latest campaign focuses on the quality and sourcing of its coffee beans, as sustainability and health concerns continue to motivate consumers to ask, "Where does this come from?"Launched on Sunday during the Emmys, the new documentary-inspired TV ad shows the heritage of the cafe chain's Arabica coffee beans. "The bean matters, because you cannot roast in quality, you cannot roast in complexity," the voiceover says as black-and-white footage of coffee plantations and the roasting process runs. - 9 years ago
Mondelez, Kellogg Among Food Brands Backing Campaign to Push 'Facts Up Front' Labeling
Marketing and Comms / The ongoing battle over the increasing girth of American consumers is heating up — again.Marketers have joined forces on a $50 million campaign plugging front-of-pack labeling called Facts Up Front, dually motivated by bettering their image among consumers and getting federal regulators off their backs. The Facts Up Front initiative actually began in 2011, displaying stats such as calories, saturated fat, sodium and sugar content, but it was promoted lightly and had little effect on consumer sentiment. - 9 years ago
Walmart-Backed Alliance Vows to Fix Bangladesh, But Critics Fear Lack of Liability
Supply Chain / An alliance of 17 North American brands led by Walmart, Gap and Target has unveiled the details of its independent Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative — a five-year pact that aims to improve conditions at Bangladesh garment factories and establish more viable worker communications. - 9 years ago
Sustain Condoms: How a Father-Daughter Duo Plan to Transform a Toxic Industry
Supply Chain / Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation, and his daughter Meika are extending the ethos and ethics of the pioneering sustainable care products brand to the world’s first sustainable condom, carrying the slogan, "Do what's natural." Toxin-free, fair trade Sustain condoms are made in India and are set to be in stores by January 2014 — the first product from the father-daughter team behind Hollender Sustainable Brands. - 9 years ago
US Suspends Trade Privileges with Bangladesh, Pressuring Factories, Brands to Comply with Safety Standards
Supply Chain / On Thursday, the Obama Administration announced that it would be suspending trade privileges extended to Bangladesh as a result of the country's neglect of workers' rights. "I have determined that it is appropriate to suspend Bangladesh's designation … because it is not taking steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights to workers in the country," President Obama wrote in a message to Congress. The decision, regarded widely as a stern warning to the nation, will effectively end special tax breaks on exports to the US that are meant to help developing economies. - 9 years ago