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Superfood Startup Raises $350,000 in Crowdfunding Equity Campaign

Kuli Kuli, maker of the eponymous moringa “superfood” nutrition bars, has raised $350,000 in a crowdfunding equity campaign.The campaign brought in an array of notable investors, including Brad Feld of the Foundry Group, five-time CEO and former venture capitalist Derek Proudian, and Mary Waldner of the recently acquired food company Mary’s Gone Crackers. Read More...

Employee Engagement = Happy Talent = Higher Revenue

What if 100 percent of your employees were engaged in your business? According to Gallup, that would translate to an increase of anywhere from $450-550B in increased revenue for US companies alone. Those are daunting numbers in the macro. But what matters is how it translates to your business. Even if it were only 1 percent of your revenue, wouldn’t you want to know? Read More...

Shell joins EDF’s Methane Detectors Challenge

Shell has joined the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) “Methane Detectors Challenge,” a collaborative project between EDF and five other oil and natural gas companies aimed at identifying and bringing to market cutting-edge technologies that could ultimately help reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations.Shell joins Apache Corporation, BG Group, Hess Corporation, Noble Energy and Southwestern Energy as an industry partner in this effort to help catalyze new technologies for enhanced detection of oil and gas emissions. Read More...

AB InBev: Lessons Learned from Scaling Up a Sustainable Logistics Operation

Moving goods from raw ingredients to finished products is complex and requires a significant amount of energy. A bottle of Budweiser, for example, starts with transporting barley and other materials to the brewery and then shipping our finished product to millions of sales points around the world. This flow is what we call transportation logistics, and the sector contributes to 5.5 percent of all global carbon emissions, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). Read More...

#SB14sd Preview: Philips on Redesigning for a Circular Economy

At Sustainable Brands ’14 San Diego next week (June 2-5), the circular economy will be a major topic as we search for ways to decouple economic growth from resource consumption. In 2013, Philips committed to reimagining its products through the lens of a circular economy approach that focuses on customer access over ownership and business models for services and solutions, rather than transactions. The company also became a global partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to advancing the concepts of the circular economy. Read More...

Turlington to Fashion Industry: 'One Preventable Death Is a Death Too Many'

When over 1,100 garment workers died in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in April 2013, it shined an unflinching light on the untenable conditions that many in the industry have long been forced to endure. Since then, consumers, activists and other stakeholders around the world have demanded that brands take immediate action to ensure that workers are not only safe, but paid fairly while they’re constructing the clothing we wear every day. Read More...

How Crowdfunding Is Catalyzing Social Change

When I ran a crowdfunding campaign for Kuli Kuli last May, we had zero money, no full-time staff and a network that consisted mostly of other broke 20-somethings. And yet, within a day we had raised $22,000. We went on to raise $53,000 from 800 people, most of whom we’d never met.Prior to our Indiegogo campaign, even my close family and friends didn’t know what I was doing. My own father still couldn’t pronounce the name of the plant that we were trying to make the next big superfood (for reference it’s moringa — MO-ring-GA). Read More...

REI's Energy Strategy Now Includes Buying Renewable Energy Certificates

REI is on track to powering all of its stores and distribution centers by renewable energy, through a combination of renewable energy projects and certified renewable energy certificates (RECs).With 26 solar electric systems generating energy and a strong program to invest in energy efficiency, REI now buys RECs as part of its energy strategy that powers more than 130 stores, two distribution centers and its headquarters.While the company grew nearly six percent in 2013, REI says it increased its energy consumption by just 0.1 percent and reduced its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 39.5 percent. Read More...

Study Reveals Few Fashion Brands Are Walking Their Sustainability Talk

A recent study by brand comparison website Rank a Brand shows discrepancies in sustainability talk and action in the fashion industry. The report finds that while fashion brands are tackling sustainability challenges through communication (63 percent speak of sustainability on their websites, 10 percent more than in 2011; 20 percent publish a sustainability report), many are not backing it with details and data. Read More...

How to Redefine Capitalism-as-Usual (or 8 Steps to Becoming a Truly Sustainable Brand)

When Patagonia launched its Responsible Economy campaign last fall, VP of Environmental Initiatives Rick Ridgeway eloquently summed up the ‘elephant in the room’ of capitalism: Growth is not sustainable. Ridgeway accepts that evolving from our current economic system will be especially challenging for larger companies with insatiable IPOs, but I’d like to share some ways it not only can be done but is being done.1. CSRCorporate social responsibility has been a fantastic gateway for newcomers to sustainable business values, allowing a brand to better understand its impacts and act as a baseline to refer back to over time. Read More...

Keurig Green Mountain Pledges $11M to NGOs Working to Solve Global Water Crisis

Just a week after the release of its most recent sustainability report — complete with new 2020 targets, including providing access to clean water to a million people worldwide — and just in time for World Water Day, Keurig Green Mountain (KGM), has announced a multi-faceted effort to address the long-term, interconnected challenges of the global water crisis, starting with a commitment of $11 million to support leading NGOs working to promote water security around the world. Read More...

Rainforest Alliance Reinstates IKEA's FSC Certification

The Rainforest Alliance (RA) announced this week it has lifted the suspension of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate of Swedwood Karelia LLC, a subsidiary of IKEA, following an independent appeals committee evaluation of the company’s 2013 annual audit. Read More...

Keurig Green Mountain's 2020 Targets Address Company's Biggest Sustainability Challenges

Keurig Green Mountain's ninth annual Sustainability Report, released today, reveals progress on the company’s 2013 initiatives, and also announces the company's ambitious new 2020 targets with a focus on three main practice areas: Resilient Supply Chain, Sustainable Products, and Thriving People and Communities. Read More...

FSC Suspends IKEA's Certification After Discovering Use of Old-Growth Forests in Russia

While Ikea has been leading the charge in its use of sustainably sourced cotton and promotion of LED lighting, it apparently should pay closer attention to its wood sourcing — the company recently got a slap on the wrist from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which suspended IKEA’s certification after discovering that the Swedish furniture giant’s subsidiary, Swedwood, has been cutting 600-year-old trees in Karelia, Russia, near the border of Finland. Read More...

Airbnb Building Brand Value by Creating Authentic Connections with — and Between — Users

Consistently creating valuable content through a variety of channels is a great way for companies to establish thought leadership and gain customer trust; Airbnb’s content-marketing initiatives are a best-practice model. Read More...

Reimagining Phoenix: A Citywide Campaign to Turn Trash Into Resources

Imagine a future where there is no such thing as trash — there are only resources. Where residents of a large metropolitan region routinely reduce, reuse, recycle and reconsider their consumption patterns by imagining the opportunities that come from making wiser choices. Achieving that ambition may be a long way off, but if the City of Phoenix has anything to do with it, that future begins now — with a multi-pronged citywide strategy based on forming unique private-public partnerships and cross-sector collaboration. Read More...

Introducing Sustainability Pay: Compensation for Holistic Corporate Performance

Given the board compensation ritual of setting performance targets that meet or beat peer results and relentless investor pressure, we can expect sustainable pay to become more prevalent and formalized in future. Read More...

Self-Contained Solar-Powered Toilet Could Transform Sanitation in Developing World

A team of Caltech engineers is working on the toilet of tomorrow — a self-cleaning, solar-powered toilet that turns human waste into hydrogen and fertilizer, according to FastCoExist. The low-cost, automated toilet could help to revolutionize sanitation systems in the developing world. Read More...

Beyond Omega-3s: How Systems Thinking Helped Organic Valley Yield a Host of Sustainability Benefits

Organic milk comes with a dose of healthful omega-3 fatty acids, which help prevent heart disease and are linked to additional health benefits. Normally associated with seafood or dietary supplements, these valuable nutrients can also come from some dairy products, according to research published last month in PLOS ONE. The study included milk from Organic Valley, the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperative, which has been on the path to understanding the fatty acid profile of its products since 2009. Read More...

New Video Highlights adidas' New Attention to Pattern Efficiency

adidas has announced new advances in how it develops key apparel ranges to reduce waste while maintaining performance and style. Both the Running and adidas by Stella McCartney teams have worked to change the way they make patterns to increase the efficiency of their new product ranges by reducing fabric waste.The company created a short animation, in collaboration with Big Animal Productions, to highlight this conscientious new design and production process: Read More...

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