Follow the growing amount of collaborative work — cross-functional, cross-sector, pre-competitive and more — bringing about massive, disruptive, needed shifts to business as usual.
On Wednesday, the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) and CSR Europe, facilitators of the European Automotive Working Group on Supply Chain Sustainability, announced an unprecedented agreement among 14 global automakers on a set of standards outlining expectations for suppliers on key responsibility issues including human rights, environment, working conditions and business ethics.
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.
Longtime rivals ConAgra Foods and Procter & Gamble have teamed up to help Feeding America tackle the ongoing issue of childhood hunger in the US with the 2014 Child Hunger Ends Here campaign, through which the companies hope to help donate up to 7 million meals to the more than 20 percent of children across the country that are food insecure.
Food Lion, one of America’s largest supermarket chains with more than 1,100 stores across the eastern and southeastern US, has announced the adoption of a sustainable seafood policy that will cover approximately 1,000 fresh, frozen, canned or packaged seafood products sold at its stores. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute will help Food Lion assess its suppliers.Highlights of the policy include:
Duke Energy, American Electric Power and Hoosier Energy are the first buyers of interstate credits for water nutrients in the United States' new pilot program. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) on Tuesday officially launched the program for water-quality trades in the Ohio River Basin. The initiative tests water-quality improvement strategies in the world’s only interstate water quality trading program.Water quality trading is a market-based approach that could enable facilities to meet permit limits using nutrient-reduction credits from farmers who implement conservation practices, EPRI says.
Marriott is among the first tourism companies to partner with a new global campaign aimed at raising awareness about the most common illicit goods and services that tourists might be exposed to while traveling.The “Your Actions Count — Be a Responsible Traveler” campaign provides guidance for travelers to recognize possible situations of trafficking in persons, wildlife, cultural artifacts, illicit drugs and counterfeit goods, and invites them to take action through responsible consumer choices, such as alerting the proper authorities to situations. A central focus of the initiative will be reaching out to young people, spreading the anti-trafficking message to future generations of travelers, Marriott says.
Unilever recently announced a public-private partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) aimed at helping to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers around the world.The goal of the 5-year global agreement — the first of its kind by IFAD with the private sector — is to help improve food security through:
Project 7, a mission-driven company that donates proceeds from the sale of its products (including bottled water, gum, mints and coffee) to one of seven social and environmental causes, has rather appropriately teamed up with 7UP® for a campaign to “make every bottle count.”
WWF and international paper and packaging conglomerate Mondi Group announced Wednesday that they have formed a three-year strategic partnership aimed at increasing environmental stewardship in the packaging and paper sectors.The project will see the two parties focusing on minimizing the impacts of Mondi’s operations on forests, climate and water, and fostering sustainable practices in the industry. WWF says the partnership, which links one of the largest packaging, pulp and paper producers in the world with the world’s largest conservation organization, sends a strong signal that prioritizing environmental sustainability makes good business sense.
Every cup of tea you drink should help better the lives of the people who produce it, improve the environment where it is grown, and contribute to a thriving global industry, according to a new report from some of sector’s biggest players, launched today by global sustainability nonprofit Forum for the Future.Unilever, Yorkshire Tea, Tata Global Beverages and James Finlay are among members of the Tea 2030 partnership calling for the sector to find legal ways to collaborate — whilst continuing to compete vigorously — to turn tea from a standard commodity into a “hero crop,“ which benefits the millions who work in all parts of the industry as well as the wider environment and economy.
What is REDD+?Accounting for 15 percent of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation has turned what should be our largest terrestrial carbon sink into our second largest source of climate-changing emissions. Although deforestation is estimated to cost the global economy $2-5 trillion each year, we continue to place higher value on cut forests than standing.Why are we perpetuating such perverse economic incentives, and what can we do to create a more sustainable paradigm for economic development?
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and this year thousands of Americans are planning on something beyond just flowers and chocolates. February 14 is one of the biggest days of the year to shop for jewelry — last year, Americans spent more than $4 billion on baubles for their loved ones.But behind the glitter of the gold ring often lies an uncomfortable reality: the destructive impacts of irresponsible mining. Many mining companies are notorious for violation of human rights, destruction of natural areas and hazardous dumping of toxic waste.
H&M and WaterAid on Tuesday launched a new global partnership aimed at improving the health, education and future prospects of students by delivering safe water, sanitation and hygiene education programs in schools throughout the developing world.The initiative will not only transform the lives of students by delivering immediate and long-term improvements to health and education, but also influence national and international policies around the right to safe water and sanitation, H&M says.To make this happen H&M, through its philanthropic arm the H&M Conscious Foundation, will donate $9.3 million.
The IKEA Foundation has launched a two-month campaign to raise funds to provide solar-powered lighting and other renewable energy technologies to UN refugee camps run through the sale of light bulbs in its stores around the world.For every LEDARE model LED bulb sold at IKEA from February 3 until March 29, the IKEA Foundation will donate €1 to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The Coca-Cola Company, AB InBev, Diageo and other members of the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) recently published a document that creates the industry’s first common framework for greenhouse gas emissions reporting.
They lack neither influence, nor the ability to use it. But there is one asset that business leaders at the World Economic Forum this week could usefully exploit further: the power to advance the wider interests of people and planet. With UN climate change negotiations under way and as the UN designs its flagship Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, business needs to engage.
I:CO, a leading global, end-to-end solutions provider for the reuse and recycling of clothing, shoes and other textiles, today launches its first-ever I:CO City initiative with the City of San Francisco. The launch creates a public, private and non-profit infrastructure to make it easy, convenient and rewarding for residents and businesses to recycle textile-related items.In alignment with San Francisco’s goal of zero waste by 2020, I:CO will serve as the lead textile collection and processing partner to divert this waste from landfill and give these items new life.
According to a Berkeley study, one properly shared car reduces the need for nine owned cars. Participating in a car co-op may not be up your alley, but there are plenty of Millennials eschewing ownership and Boomers that are downsizing who buy into the notion of the “Collaborative Economy” — making co-owning cars a viable option for some.
When I was seven, I was given an Apple Macintosh in the hope that Mavis Beacon would teach me how to touch type. It was an unreasonable expectation, for I was actually more interested in escaping to the fantasy lands of Dungeons and Dragons and Lode Runner. Yet, these games had a lasting, unexpected impact on my thirst for learning. In playing Dungeons and Dragons, I remember being particularly excited each time my archetypal characters would gain ‘experience points’ that enabled them to upgrade their abilities.
The Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences (NIHS) has signed a long-term research agreement with Wisconsin-based Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), a leading developer of stem cell technologies for in vitro drug development, stem cell banking and in vivo cellular therapeutic research.The agreement gives Nestlé access to certain types of CDI’s cell products to support nutrition-research programs on maintaining health and helping to prevent conditions such as diabetes and obesity.