The latest products, services, design approaches and business models that are helping organizations of all sizes deliver on their sustainability ambitions and establish a new business as usual.
B Lab on Wednesday recognized 92 companies from 15 countries and 31 industries for creating the most positive, overall social and environmental impact.The "B Corp Best for the World" list honors businesses that earned an overall score in the top 10 percent of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company's impact on its workers, community and the environment. Honorees were recognized among micro, small and mid-sized businesses.
Carlton Solle grew up in Marin County, surrounded by the beauty of the Bay Area. But it wasn’t until he spent time in Costa Rica that he saw natural beauty contaminated — beaches overgrown with garbage floating downstream. In response, he founded Treeson and created a Kickstarter campaign to raise launch funds.
As part of our ongoing series of conversations with interesting people making the world a better place, BBMG welcomed to our studio Jared Koch, the author and co-founder of Clean Plates: A Guide to the Healthiest, Tastiest and Most Sustainable Restaurants.
Engaging people in sustainability remains one of the cause’s biggest challenges – ensuring their behavior reflects their engagement is another. A number of studies have been devoted to bridging the gap between people’s attitudes and their actions, and it remains a conundrum for many organizations on a mission to promote positive behavior.Luckily, tools such as myActions are helping companies not only engage certain groups on the merit of more conscious behaviors but motivate them to follow through.
On Tuesday at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie announced the launch of TOMS Roasting Company, and the grand opening of its first location, in Austin.“We’re super excited about it. It allows us to enter a totally new industry and allows us to really work on economic development impact, as well as being able to give water to people around the world — something I’ve been passionate about for a long time,” Mycoskie told USA Today.
While I won’t say which company makes my smart phone, I will say that my phone breaks… a lot. I’ve had problems with the headphone jack, the vibrate setting, and currently, the touch screen will occasionally start to malfunction by pressing buttons at will, only ceasing when I restart my phone. Problems like these, which are frustrating at best and costly at worst, are one reason Phonebloks plans to step in to save the day.
One of the most well-known and loved eco-friendly beauty brands out there, Tata Harper has made a mark on the beauty industry with one eye on sustainability and the other on consumer health and wellness. Hailing from her organic farm in Vermont, Harper’s ingredients are all sustainably sourced and her products as close to “farm-to-medicine cabinet” as you can get. We talked with Harper about how she disrupts — and in some cases elevates — standards for production in the beauty industry.What makes your farm "sustainable"?
It takes a village to raise an entrepreneur. So, what happens in a city whose population shrank by more than half in the last 50 years? For many can-do entrepreneurs, the deserted city is now a clean canvas where they are free to experiment. At the same time, a number of business incubators in Detroit are stepping in, offering budding entrepreneurs training, shared office space and other resources to pursue their dreams. And for many of these incubators, the triple bottom line is an integral part of their identity and Detroit’s revival.
In Detroit, a host of mission-driven entrepreneurs and nonprofits are finding innovative ways to serve the embattled city’s underserved communities, starting by meeting their most basic needs for food, clothing, cleanliness and employment (See part one for five more startups that are helping to revitalize Detroit):
Low rent prices, public-private-nonprofit partnerships, and hip incubators are converging to create an ideal environment in Detroit for social entrepreneurs, leading forward-thinking startups to increasingly reject the saturated and cutthroat environments of Silicon Valley and New York City for a bit of Midwestern Nice. As the city emerges from the ashes of its Chapter 9 filing last year, here are 5 startups revitalizing Detroit while pursuing the triple bottom line.Hantz Woodlands
Wrinkled veggies. Rotting fruit. Containers that you wouldn’t dare open because of the smells that might escape. How many times have you cleaned out your refrigerator and been dismayed at how much food has spoiled? Every year, billions of dollars are wasted because of food spoilage. In fact, the EPA notes that “in 2011 alone, more than 36 million tons of food waste was generated, with only four percent of food waste generated diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting.” Meanwhile, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) paints a wider picture by noting that one-third of food produced for human consumption is wasted, which translates into 1.3 billion metric tons of food per year.
Yerdle, the online marketplace where shoppers in the greater San Francisco and New York City areas can give and get things for free, today becomes available across the country by providing low-cost, flat rate shipping for $2-4 nationwide. Yerdle has also updated its iPhone app to offer enhanced discovery browsing, a re-designed home screen, a new social “activity feed,” and a simplified shopping cart.
Umicore’s ranking as #1 on the 2013 Global 100 index of most sustainable companies was met with healthy skepticism by social justice advocates and environmental purists. The company’s history as Union Minière du Haut Katanga created devastation that Umicore will need to continue to remedy at a hefty price tag.
What are the 100 solutions that can bring about a sustainable society? Scandinavian think tank Sustainia has launched its third annual global campaign to find the answers. With a worldwide alliance of companies and organizations, the goal is to identify the world’s 100 leading sustainability projects and technologies across sectors such as food, fashion, energy, smart homes etc. Collectively, the solutions will form the 2014 Sustainia100, a comprehensive guide to state-of-the-art sustainability practices in various industries and regions.
I have been leading a research effort to understand the impacts of the growing Collaborative Economy trend. In case you are new to the collaborative economy, there's an unstoppable wave of people trading, renting and borrowing all kinds of services and goods. The disruptive impacts to brands are potentially very high. Consumers are already buying and trading among themselves, often without purchasing items directly from the brands themselves. Companies that don't pay attention to this trend are leaving themselves in a state of risk, as technology and society continue to quickly innovate.
Ever since we started writing and speaking about our current book project, How on Earth: Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050, we have been amazed by one phenomenon in particular: When we have a chance to explain to people what not-for-profit (NFP) enterprise actually is, we get an incredible response from all sectors and political spheres to the proposition that not-for-profit business lies at the heart of our future global economy.
At BBMG, we often use archetypes to help reveal a brand’s true character and provide a North Star for the products, services and experiences it can bring into the world.My favorite is the Alchemist, whose core desire is to search out the fundamental laws of how things work and apply these principles to make things happen. The Alchemist integrates physical, environmental and spiritual elements to spark transformation in people, organizations and our times.In 2014, we see an alchemy of economic, environmental and social values that will bring new opportunities for business and society, and we’ve identified five forces that will advance a more sustainable marketplace:
Many classic tales of adventure begin with an empowering gift: something that opens doors, reveals possibilities, or helps to overcome obstacles. D’Artagnan’s father presents him with fifteen crowns, a horse and a letter of introduction; James Bond goes to see Q to pick up his car and gadgets; the Master of Jordan College gives Lyra the all-knowing, all-telling alethiometer.
Imagine a marketplace where you can buy — or not buy — products and services that accelerate social innovation by redefining the capitalist narrative; a place where you can purchase or sell “goods for good” from companies or to consumers around the world. Look no further come February 12, when the COMMON Marketplace makes its official debut.Developed by COMMON, the world’s first “collaborative brand” made up of a community of creative and business professionals, the organization says the new online marketplace is a place where “goods for good” can be bought and sold. In order to sell on the Marketplace, companies must apply and meet a set of design, sustainability and collaborative criteria.
Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. What started as a conversation amongst three friends in 2012 soon evolved into a new online retail concept founded on a shared passion to make a difference.Nomadista, a term coined by co-founders Irina Bezsonoff, Marisol Gomez and Luisa Echeverry meaning an open-minded, stylish and socially-conscious wanderer, launched in September with a mission to provide shoppers with beautifully designed products that are responsibly sourced and made, while helping to improve conditions and create opportunities for underserved children in Colombia.