The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI), a leading industry initiative on conflict minerals, is calling on more companies to join over 120 companies from seven different industries to already become conflict-free.
The CFSI provides vital sourcing information that enables companies to make informed choices about minerals they use in their products — including helping companies meet their upcoming reporting deadline related to U.S. conflict minerals regulations.
I love Rube Goldberg Machines — those inefficient systems, full of convoluted twists and turns that use chain reactions to complete simple tasks.
In one of my favorite examples, a tipped milk bottle releases a sword, which cuts a rope that drops a guillotine, which releases a battering ram to swing a door that wields a grass sickle while disturbing a hawk, which drops a boot that stomps on the head of an octopus, whose tentacles squeeze an orange to produce a single glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. These cartoons can give us a good laugh, but to model a business in this gratuitously complicated way would be akin to planning to fail.
Organic dairy producer Stonyfield Farm, Inc. announced this week that it will utilize a new tool to manage its supply chain: SupplyShift™ — a new, cloud-based, supply chain management platform focused on sustainability, but flexible enough to assess any procurement need or supply chain risks.
“When it comes to managing environmental and social impact across any business, supply chains are everything,” cited Wood Turner, Stonyfield’s VP of Sustainability Innovation. “The challenge comes in getting diverse suppliers aligned around shared values and leadership aspirations. At Stonyfield, we have high hopes that SupplyShift will be the key to a new phase of innovation for us."
In December, Ralph Thurm delivered a captivating TEDx Talk introducing the notion of ThriveAbility, and its promise in bridging what he calls the “Sustainability Context Gap.” As former COO of the Global Reporting Initiative, to complement deep experience in the corporate world (at Siemens) and consulting realm (at Deloitte), Thurm has witnessed firsthand the limitations of the corporate sustainability movement to achieve the transformations necessary to solve our social and ecological crises.
A group of global food and beverage companies are using the launch of a new carbon-management web app to call for greater industry collaboration on agricultural sustainability.
Members of The Cool Farm Institute (CFI) — including PepsiCo, Unilever, Heineken, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Yara and Fertilizers Europe — have spearheaded the development of an online tool to help farmers assess and improve the environmental and economic performance of their businesses.
A new report released Friday by the World Economic Forum (WEF) at its annual meeting in Davos, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), contends that over US$1 trillion a year could be generated for the global economy by 2025 and 100,000 new jobs created within the next five years if companies focused on building circular supply chains to increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture.
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.
Hurricane Sandy ranks as the second-costliest hurricane in American history, causing an estimated $68 billion in damages. One year later, the most powerful storm ever recorded to hit land devastated the Philippines.
On Thursday at the US Conference of Mayors Meeting in Washington, D.C., Walmart US President and CEO Bill Simon announced a new fund for innovation in US manufacturing.
Walmart and the Walmart Foundation will fund the five-year program and launch it in March in collaboration with the US Conference of Mayors. The fund will provide grants to innovators in the manufacturing sector and seeks to create new processes, ideas and jobs that support the country’s growing manufacturing footprint.
There, we said it. Sustainability, that thing we all want — that we speak about ad nauseum— it’s dusty, dull, boring.
What seems fundamental to the human spirit is that we all seek advancement, progress and growth. We went from the Ice Age to the Stone Age to the Space Age and changed our world drastically along the way.
Today, technology and the web have increased connection and made communication easier and faster. We might be addicted to it, but technology is almost always perceived as progress. Progress is action; it is exciting. While we may have moments of nostalgia for the past, we all almost universally want to sign up to the great wild unknown of the future.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the traditional view of business existing purely to maximise profit for shareholders is not so much wrong as built for another time. Businesses have been slowly moving towards a model that recognises the impact they have on society and the environment, putting increasing amounts of budget and resources towards mitigating that impact. But just minimising the amount of environmental damage a business does is no longer enough.
Nor is it sufficient to rely predominantly on CSR to create a good impression. Information is becoming ever more accessible, which means that businesses are subject to greater levels of scrutiny than ever before.
The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) announced today that the following projects have been chosen as the three finalists for the World Design Impact Prize 2013-2014: A Behaviour Changing (ABC) Syringe, BioLite HomeStove and the Refugee Housing Unit.
What do dirty diapers and deceptive ads have in common? (We’ll pause a moment so you can add your own punch line.) Now that’s out of the way, the action against Portland-based Down to Earth Designs — consumers know them as gDiapers — is the FTC's latest effort to ensure the accuracy of environmental marketing claims. But even if green isn't your game, the case also offers insights into what the FTC calls "unqualified claims."
This week, Chipotle announced the upcoming premiere of “Farmed and Dangerous,” a new original comedy series that satirically explores the world of industrial agriculture in America. Produced by Chipotle and Piro, a New York-based studio known for its unique work in film and television, the initial four-episode season will air Monday nights on Hulu and Hulu Plus beginning Monday, Feb. 17, 2014. The comedy integrates Chipotle’s values and commitment to serving “Food with Integrity” without any explicit Chipotle branding.
Sprint announced today it will deploy hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) technology as backup power to its rooftop network sites thanks to a grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). The solution should allow for lower site maintenance and cleaner network energy sources and will increase network survivability during power outages.
Once upon a time, the ‘S’ word — sustainability — was about as relevant to business as a fork in a sugar bowl. At best, a box to be ticked; at worst, seen as a serious impediment to the pursuit of profit.
But the world is changing. Look at the business news and you’ll see the global heads of big businesses uttering that ‘S’ word with increasing frequency.
In the latest in a string of recent efforts to engage children in the joys of healthy eating, First Lady Michelle Obama announced last week that Subway® restaurants has joined the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) and Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative in a three-year commitment to promote healthier food choices to kids. As part of its commitment, Subway will launch a series of fun, engaging campaigns aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in children; set and implement new marketing standards to kids; and strengthen its children’s menu offerings, which the chain says are already nutritious.
CDP, with the help of FirstCarbon Solutions (FCS), a pioneer in environmental and sustainability business solutions, has announced the debut publication of the Supplier Climate Performance Leadership Index (SCPLI), a new evaluation and benchmarking tool for CDP supply chain members and suppliers.
The sharing economy is a multibillion-dollar industry that's making big brands feel uneasy. Also known as the collaborative economy, borrowing, lending, reusing, and reselling is moving full speed ahead, and in 2014, large companies and organizations will struggle if they don’t do a few key things to adapt.
Sharing as a business model is on the rise, with more than 200 companies already part of the movement. Look no further than million dollar businesses such as Airbnb, Lyft or LendingClub as examples. The numbers tells us that people want to rent out their apartment when they’re out of town, share a ride, and loan money to people in need.
WWF says it is cautiously welcoming a first attempt at a Sustainable Forest Management Policy (SFMP) by Indonesian pulp and paper giant Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd (APRIL), released Tuesday. WWF notes that a commitment to support forest conservation areas equal in size to its plantations sets a new standard for the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia, but is concerned about certain loopholes in the policy, which Greenpeace says is ‘essentially a license to continue forest clearance.’
