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.

“As population grows and competition for land increases, forest-based industries that rely on renewable resources can play an important role in protecting and managing vital ecosystems,” says Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International. “Companies like Mondi that choose to contribute to sustainable resource use and nature conservation are ensuring their own long-term viability, while contributing to the well-being of people and the planet today.”

The program will work to foster stewardship in three main areas:

• Ecosystems— building on the successful Mondi Wetlands Programme in South Africa, this work will focus on protecting high conservation value (HCV) ecosystems in Russia and other regions, and increasing the value and resilience of multi-functional production landscapes in South Africa.
• Manufacturing — further reducing the water and climate footprint of Mondi’s operations and promoting resource efficiency, recycling and longevity of products, including the cascading use of wood and forest products where appropriate.
• Products — further enhancing the environmental performance of Mondi’s products through, among others, credible certification and efficient life-cycle use of materials in their paper and packaging products.

Mondi Group CEO David Hathorn says, “Mondi and WWF have a successful association working together on projects. This international partnership enables us to join forces on a larger scale. Sustainable development is integral to our business, and we are very pleased to be working with WWF as we continue to reduce our footprint and share responsible practices across our industry and beyond.”

WWF is engaging a number of key players in the global pulp and paper industry in an effort to support their attention to environmental sustainability, while pushing for continued improvement: The NGO cautiously welcomed a first attempt at a Sustainable Forest Management Policy released last month by Indonesian pulp and paper giant Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd (APRIL). WWF notes that APRIL's 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.

WWF was also tentatively optimistic about a more robust commitment released last year by APRIL counterpart Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) — the largest paper company in Indonesia and one of the largest in the world — in which the company committed to ceasing deforestation in Indonesia. But the nonprofit went on to urge APP to agree to a list of performance targets in order to improve its current status as one of the world’s most notorious deforesters and back up its commitment to become an environmentally and socially responsible company.

For more examples of groundbreaking cross-sector partnerships driving social and environmental change, check out our editorial channel highlighting #Collaboration.

Recent commitments from L'Oréal, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and P&G to phase microbeads out of their products by (or before) 2017 is laudable and a good step forward. This news responds to scientific research linking the tiny, polystyrene balls to Great Lakes pollution.

Meantime, "ban the bead" laws are taking shape in California and New York. Like the manufacturers' phase-outs, it will take years for the ban law, if passed, to go into effect.

Together, these news items have me wondering:

• Could our sustainability and government leaders be doing more, faster?
• And if companies do decide to act faster, with some short-term financial hit, will investors and consumers support them for doing the right thing in the long-term?

We could call it the “CVS Effect” — playing off the drugstore chain’s “no smokes” decision— and the burgeoning “Blackfish Effect” sparked by the anti-Sea World film.

I think these questions deserve a closer look because of the bigger picture. The answers can either support — or hinder — climate action that’s getting underway by the Obama administration and leading U.S businesses.

These questions come from a place of examining what's possible for forward-looking brands that are already committed to sustainability. It bears repeating that all of the brands in the microbead discussion already are sustainability leaders in their industries. Obviously, global manufacturing supply chains can't be turned off overnight. But when necessity demands it, such as the 1982 Tylenol recall, things can happen very quickly.

So if CVS is truly a game-changer for health reasons, it opens the door for other forward-looking brands to take faster, bolder action for environmental and natural capital reasons as well. Making the decision to phase out an ingredient, while important, doesn’t stop the clock on the harm being done. The longer we wait, the more microbead pollution will go through wastewater treatment facilities, enter waterways, affect that water body’s ecology, and be consumed by fish, then by people. Each of these steps arguably has some amount of harm associated with it.

It strikes me that change can only happen today. That's true for any choice we make as individuals, as citizens, and as business owners, to protect and restore the environment. So why not start stretching the bounds of what's possible, sooner, as a better way of doing business?

For now, it remains to be seen how consumers and investors will respond to CVS'"no smokes" announcement, and if any other retailers will follow their lead. And on the microbead side, how will consumers respond to the news? Will they shift to a brand’s other products that don’t contain the beads? Would they be open to guidance from manufacturers to do so?

I’m betting that, as it become more normal for companies to make bold pro-health and pro-environmental choices, these decisions will be rewarded by investors and consumers. I’d back this up by pointing to cross-sector collaborations such as the Net Positive group, the Bioplastic Feedstock Alliance and Sustainable Apparel Coalition— they’re finding that working together with industry and nonprofit peers, for bigger global benefit, is good business, too.

Our responsibilities in life and business don't end at the factory wall. That's where they begin. It's time for big sustainability actions to be the norm for business-forward action, instead of the exception.

Here's hoping the CVS Effect is just getting started.

For more examples of how brands are driving #BehaviorChange, check out the editorial channel.

A couple of years ago, as I waited for my morning coffee to brew and my toast to, er, toast, I was reading the label of my peanut butter jar and had my entire organic, fair trade world thrown for a loop when I saw that my peanut butter contained palm oil.

Palm oil is everywhere. It is found in thousands of products we use every day from cookies, doughnuts and ice cream to soaps, lotions and make-up. While there are many benefits to the production and use of palm oil, it is also a major driver of tropical deforestation. How was it that my choices as a consumer, which I thought were pretty “green,” could stand in such contrast to the work I’d spent the better part of a decade devoted to?

What I’ve come to learn over the last few years is that the convoluted path that palm oil takes from plantation to product makes it very difficult for even the most environmentally conscious consumers to know whether the products they buy contribute to deforestation. It’s taken me many years and a lot of firsthand experience to fully understand the scope and scale of the problem.

Starting at the beginning

The first time I ever heard of palm oil was while studying abroad as an undergrad. I’d just spent a week camping on the beach in Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica where I had my first exposure to intact tropical forests. I woke up every morning at dawn to the sound of countless species of birds and insects; saw Agouti, Kuwaiti, and Peccaries (the tropical equivalent of rabbits, raccoons, and wild pigs) every time I hiked through the forest; and dodged mangoes and cashews thrown by White-Faced Capuchin monkeys.

Shortly after our bus left the park we drove through a palm oil plantation. What I saw was worlds apart from the forest I’d just left. Gone were all the diverse species of plants and animals, replaced instead with row upon row of identical palm trees, with very little growing underneath, and no animal life in sight.

As I’d come to learn later, only about 15 percent of animal species that are found in primary forests remain after the forest is converted to palm plantations. That two-hour drive was my first experience with the stark reality of what we lose when forests are cleared and replaced by palm oil.

What can be done?

Which brings me back to my peanut butter. Having seen firsthand the destruction and devastation that irresponsible palm oil development can cause, I was left wondering if the food I eat and the products I use are contributing to the problem. The answer is that it’s very hard to know for sure.

The road from plantation to product is long and complex. At many points along the supply chain, palm oil from different plantations is mixed. This allows palm oil plantation owners who are destroying forests to hide behind the lack of transparency. The best way to hold these bad actors accountable is for the companies that make our cookies, chocolates, conditioners and cosmetics to commit to not buy any palm oil that causes deforestation and to trace their palm oil back to its origin to ensure it is deforestation-free.

And the best thing for me and you to do to protect tropical forests? Well, the first thing you can do is breathe a sigh of relief, because it’s OK to keep buying products that contain palm oil (no need to give up those Girl Scout cookies quite yet). For reasons I won’t get into here (they involve words like “fungibility” and can be found in our report Recipes for Success), boycotting palm oil has little effect on the amounts and ways its produced.

Part of the problem with palm oil is that very few of us have heard of it. Most of us don’t know it’s an ingredient in the products we buy or that it contributes to global warming. So, a few colleagues and I developed an infographic explaining this hidden part of the climate problem.

Be part of the solution

View the infographic.

Then help raise awareness about what palm oil is, how it’s causing global climate change, and how we can pressure companies to adopt deforestation-free palm oil policies.

It may seem like a small thing, given the magnitude of the problem, but little things add up. For instance, last December when Wilmar International, the world’s largest trader of palm oil, announced a no-deforestation commitment, it called out the role consumer demand played in shaping its policy:

“We know from our customers and other stakeholders that there is a strong and rapidly growing demand for traceable, deforestation-free palm oil, and we intend to meet it as a core element of our growth strategy.”

The time to act is now, and companies will listen to you, so what are you waiting for?

This post first appeared on the UCS blog on February 19, 2014.

The Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), a nonprofit dedicated to ending human rights abuses associated with the raw materials found in everyday products, today released a new report, Cotton Sourcing Snapshot: A Survey of Corporate Practices to End Forced Labor. The report includes survey results and ratings of 49 companies in the apparel and home goods industries reflecting steps companies are taking to identify risks and establish procedures to prevent cotton from Uzbekistan picked with forced labor from entering their supply chains.

The survey offered a maximum of 100 points across 11 indicators in the categories of Policy, Public Disclosure, Engagement, and Implementation & Auditing. Only five companies scored over 50 points, 19 companies scored under 25 points, and two companies scored zero.

“Although almost 80 percent of the companies surveyed have some sort of policy against Uzbek cotton, most companies are taking little to no action to be absolutely certain the cotton in their products is not originating in Uzbekistan,” said Patricia Jurewicz, director and founder of RSN and co-author of the report. “Yet, there are several companies that have implemented systems that guarantee the integrity of their raw materials. All companies could easily replicate these best practices.”

The report found that only two percent of companies surveyed fully disclose progress and/or challenges with their strategies on Uzbek cotton, and only six percent have fully implemented a traceability or spinner verification program. Companies scoring highest include adidas (68 points), Marks & Spencer (63 points), and IKEA (62.5) — all of which signed RSN’s "Company Pledge Against Forced Child and Adult Labor in Uzbek Cotton" last year — while companies scoring no points include Urban Outfitters and All Saints.

The government of Uzbekistan is notorious for forcing up to a million of its citizens to work in the cotton harvest each year. Due to mounting international and corporate pressure, the last two years have largely excluded children 6-14, who have been forced to harvest cotton in the past. However, the Uzbek government is now mobilizing even greater numbers of teenagers, university students, and adults. 

Since 2007, RSN has been coordinating the faith-based and sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) communities to engage corporations involved in the apparel and home goods industries on the issue of forced labor in the Uzbek cotton sector. Cotton Sourcing Snapshot offers insight to investors on specific actions companies are taking to avoid these human rights risks embedded in their products. Several recommendations are also presented to help move the industries towards greater certainty and transparency — companies are encouraged to implement an industry-wide spinner certification program, integrate supplier compliance into their IT systems, and increase disclosure of internal practices and challenges.

RSN’s Cotton Program aims to eliminate the most egregious human rights abuses at the field level of apparel supply chains. The Cotton Program has previously released two reports on Uzbek cotton, From the Field and To the Spinner. Currently, RSN’s Cotton Pledge against forced labor in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan has garnered 141 brands and companies as signatories.

In other sustainable cotton news, the recently released State of Sustainability Initiatives (SSI) Review 2014 revealed that voluntary sustainability standards such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic are gaining traction in mainstream markets, with certified cotton production growing 55 percent (the fourth-largest sector behind palm oil, sugar and cocoa) in 2012. SSI credits much of this growth to private-sector sourcing commitments from companies such as IKEA, which recently announced it more than doubled its use of sustainably sourced cotton in 2013 to 72 percent, up from 34 percent in 2012.

To learn more about how companies worldwide are cleaning up their #SupplyChains, check out the editorial channel.

One fish, two fish

Red fish, green fish
Sick fish, well fish
Frankenfish, farm-raised fish
Some fish you should not eat
Others that are a treat
From fish caught with a dolphin
To fish caught far too often
A glut of boats in the sea
Some fish caught responsibly
Knowing which are ideal
Helps you enjoy your meal

One fish, two fish praises retailer advances in responsible sourcing. Notable achievements include processor High Liner Foods sourcing 99 percent of its seafood sustainably and Walmart obtaining 76 percent from sustainable sources, both with a commitment to reach 100 percent. While these successes provide reasons for optimism, pressing issues remain, demanding even greater engagement. 

Over 75 percent of the world’s fish are fully exploited or overexploited, and 90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world’s oceans. There is significant concern that such rapid extinction will lead to broader collapses of ecosystems at a global scale, threatening food supplies and livelihoods. 

This threat played out in Newfoundland, Canada where cod fishing was a thriving business until 1992. At that point, the species reached commercial extinction. Overfishing altered the aquatic ecosystem to such an extent that the cod has not yet recovered. 

Success in the Seas

The Canadian experience of lost businesses from the collapse of the cod fishery helped push the food supply chain into action. Food processors, retailers and food-service companies across the globe have established sustainable seafood programs that leverage guidance on which sources use sustainable fishing practices. This includes avoiding overfished species and those fished with destructive practices. 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Blue Ocean Institute, Greenpeace and other organizations maintain research-based lists that categorize fish as “red list” (avoid) and “green list” (preferred). Red list fish include orange roughy, sharks and many others. In addition, there are certification programs that evaluate the sustainability of specific fisheries. Companies often specify procurement of fish certified as sustainable by leading programs such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and look to avoid red list fish.

In January, McDonald’s became the first fast-food chain to begin labelling its Filet-O-Fish sandwich with the MSC sustainability seal as the wild-caught Alaska Pollock in the sandwich, and all other fish sourced by the company worldwide, are MSC-certified. Many companies are pursuing similar programs. McDonald’s and others use purchasing standards that require transparency to the source in order to avoid red list fish and/or require certification through programs such as MSC. Purchasers sometimes collaborate with organizations such as the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership or FishWise to work directly with fisheries not yet in compliance improve their practices and meet requirements.

These efforts are helping critical ecosystems and fisheries. MSC reported that by 2013, 13 fisheries have completed stock improvements to reach best-practice levels and 22 fisheries have completed habitat and ecosystem improvements. The World Bank calculates the potential economic benefits from rebuilding 17 overfished stocks in the U.S. to be $567 million - nearly three times the net present value of the fisheries.

The Growth of Fish Farms

It might be surprising that the fish on our plates are almost as likely to come from a farm as from the sea; with over 40 percent of food fish obtained from aquaculture. Aquaculture’s importance in the market is continuing to grow with stocks expected to nearly double by 2030 and largely come from developing countries. Farmed fish will then supply over 60 percent of the fish we eat.

Sustainable seafood programs must effectively address the growth of aquaculture and its unique challenges. These include the use of wild-caught fish as feed, fish illness and welfare, environmental pollution, the cultivation of genetically engineered fish, and insufficient regulatory controls. For these reasons, the red list aquaculture species to avoid are Atlantic salmon and imported shrimp. The Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program parallels the MSC’s as a certification option and is often used as a starting point for purchasers seeking sustainable options. 

Food retailer Hannaford is one of many grocery companies sourcing sustainably farmed seafood. Hannaford leads its competitors by already sourcing all of its seafood from fully traceable and sustainable sources, including all farmed fish certified by BAP. Hannaford’s program includes purchasing standards that detail requirements for wild-caught and farmed fish (BAP certification) that are fresh, frozen or shelf-stable. These are supported by complete transparency to the source, ensuring that sustainability is an ongoing commitment for suppliers. This may also involve partnering with a third party to help suppliers improve specific practices in order to meet the company’s requirements.

Widespread sustainable seafood sourcing programs have propelled progress. But there are still too many boats fishing too few fish in the oceans and too many species and ecosystems near extinction. The rapid growth of farmed fish in developing countries also demands closer scrutiny. 

While sustainable seafood remains a work in progress, the outlook is promising. Greenpeace saw the highest scores and highest participation levels ever in its latest, seventh review of US retailer performance in seafood sourcing. Clear purchasing standards with annual engagement with suppliers that reach back to the source are great starting points and best practices ready for broad adoption — not just for seafood, but also for other materials and ingredients. 

Not all progress rests in the hands of the supply chain — consumers need to take the time to understand and seek out the best options when seafood is on the menu. If sustainable options are not available, grocery stores and restaurants need feedback that the expectation is for nothing less than sustainably sourced seafood.

Note that the terms fish and seafood are used interchangeably to refer to fish, crustaceans and mollusks consumed for food.

For more information about seafood: www.fishwatch.gov

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss on March 2nd!

This post first appeared on the Pure Strategies blog on February 19, 2014.

This post first appeared on CSRwire's Talkback blog on January 14, 2014.

Part III in the Creating Sustainable Apparel Value Chains series; see parts one and two.

The building blocks for transforming the apparel industry thus far discussed in this series have focused on the need to foster total resource productivity and the use of (impact) investing. However, as covered in the Creating Sustainable Apparel Value Chains report, the challenges facing the industry are so complex that additional streams of action are needed.

Getting the Gender Issue Right

A new level of ambition is needed to improve working conditions across the board, along with getting the gender dimension right. This is key for successfully transforming the supply chain, particularly with women accounting for more than 80 percent of workers in garment factories.

Unfortunately, a few successful small-scale projects have proven insufficient to achieving the critical mass required for industry transformation. So, learning from best practice remains our best bet to get to scale.

The contributions and needs of female workers need to be fully grasped in order to move from managing the problem to solving it.

Poor Working Conditions Hit Women Especially Hard

The report unpacks the significance of labor conditions as a top stakeholder concern in the global textile and garment industry — a straightforward point that was confirmed by respondents to the Impact Economy online survey who listed labor rights, wage levels, fire safety, building safety and worker training as the top five social and environmental issues to address.

Adverse labor conditions hit women particularly hard. Structural tensions, created because of poor management of apparel workforces in many emerging-market production locations, are playing out in the factories, at home, and on the way to and from work.

Women typically suffer from widespread and insufficient health and safety conditions; violations of labor rights; inadequate housing, transport, healthcare and childcare; as well as gender discrimination. In one telling example, factories often do not provide sanitary napkins (or subsidize their cost), even though menses-related absenteeism is common.

Improving Conditions Improves Productivity

Manufacturing is hampered by absenteeism and low workforce productivity. A widespread misperception that decent work and competitive enterprises are in conflict with each other lies at the root of this problem.

In actuality, researchers at the International Labour Organization (ILO) have found that actions that improve working conditions or safety yield productivity returns, as opposed to the common assumption that these interventions merely create additional cost burdens for enterprises.

Support Women's Social Gains

Grasping the gender dimension is crucial for unlocking higher productivity and better working conditions. The report points to the important modernizing and development opportunity women provide. Unaccompanied women on the street are a logical social consequence of the expansion of the readymade garment sector, but this development is not aligned with traditional conservative values in Bangladesh. The lack of focus on the specific needs of female workers is quite frankly at odds with their economic contribution.

We must address the needs of female workers and leverage their potential for productivity and socioeconomic progress. The alternative of unskilled, low-paid, and often casual or informal work will only continue to impede the ability of poor, garment-exporting countries to graduate to middle-income status.

Trick to Success: Learn from What Works

Building on what works, rather than starting from scratch, is the trick to success here. Granted, a comprehensive systemic solution approach to industry transformation in apparel does not yet exist. But there are best-practice examples whose lessons we can learn from.

One is the recently concluded Responsible and Accountable Garment Sector (RAGS) Challenge Fund. A GBP 3 million fund financed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) from 2010-2013, RAGS supported organizations in the garment supply chain, including large and small businesses, labor, fair trade and other NGOs that work for better working conditions for employees in readymade garment production industries in several low-income countries.

RAGS’s achievements are many, including:

• 313,213 workers benefitted from freedom of association, collective bargaining and industrial relations in targeted workplaces;
• 97,777 workers received higher incomes from efficiency gains;
• 2,579 child laborers were rescued or withdrawn from targeted factories/workplaces;
• 893 factory managers and supervisors were trained on gender awareness and homeworker management;
• 20,583 new Peer Education Groups were formed in Bangladesh.

Despite Gains, Barriers Remain

The experience of RAGS provides a number of valuable blueprint elements to build on. Yet, as underlined in the report, RAGS ended up constrained by a basic reality of the development industry: It was a discrete project without a long-term financing model. The lessons learned are emerging now, but while some of the projects have follow-on funding beyond the lifespan of RAGS, RAGS itself cannot capitalize on these learnings because it is closing down.

Moreover, in an industry where monthly worker turnover can easily hit nine percent, rendering the fruits of training durable remains a challenge: Even if an intervention results in turnover dropping to five percent, every worker is working elsewhere on average after 20 months.

The Challenge: Taking the Initiative to Transcend Established Practice

RAGS provides many valuable insights for moving from a succession of isolated projects to a self-organizing and scalable blueprint for gradually expanding the footprint of best practices.

But to achieve industry transformation, a new level of ambition that reconciles productivity and gender considerations is required. This is where the other approaches presented in Creating Sustainable Apparel Value Chains come into play.

Fostering total resource productivity across the entire supply chain and the use of (impact) investing to upgrade industry infrastructure can serve to make the linkage between how higher social and environmental performance can actually drive revenue creation via increased resource productivity and savings, thereby achieving sustainable long-term change.

While supply chain transformation is now possible, the potential is not unique to apparel. Join us next week for the fourth and final post in this series, which will explore the implications of the framework in other industries.

To learn more about how companies worldwide are cleaning up their supply chains, check out our editorial channel.

LEGO told Plastics News this week that it is looking for a sustainable alternative to Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), the plasticresin used in its signature bricks, by 2030.

LEGO’s senior project manager Allan Rasmussen told PN that, not only must the selected material be able to meet the same characteristics as the locking building blocks, they must also blend seamlessly with previous generations of bricks already in use.

“I need to find a material that is just as good as this one,” Rasmussen said. “I need to find a material that will be just as good in 50 years, because these are passed down from generation to generation.”

Tim Brooks
LEGO's Senior Director of Environmental Sustainability
speaker at
Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego

Speaking at Innovation Takes Root 2014 in Orlando on Feb. 18, Rasmussen said the sustainability quest is in its early stages, but that bricks the company has already tested using an impact-modified polylactic acid are “very, very close.” A problem with a post-molding “creep,” however, means that a few weeks after molding, the bricks do not click and stick together as well as they should, Rasmussen said.

According to Plastics News, LEGO has been using ABS for its bricks since the 1960s, following a brief period using a cellulose acetate.

Rasmussen said ABS accounts for 70 percent of the 6,000 tons of plastic LEGO uses each year.

The company is seeking a replacement resin that makes economic sense and meet its environmental targets, comes from a non-food feedstock base, and meets the standards written within 3,082 pages worth of legislation regulating toys worldwide. All this in addition to matching the characteristic look, feel and enduring quality of generations of previous LEGO. Piece of cake!

The search for a sustainable, new brick material is one way the Danish toy maker is making good on a series of sweeping recent commitments to improving its performance on a range of environmental priorities — in December, LEGO Group announced a partnership with WWF centered around collaboration with suppliers to reduce total carbon emissions and becoming net positive through the use of 100+ percent renewable energy by 2016.

SAP today announced the 2013 winners of its Global Connected Car and Utility of Tomorrow Innovation contests. Attracting submissions from university students worldwide, SAP narrowed down the list of finalists and selected winners who this summer will get the opportunity to refine and implement their proposals with the help of industry experts.

With the goal of exploring the path to commercial adoption for their ideas, winners will spend a week this summer working alongside engineers from SAP’s contest sponsors, such as San Diego Gas & Electric.

Digital tools and social media are second nature to today's generation of students; with its contests, SAP joins companies such as Dow, Dell and Intel in using crowdsourcing to tap into this wellspring of creative problem-solving to find more efficient ways to tackle everyday obstacles and make industries more sustainable. The applications developed by this year’s winners have the potential to help guide consumer behavior toward more sustainable practices.

“Millennials have two expectations that will transform industries: Business is mobile and it must be more sustainable,” said Gil Perez, SVP of Sustainable Industries and general manager of Connected Vehicles, SAP. “With their focus and unique relationship to technology, we believe this generation can develop groundbreaking new business models. Starting with the automotive and utility industries, SAP is bringing together leading customers from these verticals with the best student teams to take their ideas to the next level. Using the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, these groups will create financially viable connected services that incentivize consumers to act in an environmentally responsible manner.”

For the Global Connected Car Contest, six winners were chosen for proposals that would impact the automotive industry under the following categories: urban mobility, traffic, fueling, parking, food and other. One example is the winning student submissions from Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research in South Carolina in the parking category. Their parking application, ParkinGain, is designed to match drivers with parking spots based on price, location, travel time, and distance to their final destination. ParkinGain is an example of how personalization technology can integrate with both digital and physical infrastructure to improve the driving experience and urban vitality of a city. The app plans to include discounts to local businesses, as well as navigation directions and payment options. The same Clemson team also won for their submission in the food category.

The Utilities of Tomorrow Contest asked students to submit solutions in the areas of green energy, smart appliances, sustainable resources and electric vehicles. Five winners were selected across the four categories, including the proposal for Green Home, a green energy mobile app submitted by the Dubai Women's College — Higher Colleges of Technology, which aims to help consumers manage and reduce home electricity use with advanced home energy management systems, combined with an element of gamification to share results over social media.

Visit the contest websites for a full list of winners and sponsoring customers.

When I was a director of a financial institution in the 1990s, we struggled in vain to get top executives to pay attention to the Board’s sustainability priorities. To no avail. Then we stumbled upon the idea of rewarding the CEO for long-term sustainability performance. The result? We saw a dramatic improvement in the company’s sustainability performance from then on (financial performance, too!). Once we realized the impact of this simple measure, the board quickly embedded the principle in its compensation philosophy, which, in turn, spread the concept throughout the management ranks.

Investor scrutiny of “pay for breathing” practices shows results

Spurred by the global financial crisis, investors increasingly scrutinize the “pay for breathing” practices of company boards. Their interest has achieved results. Research shows that 64 percent of the companies in Standard & Poor’s 1500 stock index attached performance criteria to company shares in 2011, up from 20 percent in 2002. This is having a slow knock-on effect on sustainable pay incentive schemes.

The global platform of responsible investment research firm Sustainalytics reveals a modest increase, from 13 to 16 percent of company boards that considered environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in executive compensation from 2010 to 2012.

Sustainalytics Global Research

Companies that reported use of ESG remuneration factors from 2010-2012

This data set applies primarily to large-cap companies in developed markets that are constituents of key global indices tracked by Sustainalytics.

Notably, the number of companies that informally consider ESG factors is growing at a faster rate than those with formal practices. This reflects the maturation of corporate sustainability and company boards as they pioneer non-financial performance metrics in the absence of universal guidance. As boards venture into new territory, they are less likely to have established metrics, targets and weightings than boards and companies further along the sustainability path. This confidence comes with experience and peer normalization.

The right relevant and stretch targets can influence executive ESG performance

This is very challenging territory for boards and their traditional advisors. I have seen instances where executives are compensated on the basis of employee commuting results and office recycling rates. As sustainability becomes material to corporate success, it will become increasingly important to identify the most relevant and stretching targets to influence executive performance.

Indeed, my recent research into Canadian sustainable pay practices found an over-reliance on compliance and value protection measures, such as injury and spill rates, and limited attention on value creation or resource-efficiency goals. Globally the sustainability-pay link is not much more advanced. However, as my research found, there is more evidence of diversity, green product portfolio, energy efficiency and GHG reduction targets in global sustainable pay packs — all good signs. 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.

Annual sustainability pay incentives are good; long-term are better

There is a slow but perceptible move to sustainability performance incentives. However, this is only found in annual incentive plans. Very few companies include sustainability metrics in their long-term (three-year) incentive programs. I have found only one corporate example to date — DSM, a public, Dutch multinational life sciences and materials sciences company. DSM produces a wide range of products including food and dietary, pharmaceutical, automotive and alternative energy. The company includes one financial and one non-financial long-term performance target in its long-term incentive plan, each worth 50 percent:

• Financial: Comparable Total Shareholder Return (TSR) performance versus a peer group
• Non-financial: Greenhouse-gas emissions reduction over volume related revenue

Getting Started

Here are some guidelines to help develop sustainability metrics for executive remuneration:

• Include material metrics tied to sustainability and corporate strategy goals
• Include a mix of value protection and value creation metrics
• Pre-set targets, weights and metrics in advance
• Include in short- and long-term incentive plans
• Ensure metrics are auditable
• Consider about one to three metrics, weighted no less than 20 percent of total incentive compensation

If your company is new to sustainability and doesn’t have relevant sustainability performance data, qualitative sustainability indicators are your best bet. Get started with “the development of a sustainability strategy and targets” or “the publication of a sustainability report” as metrics. Sustainability leaders can use their concrete quantitative targets for executive pay plans. Either way, make them meaningful and challenging, so that sustainability doesn’t become “another way to pay” chief execs.

As with anything in sustainability, this practice is an educational journey. Evaluate the incentive’s success. Does it achieve the performance goals? Were there unintended effects? Then improve on shortcomings. As compensation professionals and their boards build their competency in this area, more and more executives will be properly compensated for their company’s holistic performance.

This post first appeared on the Strandberg Consulting blog on December 13, 2013.

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.

The toilet uses a solar panel to power an electrochemical reactor, which breaks down waste into solids that can be used as fertilizer and hydrogen that can be stored in fuel cells to power the reactor during times of low sunlight. A pump sends recycled, purified water back to a reservoir on the top of the toilet. The toilet is completely self-contained (no sewer connection required), and can run off the grid. The system treats wastewater in just three to four hours.

Caltech engineer Michael Hoffman conceived the toilet during his previous experience on toilet-related projected for US Navy wastewater treatment plants and a NASA space shuttle system for urine removal.

In 2011, Hoffman and his team received a $400,000 grant to develop a toilet that can remove human waste for five cents per user per day. The following year, the toilet won the Gates Foundation's 2012 Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, which asked participants to create a safe, affordable and hygienic toilet that could serve the 2.5 billion people around the world who lack access to safe sanitation. In November 2013, toilet maker Kohler joined with the Caltech engineers to help further develop the toilet.

While the team has not yet reached its five-cent goal, the toilet currently costs about 11 cents per user per day if it is connected to the grid, or $1,500 over the 20-year life span of the toilet. The team says is working on using the hydrogen to add extra value to the system.

One of the biggest challenges of building a cheap, efficient and maintenance-free toilet is figuring out how to make the system completely automated, the researchers say. The current goal is to develop a toilet that can work by itself but be remotely monitored. The toilet is designed for easy repairs, but when the system breaks down, local technicians will be needed to fix it. To address this, Caltech is considering a business model that involves training local technicians. To further reduce production costs, the researchers are hoping to utilize local manufacturing resources wherever the toilet is used.

Caltech says two of the solar toilet systems are being tested in India.

Around 2.5 billion people — roughly 40 percent of the global population — do not have access to a toilet. In areas lacking adequate facilities, human waste can contaminate drinking water, which when combined with malnutrition, often causes gastrointestinal infections such as diarrhea. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children under five, and is responsible for killing more than 660,000 children every year, according to the World Health Organization. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, each day nearly 2,000 children under the age of five perish from the preventable illness.

WaterAid is working with companies large and small to improve access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation for 25 million people by 2015. Australian startup Who Gives a Crap gives half of the profits from sales of its eco-friendly toilet paper to WaterAid to build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world. And earlier this month, WaterAid launched a new $9.3 million global partnership with H&M 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 goal of the initiative is to not only transform the lives of students by delivering immediate and long-term improvements to health and education, but also to influence national and international policies around the right to safe water and sanitation, H&M says.

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):

• Two startups are helping to solve the seemingly disparate problems of Detroit’s short food-growing season and the large number of abandoned houses and unsafe blocks: turning run-down buildings into temporary greenhouses. Hoping to curb her neighborhood’s deterioration three years ago, Burnside Farm founder Kate Daughdrill began buying up vandalized lots on her block and cultivating them as Burnside Farm, which runs weekly meals and a CSA. University of Michigan
  Image credit: Archolab
  architecture professor Steven Mankouche is now transforming one of those burnt-out houses into an underground greenhouse. The AfterHouse design (left) is inspired by walipini greenhouses used frequently in mountainous regions of South America, employing the heat of the earth to keep crops at a regulated temperature through hot days and cold nights. All that's needed is a ground-level covering or roof (preferably glass, to let sunshine in) and a sizeable pit — similar to your average basement. AfterHouse is creating an open-source design that is simple, flexible, and inexpensive — ideally, cheaper than the cost of a full-fledged professional demolition.
• 
  
  Join us for a panel on the revitalization of Detroit at Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego.
  Out of the 30 largest US cities, Detroit is the only one without a curbside recycling program. Detroit Greencycle, owned and operated in Corktown, was created solely to take residents’ recyclables to the recycling center and kitchen waste to compost at local gardens. Best of all, the company does it in a zero-emission way: They bike it there.
• Located in the historic Harmonie Park area of downtown Detroit, new nonprofit lunch spot COLORS describes itself as a “diverse dining experience, dedicated to social justice, locally sourced ingredients, and engaging community events.” COLORS provides job training to unemployed community residents to equip them with the life and job skills, and work experience necessary to pursue careers in the hospitality and food-service industry, and boasts a lunch menu that is locally sourced and ethically prepared.
• Out of the 50 largest cities in the US, Detroit experiences some of the chilliest winters, with average daily temperatures hovering just below freezing level. Designed in Detroit, Agent Outerwear makes stylish, high-quality snow sports coats and jackets, while supplying children in need with quality, warm coats for the winter. For every coat purchased, Agent Outerwear donates a brand new coat to a child in need. Taking a page out of TOMS’ “Buy One, Give One” playbook, Agent Outerwear hopes to give away as many coats as possible with their, "Get Warm. Give Warm" program.
• Image credit: John F. Martin for General Motors
  Nonprofit The Empowerment Plan, founded by 24-year-old Veronika Scott (left), is also trying to make the cold more bearable for Detroiters, specifically the roughly 20,000 who are homeless. The Plan centers around convertible coats that transform into sleeping bags at night and a bag for easy transport, made with some help from GM, which for the last two years has donated scrap sound-absorption material from its Chevy Malibu and Buick Verano models for use as insulation for the coats. The Plan trains and hires women from homeless centers to become full-time seamstresses and the coats are distributed to people living on the streets.

For more examples of #startups increasing social and environmental sustainability through disruptive innovation, check out the editorial channel.

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.

My agency, Citizen Group, began working with the City of Phoenix to develop the communications framework for the campaign we’ve now branded as “Reimagine Phoenix” roughly a year ago. It started shortly after Mayor Greg Stanton announced his commitment to making sustainability a cornerstone of his tenure by throwing down a “40x20” goal — to educate, inspire, and engage residents in the region to increase their waste diversion to 40 percent (up from the current 18 percent) by the year 2020. 

Why this, and why now? With a population of four million people, the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale area is the 10th-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the US, adding approximately 150 new residents every day. As such, the quality of life most of us take for granted is at risk if local residents don’t begin to adopt ways to lessen their shared impact — especially in a region seeing its own set of amplified environmental challenges such as rising temperatures and decreasing water supply.

Under the direction of John Trujillo, the City’s Assistant Public Works Director, the Phoenix Public Works Department created a comprehensive Waste Diversion Action Plan. “In order for the plan to be successful,” says Trujillo, “we have to both identify and execute near-term opportunities for waste diversion and aversion that will lead to a reduction in waste sent to landfills, while saving money for the city and its citizens.” 

In order to implement this enlightened vision, Citizen worked with the City to define a set of guiding principles to shape the “Reimagine Phoenix” program, a few of which are summarized below:

Robin Raj and the City of Phoenix will further explore "Reimagining Phoenix" at Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego

1)  Promote Shared Values

In order to create a citywide shift in behavior, it’s clear we need to reach beyond the choir and engage all residents not only in what’s at stake, but what’s to gain — that is, the self-esteem and savings that comes from making healthier, wealthier, wiser decisions. While America at large appears as polarized as ever, finding this common ground locally may be easier than we think when we root back to shared values and traditions. 

47 percent of Phoenix residents are Caucasian and 41 percent are Hispanic; nearly one-third speak Spanish at home. As Roberto Yanez, VP & GM of Univision Arizona recently reminded attendees at the Go Green Phoenix conference, values such as thriftiness, reusing and not wasting have a long history in the Hispanic tradition, as well as in the Native American tradition of the American Southwest. These are, in fact, American values. As we launch "Reimagine Phoenix," our aim is to act on that observation while at the same time addressing the sustainability movement’s crucial need for diversity.

2) Develop Powerful Partnerships

Engaging corporate, cultural and civic leaders will play a central role in this effort’s success. The City of Phoenix has been doing an excellent job cultivating powerful partnerships starting with Arizona State University, a global sustainability leader focusing on the nexus of energy, water, population and waste. Together ASU and the City have formed a venture called the Center for Resource Intelligence which, in addition to being an R&D facility, is becoming a hotbed for innovation and entrepreneurship by addressing the efficient and restorative use of natural resources.

In addition, local partnerships with Basha’s Supermarkets, Petsmart, Univision and The Mayo Clinic, as well as major sports teams including the Phoenix Suns, Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona Cardinals, promise to help take the message public and add cultural currency to the effort by using use all forms of media — retail, point-of-sale, broadcast, events, PR, social, digital, out-of-home, etc — to inspire and engage local residents. 

3) Inspire Co-Creation

Whatever Phoenix’s future becomes, it will be a co-creation of all the region’s stakeholders — residents, politicians, business leaders, etc. And it will be shaped as much by inspiration as by mandate or regulation. “Reimagine Phoenix” is intended to lay out a broad narrative and framework for action that all stakeholders can help to fill in and make a shared reality. The real momentum will come when partners like the ones mentioned above use their creativity to find the valuable intersections with their own programs. The Diamondbacks, for example, are already using the “Reimagine Phoenix” platform to host their first Zero Waste Spring Training event this March, encouraging other MLB teams that train in the Phoenix region to join them.

Let’s always remember that “imagining” is one of humankind’s most powerful acts. It has the power to make prophesies self-fullfilling. This particular prophesy is just taking shape.

Data from Global Forest Watch, an online forest monitoring and alert system, is now available on Esri's ArcGIS Online GIS cloud service. By using a portal on Esri's platform to access GFW satellite data and crowdsourced information, users can add maps, datasets and applications to their forest projects and better analyze indicators of forest change.

Global Forest Watch is a partnership of more than 40 organizations led by the World Resources Institute (WRI), which uses GIS maps and data to promote sustainable forest management and policy.

The WRI launched the Global Forest Watch website on February 20. Alongside the launch, Global Forest Watch data went live on ArcGIS Online, extending the GIS cloud platform to Global Forest Watch data users. The service can be used to track deforestation throughout the world and is intended for use by stakeholders in the world's forests, including concerned citizens, government leaders, buyers and suppliers of sustainable forest products who seek to better manage forests and improve local livelihoods.

To promote transparency in forests around the world, Global Forest Watch combines near real-time satellite monitoring technology, forest management and company concession maps, protected-area maps, mobile technology, crowd-sourced data and on-the-ground networks. Within ArcGIS Online, users can now access Global Forest Watch data and add it to a basemap. They also can draw from Esri's data collection, such as Landsat, to get a more comprehensive perspective about complex problems. Additionally, users can access Esri's content as well as content added to the service by users every day.

"Thanks to dramatic advances in technology, we can, for the first time, see what is happening in forests in near real-time," said Dr. Nigel Sizer, director of the global forest initiative at the World Resources Institute. "GIS helps us take very powerful data and make sense of it. The analytical capabilities of GIS enrich our understanding of the earth's forests of not only where but why and how."

"Monitoring forest health and designing sustainable solutions is a challenging task, but an essential one," Esri president Jack Dangermond said. "The Global Forest Watch initiative demonstrates the capacity of open data, shared systems, and platform technologies to bring many experts together to design solutions for a universal problem."

WWF and international paper and packaging conglomerate Mondi Group recently announced the formation of a three-year strategic partnership aimed at increasing environmental stewardship in the packaging and paper sectors. The project will focus 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.

Earlier this month a UN-backed report called for more private sector engagement in REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). REDD+ is a global mechanism to quantify and value the carbon-storage services that forests provide, and provides developing countries with an economic alternative to deforestation. It creates a low-carbon pathway to economic growth that will be critical to sustainable human progress and climate-change mitigation.

A study by the European Food Information Council (EUFIC), published earlier this month in the journal Food Policy, found that while European consumers have a reasonable understanding of sustainability as respecting the environment and fair treatment of present and future generations, their understanding does not extend the role of sustainability with respect to the food supply chain or of various ecolabels used on food and beverages. This finding explains another of the study’s conclusions — that consumer understanding of sustainability does not yet translate into driving food choice.

Conducted in collaboration with Aarhus University in Denmark, the study explored consumer understanding of sustainability; food ecolabels such as Fair Trade, Animal Welfare, Rainforest Alliance and Carbon Footprint; information search behavior and food choice. A nationally representative survey was carried out in six countries (Poland, Sweden, the UK, France, Germany and Spain), along with focus groups in the latter four countries.

The research examined consumer understanding, motivation and use of sustainability-related information in the context of food and beverages. Consumer understanding of the environmental aspects of the topic is generally high; participants in the UK, France, Germany and Spain predominantly associate sustainability with being ecologically friendly by preserving resources and maintaining the balance of nature. Interestingly, Swedish consumers referred to the shelf life of foods, while Polish respondents placed more importance on maintaining a certain standard of living and ‘sustainable’ economic output/growth.

While understanding and concern are generally high, the study found they do not play a major role in food choice. And while younger people are more likely to use environmental and ethical labels when choosing food, sustainability had no broad, meaningful impact on food choice when tested against nutritional value and price differences in a conjoint study. The researchers pointed to time constraints, perceived price differences and a lack of familiarity with the information sources as the main barriers for including sustainability into the decision-making process.

“Most consumers have heard about the term ‘sustainability’ but the concept remains abstract and diffuse and therefore difficult to deal with,” explains Aarhus University professor Klaus Grunert. “When asked, consumers generally express concern about sustainability issues and would like to be informed about them, however, in the context of food and drink purchases, sustainability issues are not a priority.”

Consumer familiarity with ecolabels was generally low but varied significantly across the countries analyzed in the study. Understanding and trust was uniformly highest for the Fair Trade label, compared to the Rainforest Alliance logo, the Carbon Footprint and the Animal Welfare scheme. While on average UK consumers correctly identified more than half of the four labels shown, the majority of Spanish and Polish consumers barely identified more than one label. Qualitative insights reveal a considerable amount of scepticism towards quality seals, coupled with the desire for (more) trustworthy labelling, information and education on sustainability-related topics.

High concern does not translate into food choice

Concern with environmental and ethical issues is reasonably high among European consumers and they would like to see a more widespread use of all four labels analysed. Sustainability is less of a concern for consumers when considering specific products. Out of six food categories (chocolate, coffee, ice cream, breakfast cereals, ready meals and soft drinks), consumers only showed concern about sustainability for coffee and ready meals. Adding to these insights on consumer motivation, results show a clear favor towards information at the point of purchase. Respondents said the top places they would like to see sustainability-related information are in-store (labels on-pack, in the aisle or on the shelf), followed by online sources and on TV in shows and ads.

The researchers said that while ‘sustainability’ remains more difficult to grasp and therefore less likely to be relevant in consumers’ immediate purchase/consumption mindset, this could change as private sector sourcing commitments from companies such as Unilever, Coca Cola and Starbucks continue to drive major market growth for sustainable commodities — and when sustainability issues as related to food and drink become more prominent in the public debate, as has happened in the areas of health and nutrition.

Levi Strauss has developed a process for using 100 percent recycled water in parts of its jeans production — an industry first — to reduce its impact on the world's water resources, the Guardian reports.

The process is the result of a new third-party water recycling verification that aims to reduce the impact of garment production on fresh water resources. It is being used in one of the company’s primary Chinese factories, which bleaches, dyes and stonewashes garments to achieve particular looks or feels.

Located in southern China, the factory worked with Levi’s to engineer a system to pipe 100 percent recycled water into an industrial laundry machine used for finishing one of its jeans lines. The Guardian reports that 100,000 pairs have been produced with the new technology to date.

Michael Kobori, Levi’s VP of sustainability told the paper that the company looked at EPA guidelines on reuse of water, as well as World Health Organization guidelines on managing wastewater. The company then hired engineers from the textile industry to adapt these general guidelines into a set of standards that can be specifically used in the industry.

While the process is still in the testing phases, the ultimate goal is to use 100 percent recycled water to finish a wider range of Levi’s products at factories in other parts of the world, Kobori said.

One of the third parties Levi’s asked to verify its process was Gilbert O'Neal, president of the Institute of Textile Technology. O'Neal has worked with some of the word’s largest textile and apparel makers to help them use less water and reduce the level of polluted water discharged.

O’Neal told the Guardian that it is possible to finish a garment with recycled water, but the term "100 percent recycled" can be misleading because saying a garment is made from 100 percent recycled water is not the same as saying that 100 percent of the wastewater is recycled.

According to O'Neal, Levi’s likely is using 100 percent recycled water, but isn't achieving "zero liquid discharge"— or zero wastewater — the highest standard in industrial water recycling. But the process could reduce the amount of effluent, or waste water, from the factory.

Levi's first raised awareness about water use in the production and care of jeans in 2011 with the launch of its Water<Less line of jeans — not only were the jeans made with significantly less water during manufacture than traditional jeans, they came with tags guiding consumers on water-conscious ways to care for them. Last year, Levi’s launched its Waste<Less line of denim, which incorporates an average of 8 plastic bottles blended into the fabric, making them soft and flexible. The company’s goal was to help cut down on global water bottle waste, which averages 29 liters per person each year.

Water use in textile production has become a topic of increasing concern and action for many brands. In the past few years, sportswear giants Nike and adidas have pioneered new technologies and processes in the interest of saving water, particularly during fabric dyeing: In 2012, adidas released its first waterless-dyed t-shirts that utilized the company's DryDye technology, which uses zero water for dyeing — compared to 25 liters for a typical shirt — and reduces chemical use by 50 percent; and in December, Nike celebrated the opening in Taiwan of its first water-free dyeing facility, featuring equipment that eliminates the use of water and process chemicals from fabric dyeing through its patentedColorDry process.

The city of Phoenix has partnered with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Republic Services and Salt River Fields at Talking Stick to host Arizona’s first zero-waste Spring Training event as part of an effort to bring awareness to recycling and composting.

The one-day event challenges fans to recycle or compost the solid and food wastes they generate during the game instead of sending them to the landfill. The idea for the event was generated by Phoenix’s new long-term sustainability initiative called "Reimagine Phoenix," which encourages residents and businesses to view trash as resources.

"Producing less non-recyclable trash means less trips to the landfill and a lower impact on our air and environment," said Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton. "This commitment to produce zero waste at a public event on the scale of a Spring Training game with our hometown D-Backs gets the word out that a lot of what we traditionally consider garbage is actually a usable resource."

The event’s organizers say private-public partnerships are crucial to achieving zero waste at this event, and also will play a major role in helping the city to achieve its 40 percent waste diversion goal by 2020 as part of “Reimagine Phoenix.”

Salt River Fields’ concessions provider, Ovations Food Services, will be using recyclable and/or compostable paper products and utensils throughout the event. Volunteers from Grand Canyon University also will assist fans with sorting out their waste and educating them about sustainability.

“At the Arizona Diamondbacks, we have made an ongoing commitment to sustainability in all aspects of our business, which includes changing fan behaviors in simple ways around the ballpark,” said Derrick Hall, Diamondbacks’ president and CEO.

The event will rely heavily on solid waste collection provider Republic Services, a Phoenix-based company and an industry leader in waste and recycling services, contracted by Salt River Fields. Republic Services will sort out recyclables collected at the end of the game and haul the food waste to a local composting company.

Salt River Fields at Talking Stick is owned and operated by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and is the first MLB Spring Training facility in the US to be built on tribal land. The facility was the first sports venue to achieve LEED Gold certification in the United States.

The zero-waste event, featuring a pre-season game pitting the Diamondbacks against the Seattle Mariners, will take place on Thursday, March 13, at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. The game starts at 1:10 p.m., but pre-game festivities begin at 11:30 a.m.

Major League Baseball increasingly is turning its attention to waste reduction, and the Mariners were one of the first teams on board. For two years running, the Seattle team has worked with BASF to hold “Sustainable Saturdays at Safeco Field,” a program aimed at diverting ballpark waste from the landfill. To date, Mariners fans have already diverted more than 86 percent of game-day waste from local landfills, according to BASF.

To learn more about innovative ways companies worldwide are turning waste into resources, check out the #WasteNot editorial channel.

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.”

Through November, specially marked 20 oz. bottles of 7UP sold in the US will feature a unique code under the cap — buyers can then log onto the Make Your Bottle Count website and enter their code to choose one of 7 areas of need— Feed the Hungry, Heal the Sick, Hope for Peace, House the Homeless, Quench the Thirsty, Teach them Well and Save the Earth — that they would like 7UP’s donation from their purchase to benefit.

The partnership, which launched last month, is the first of its kind for Project 7, which normally partners with nonprofits that benefit any of the seven causes. To kick off the partnership, 7UP made an initial donation that was dispersed equally among the causes; the soda maker says its commitment to making additional donations of an undisclosed amount to the causes of customers’ choice through the under-the-cap program enables consumers to make their own impact on the world.

“Through this program, consumers can control what area 7UP gives to. Should consumers want to provide clean drinking water, then they can enter their unique code to support that pillar of Quench the Thirsty,” said Eric Blackwood, director of marketing for 7UP. “Working with Project 7 is a great way to empower our consumers to make a positive impact in our communities and across the globe.”

“When we connected with 7UP, we immediately recognized that we have an opportunity to positively affect people from all walks of life and give them the resources and tools they need to succeed,” said Tyler Merrick, founder of Project 7. “This is the first time Project 7 has embarked on this type of partnership, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with this venture.”

Project 7 says sales of its gum and mints to date have resulted in the creation or donation of:

• 31,000 malaria treatments
• 20,000 days of counseling
• 150,000 days of schooling
• 32,000 days of shelter
• 1.5 million meals given
• 40,000 people with clean water
• Over 3 million trees

Since launching “Make Your Bottle Count” last month, 7UP reports just over 2,000 donations have been made, along with impact updates in each of the seven areas of need: As of February 25, Feed the Hungry is the cause most often chosen by 7UP drinkers, with 532 caps to date; followed by Heal the Sick (398), House the Homeless (347), Save the Earth (252), Teach Them Well (201), Quench the Thirsty (159) and Hope for Peace (117).

“Ultimately, the more consumers participate, the more 7UP gives, and the more good is done in the world,” Blackwood added.

The specially marked 20 oz. bottles of 7UP will be on shelves in retail locations across the country through Nov. 30, 2014.

Companies large and small are using a variety of partnership models to increase impact in areas of need around the world:

• In 2012, Unilever partnered with PSI (Population Services International) to launch its not-for-profit Waterworks program, which engages Facebook users to help provide safe clean drinking water to communities in need around the world. When Facebook users sign up to Waterworks, they are partnered with a PSI-trained “Waterworker” and choose a small daily donation. Their funds will directly support water-poor communities, where Waterworkers provide on-the-ground education about the benefits of clean drinking water and distribute Pureit water purifiers and sachets to families in need.
• Each year, Recyclebank’s Green Schools Program grants money to schools across the US to bring to life unique projects that will lead to greater sustainability in their classroom and community. Recyclebank members are encouraged to donate points to participating schools to help them reach their target funding goals. For every 250 member points donated, Recyclebank awards schools $1 to help fuel their sustainability projects..
• Online fashion retailer Nomadista 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. The startup not only offers clothes and accessories that adhere to environmental, economic and social criteria, but also helps fund educational and social programs for these vulnerable children through a percentage-of-purchase donation scheme: For every $100 spent on Nomadista.co, one day of school (8 hours of school, 4 meals and health check-ups) is donated to children in vulnerable communities across Colombia. 

For more examples of groundbreaking cross-sector partnerships driving social and environmental change, check out our editorial channel highlighting #Collaboration.

Why do some entrepreneurs manage to defy social gravity and thrive, while most go down in flames? How is it possible to attract a truly passionate following through social media? Why is the marketing mindset that worked in years past falling flat today? What’s the best way to find security in a flat, upside-down, digitally connected world where cultural and economic boundaries are collapsing like cut-rate lawn chairs?

These questions are impossible to answer in any satisfying way without first challenging many conventional beliefs about the nature of human communication.

The traditional sender-receiver model of communication starts from the assumption that people are separate. This approach suggests that our main leverage for influence comes from information as it crosses the channel between ourselves and those we seek to influence. Our own private thoughts — our intentions, listening style, and habitual assumptions about those we engage — are irrelevant unless they result in information that might be detected and decoded. This is a simple, common sense way to frame communication. Unfortunately, it neglects that deeper connective tissue of social reality that all game-changing leaders in history have accessed to achieve the impossible.

The natural laws and principles of Self-Authorship Theory* tell a different story entirely. According to this framework, separation is not fundamentally real and communication is essentially an act of collaborative reality creation. Through this lens, the cognitive frames people use for making “rational” decisions evolves over time, orchestrated at a deeper layer of social reality by a natural intelligence that connects all people behind the veil of ordinary “us vs. them” perception.

Starting from this “both/and” premise, we come to see that our subjective experiences have a huge impact on the effectiveness of our communications because our subjective and objective experience of the world cannot be ever be truly disentangled. According to this paradoxical co-authorship communication model, in the act of observing the social world we are also actively creating the very social world we perceive. How we think is what sets our creative trajectory in relation to human culture as a whole. The natural laws that orchestrate this process are dynamic, non-linear and thoroughly musical.

Viewed this way, every person’s subjective experience is a microcosm of the entire orchestra of human nature reflected from one singular point of view. Our thoughts co-arise in every moment in concert with the whole, attracting and repelling others based upon natural resonance patterns orchestrated by nature’s musical genius. One’s true voice (or “VOICE”) is the natural “instrument” he or she is instinctually equipped to play to contribute perfectly to the whole. When a person aligns with this instinctual knowing, they place themselves on their natural path to shared thriving. When a person, group or culture becomes disconnected from this instinct, zero sum thinking prevails.    

The creative trajectory of people without VOICE alignment is limited, frustrating and filled with irresolvable dilemmas. This isn’t because nature is cruel but because of what we call matching resonance patterns between one’s inner and outer worlds. At higher levels of Self-Authorship the “like attracts like and opposites attract” principle of resonance leads people join with healthy like-minded people who truly value them what we offer and who challenge them to reach their true potential. At lower levels it leads them to attract and surround themselves with like-minded people with similar problems, who challenge them to grow exhausted.

For the record, all of this has been directly derived from interpreting empirical data. No moral or spiritual agenda is intended or implied. Like the laws of physics that determine whether or not a rocket will reach orbit, the natural laws of Self-Authorship are universal, impersonal, and thoroughly democratic. These laws suggest that all social hierarchies and cultural barriers are ultimately fabricated because human beings are paradoxically connected an unconscious level. Because our minds appear to be plugged into the “grid” Nature’s Orchestrating Wisdom (N.O.W.), to find our true VOICE we must be willing to stand and speak for the whole. This why when a VOICE-aligned communicator speaks, others experience their words and ideas as their own — in a very real way they are.

All of this happens under the surface of everyday thinking, at the level of being. When our listening attitude, intentions, and information are coherently organized and aligned in the act of communication; we pierce the veil of separation that most people habitually assume to be “just he way it is” reality. Speaking from that invisible but unmistakably potent layer of shared experience, people master the gift of creative vision. Not ordinary everyday vision but deep, penetrating, creative vision into the unseen order of social life operating in the present moment where inspired new future possibilities arise like invisible flowers waiting to be picked. Vision of this sort gives us the power to create new realities from zero by seeing them and standing for them in the present. Aligned with this plane, any willing person can own the frame and change the game in today’s VOICE-hungry world. The only barrier is belief.

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thought and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”
~Albert Einstein

*The principles and practices of Self-Authorship Theory are outlined in my book “The VOICE Code: How All Great Minds Think Alike” to be released in the summer of 2014.   

SAP AG and BMW Group Research and Technology announced today they have co-developed a personalized technology infrastructure for in-vehicle mobility services as part of a joint innovation project. The prototype utilizes the SAP HANA® Cloud Platform and will provide personalized services to drivers based on their location and route.

The collaboration, which brings SAP one step closer to making its vision of the connected car a reality, was announced today at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The cloud-based platform from SAP serves as a link between BMW and external partners that provide services such as parking, fuel, beverages and food. Information from the various partners is aggregated in a virtual marketplace that, in the future, could allow BMW to give passengers and drivers contextualized and personalized offerings via mobile devices or the in-car dashboard. The SAP back end enables service providers to combine services and create new offerings tailored to particular driver and passenger preferences.

So far, BMW and SAP have developed prototypes for parking and retail “couponing” solutions. Based on the driver’s profile and vehicle location, the system provides an appropriate space close to the driver’s destination. Related information such as fees and suitability for particular vehicles are also displayed. Once the driver selects a parking space, the location is transmitted to the navigation system for routing guidance.

Drivers will also be able to receive information on retail and other local deals based on his or her current location, selected route and individual preferences. To help avoid distractions while driving, the driver can control the frequency with which the deals are displayed. Deals can be bookmarked and, as in the parking use case, the store location can be transmitted directly to the navigation system for routing guidance. The selected coupon is then sent to the driver’s smartphone and can be redeemed immediately at the point of purchase.

SAP's vision to consistently enrich drivers’ experiences and provide the convenience consumers expect from a connected and social world — in or out of the vehicle — fits perfectly with BMW's BMW i initiative, which aims to provide drivers with personal logistics and mobility solutions. SAP says the goal of their standardized "connected car" platform is for auto manufacturers to be able to leverage SAP’s network of service providers with little additional work.

To learn more, watch a video, “SAP Is Developing Innovative Mobility and Value-Added Services for the Car of the Future.”

To learn more about the potential forv#ICT and #BigData to drive sustainable innovations, check out our editorial channel.