PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - From startup designers to major retailers, the fashion world continues to battle our culture of fast fashion and wasteful wardrobes with innovative designs and recycling efforts.
SUPPLY CHAIN - The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is soliciting feedback on a new traceability tool that verifies seafood supply chain transactions on a global scale. A public consultation period is taking place from August 16th to September 18th, during which industry members are encouraged to offer their expertise and comments to shape the tool.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE - While more and more companies are becoming focused on a triple bottom line — in which they prioritize the health of people and planet in addition to profit — Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson took the sentiment further back in 2000, when he decided to not take a $120 million payout and instead focus on sustaining the health of five bottom lines: Business, Brand, Community, Planet and People. As CEO Kevin Cleary said during a recent “Feed Your Adventure” tour of Clif’s Emeryville headquarters: “In any given year, we incent ourselves and say we have to deliver on all of them — if you deliver on Business, but you don’t deliver on the rest, that isn’t delivering shareholder value.”
MARKETING AND COMMS - Greenpeace has begun its latest campaign against Shell, with a month of protests over the oil giant’s plans to drill in the Arctic.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE - As part of L’Oréal’s global sustainability program called Sharing Beauty With All, the company has pledged that by the year 2020, 100 percent of its products will have an environmental or social benefit. To help make that commitment a reality, L’Oréal is calling on its employees, at every level and across every function, to contribute their own innovative solutions. The L’Oréal Beauty Shaker Awards is the company’s annual internal innovation competition, and in 2014 — the program’s fifth year — sustainability was the name of the game.
WASTE NOT - The largest landfill in the world can’t be found on land at all — but in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The so-called “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” consists of millions of pounds of trash, mostly plastic, which have created an oceanic desert where only tiny phytoplankton can survive.
SUPPLY CHAIN - Today marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh. It also marks the second Fashion Revolution Day, launched last year to commemorate the Rana Plaza disaster with the aims of encouraging greater collaboration across the fashion sector supply chain.
SUPPLY CHAIN - On Friday, the second annual Fashion Revolution Day, people in 66 countries around the world will challenge global fashion brands to demonstrate commitment to transparency across the length of the value chain, from farmers to factory workers, brands to buyers and consumers.One in six people work in the global fashion supply chain. It is the most labor-dependent industry on the planet, yet the people who make our clothes are hidden from us, often at their own expense, a symptom of the broken links across the fashion industry.
MARKETING AND COMMS - For those of us in the sustainability field, stakeholder engagement that leads to action is the Holy Grail for creating the change needed for a healthy world and future.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Today, the adidas Group announced a partnership with Parley for the Oceans, an initiative dedicated to raising awareness about the beauty and fragility of the oceans and to collaborating on projects that can end their destruction. Together, the organizations will implement a long-term program that builds on three pillars: communication and education; research and innovation; and direct actions against ocean plastic pollution.
NEW METRICS - German software company SAP’s operating profit improves EUR35 million ($38 million) to EUR45 million ($49 million) when its employee engagement index rises one percentage point, according to the company’s 2014 integrated report.The financial impact of a higher employee engagement index results, among other things, from the fact that dedicated employees are more innovative and absent from work fewer days. Likewise, because they are more loyal to the company, there is less missed revenue and less recruiting and training costs traditionally associated with higher turnover rates.
NEW METRICS - Any regular follower of SB knows that most companies must transform their business models if they are to start helping - rather than hindering - society's transition to a sustainable future; and this year will only see expectations grow, with the launch of the SDGs.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION - Cambodian fashion brand tonlé is revolutionizing the textile industry not only with its ethical business model, but also a creative approach to zero-waste.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE - Last week, Royal Dutch Shell’s board of directors ratified a shareholder resolution that commits the oil giant to investing in a low-carbon future. The resolution called for the company to commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable energy, scrap bonus systems that are associated with climate-harming activities, and base its business model risk assessment against the widely considered “safe” warming limit of 2ᵒC (as signed by 141 governments at the UN’s Copenhagen Accord).
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - When I was young, my grandfather placed stickers saying ‘Turn off if unnecessary’ on light switches, ‘Close the tap while brushing your teeth’ on the sink, and ‘Did you unplug all unnecessary electronics?’ next to the front door. Even though I thought it was weird and controlling at the time, they were my first introductions to sustainability. That, and I was the only one in my elementary school with a cotton handkerchief when all my friends blew their noses with fancy Kleenex pack-by-packs. I also grew up listening to my mother’s best friend, who worked with Greenpeace for over two decades, and became inspired by her exotic stories — chaining herself in protest in various places, or going to Southern Ocean to save the whales.
NEW METRICS - Think of a company, any company. Got one? OK. Now ask yourself this: Is the company truly sustainable, in everything it does and sells? If not, then how must the company change before it is?
COLLABORATION - Marking the end of the comment period on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, 223 companies have announced their support for EPA’s proposed carbon standard for electric power plants, including IKEA, Mars Inc., VF Corporation, Novelis, Levi Strauss, Unilever and Nestlé.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING - Carbios, a French green chemistry company specializing in technologies dedicated to the recovery of plastic waste and the production of bio-polymers, recently announced that it has successfully managed to depolymerize 90 percent of polylactic acid (PLA) material — a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources, commonly used in everything from chip bags to toothpaste tubes — in only 48 hours, using its cutting-edge enzymatic process.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE - After a roundtable discussion hosted by Business in the Community, I sat down with Collette Parker of Anglian Water’s customer engagement program to find out more about the opportunities and challenges facing this UK water utility service.
NEW METRICS - On Wednesday, I had the pleasure to attend Metrics that Matter, Messages that Motivate — Making the Right Case for Sustainability in Healthcare, an event hosted by The Wharton Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (Wharton IGEL) and Johnson & Johnson at Wharton’s West coast campus in San Francisco. Geoffrey Garrett, recently named dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, kicked things off by emphasizing the importance of sustainability in every area of our daily lives.