The latest products, services, design approaches and business models that are helping organizations of all sizes deliver on their sustainability ambitions and establish a new business as usual
The Bombay Sapphire gin distillery in Hampshire, England has become the first to achieve an “Outstanding” design-stage Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) accreditation, according to a recent announcement. Read More...
Portland-based startup-up B-Line says its small team of electrical-tricycle couriers has replaced 20,000 commercial truck and van deliveries since its inception in 2009. Read More...
This article first appeared on edie.net on March 20, 2013.Environmental Data Interactive Exchange (Edie), an online sustainability resource based in the UK, has published an exclusive white paper highlighting the opportunities and challenges of circular economy realization, for both businesses and the waste management industry.The report, published in association with sponsor FCC Environment and sister title Local Authority Waste & Recycling magazine, investigates the implications of closed-loop thinking as businesses start to take back waste-derived materials and energy into their supply chains. Read More...
Stanford University has chosen William McDonough as its first living archive, which will include digital and hard copy artifacts from his life to give current and future generations an insight into the sustainability design leader’s mind. Read More...
Apple now uses 100% renewable energy sources to power its data centers, taking it to 75% renewables across its worldwide corporate facilities, according to its latest Environmental Progress report. The company says its data centers are powered by a combination of solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. Read More...
In January, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released a new animation, focusing on the role of new business models in the transition to a regenerative circular economy."The Circular Economy: From Consumer to User" (below) is a follow-up to 2011’s "Re-Thinking Progress: The Circular Economy," a short film that offered an introduction to the circular concept and stimulated discussion around what our future economy may look like. The new video looks in more detail at one aspect of this — what if we didn’t buy the goods we use but instead favoured access and performance over ownership? Read More...
Nike and TechStars have announced the winners of its first Nike+ Accelerator program. Select startups are awarded the opportunity to enter a three-month program at a Nike space in Portland, Oregon to build products aimed at helping people to lead more active lives using the Nike+ and NikeFuel platforms. Read More...
Ben & Jerry’s and Ashoka last week launched their second Join Our Core competition to find the most innovative young social entrepreneurs in Europe. Read More...
In this recent interview, guest editor Adam Werbach talks with Eric Lowitt, author of the forthcoming book, The Collaboration Economy (Wiley, April 2013). As Lowitt explains, the collaboration economy describes a situation in which “the interest of the commons now affects the common interest.”To illustrate the concepts explored in the book, an excerpt from a chapter of The Collaboration Economy appears below the video. Read More...
With three billion new middle-class consumers projected to enter the global marketplace in the coming decades[1], it is now widely acknowledged that the global economy of tomorrow will face material scarcity and supply chain insecurity at an unprecedented scale — an inevitable consequence of an industrial era based on a make/use/dispose model. These new realities have galvanized an international community of academia, NGOs, governments and corporate interests to promote new principles to guide future economic decision-making. Read More...
To prepare for this year's Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) competition, we're catching up with some of our favorite entrepreneurial ventures from competitions past ... Read More...
Boston firms participating in the Challenge for Sustainability have lowered their collective electricity consumption by seven percent in three years, the program says. Read More...
General Motors hopes to save as much as 12 billion gallons of fuel over the life of the vehicles it builds between 2011 and 2017 through reducing vehicle weight by up to 15 percent and other fuel efficiency upgrades, the company’s CEO Dan Akerson said at last week’s HIS CERAWeek energy conference. Read More...
As part of its goal of becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable carmaker by 2018, Volkswagen announced Friday that it will join Daimler and BMW in developing CO2 technology as a more climate-friendly refrigerant for its automotive air-conditioning systems.CO2 as a refrigerant — also known as R744 — is a naturally occurring gas with lower greenhouse gas effects than conventional refrigerants, and is ideal for use in specially designed automotive air-conditioning systems. The German automaker says the technology will be rolled out progressively over its entire vehicle fleet. Read More...
In this recent interview, guest editor Adam Werbach and Pavan Sukhdev — leader of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project and author of Corporation 2020 — discuss the shift in thinking, habits and values necessary for the widespread adoption and success of the circular economy, and the "follower-ship challenge" presented by early adopters. Read More...
Walgreens says it will build the country’s first net-zero energy retail store, producing energy equal to or greater than it consumes.The project is the latest of several sustainability initiatives for the company, including two stores that have achieved LEED gold certification, 150 stores utilizing solar power and 400 locations with electric vehicle charging stations. Read More...
FedEx has trimmed its fleet’s cumulative fuel economy by more than 22 percent, exceeding its goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2020 seven years early. Read More...
Let’s start with where we are today. The state of the "economy," like the bible or the U.S. constitution, is granted semi-magical powers by most businesses, as if it were carved out of granite, solid and unmoving, never in flux. Yet we all know that the economy — which we'll define here as the system of production and consumption of goods and services within a given region — is ruled by no one, experiences massive upheavals as industries rise and fall, and serves to enrich some people and impoverish others. The economy requires the functioning of natural systems, from the hydrologic cycle to photosynthesis, to function. Read More...
Rooms To Go has converted 115 of its retail stores to LED lighting, reducing average energy use by 35 to 45 percent in each store, the furniture company recently announced. Read More...