Category: From the Web

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From the Web: The circular economy enters the world stage, with Finland leading the way

 

 

 

 

 

Saving the planet might sound like reason enough to change our ways. But the circular economy is as much about creating value, profits and jobs.

For instance, a circular economy could bring estimated net savings of €600bn (£523bn) to European companies. In Finland alone circular solutions could provide €2bn-3bn (£1.7bn-2.6bn) added value annually.

Finland is at the forefront of the shift to a circular economy. Leaders and experts from 90 countries meeting at the World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki this week.

Learn more (via The Guardian) >>

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From the Web: 37% of Norway’s new cars are electric. They expect it to be 100% in just 8 years.

The global electric vehicle (EV) revolution reached another milestone last month as EVs made up 37 percent share of Norway’s car market.

In December, the country hit 100,000 zero-emission EVs on the road, projected to quadruple to 400,000 by 2020. These numbers are especially remarkable for a country of only 5.2 million people. Over five percent of all of Norway’s cars are EVs, up from one percent two years ago.

Norway’s transportation minister says it is “realistic” that sales of new fuel-burning cars could end by 2025. EVs may win on straight economics then, but the country — and others — have been considering outright bans.

Learn more (via ThinkProgress) >>

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From the Web: Packaging Food With Food to Reduce Waste

For the environmentally conscious eater, they are among the most inconvenient truths: Too much food goes to waste. Too much packaging comes with the food. And too much of the packaging is made to last for ages.

Now there may be a single answer to all three problems: using excess food to make the packaging.

A growing number of entrepreneurs and researchers are working to turn foods like mushrooms, kelp, milk and tomato peels into edible — if not always palatable — replacements for plastics, coatings and other packaging materials.

Learn more (via The New York Times) >>

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From the Web: Interface: Now You Can Sequester Carbon in the Carpet

“We have a ton of parking lots. Why?” Erin Meezan, Chief Sustainability Officer at Interface, Inc. asked rhetorically in a recent interview, describing the iterative systems-based approach her company takes to sustainability at their Atlanta, GA headquarters, “We can park on grass.” Grass is, of course, permeable and allows rainwater to soak in, creating a living ecosystem and carbon sink as opposed to storm drains which funnel water, and the trash and debris it picks up along the way, directly out to sea. But I digress. This is just one of dozens of examples Meezan shared with me as she described her company’s efforts to treat the “factory like a forest.”

Interface Inc. — a public company with a $1B market cap — was one of the first companies to take a bold, public stand on climate change. But that doesn’t mean they put sustainability ahead of product. Instead, they use sustainability as a differentiator to push innovation. “There are hard-nosed business people on our board who understand the business value of sustainability,” Meezan explains.

Its founder, Ray Anderson, had a personal epiphany that let him to use his carpet company company as a tool to make the world better. The company is sustainable through and through, and prior to Ray’s death in 2011, he was the perfect spokesperson for the movement. He sold plenty of carpet along the way.

Interface has carried on his mission and continued to innovate with research into new products. Their goal is to prove that business can be a climate positive actor. Meezan explains,”We make stuff. How can the stuff we make serve as a carbon sink?”

Note: Erin Meezan and Interface are on our Advisory Board.

Learn More (via TriplePundit)

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From the Web: REI Moves Ahead With Its Green Initiatives

Despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the historic Paris Climate Accord on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, many American businesses are moving forward with green initiatives. That is because going green will likely be less of a financial burden to corporate treasury groups as time goes by, said author and former Executive Forum speaker Andrew Winston.

Winston noted that major companies like REI, Boeing, UPS Wal-Mart, Google, Microsoft and Apple all use substantial amounts of renewable energy, and are reaping the benefits. “It’s not a small experiment anymore; there are tons of big companies like this,” he said. “And all of them see it as a good deal because they’re saving money.”

Learn more (via AFP) >>

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From the Web: Eating on the Brink: How Food Could Prevent a Climate Disaster

If we want to address climate change, we have to talk about food.

What we eat is responsible for a whopping one-third of all atmospheric warming today. Global meat and dairy production together accounts for roughly 15 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, making the livestock industry worse for the climate than every one of the world’s planes, trains, and cars combined.

Christine Figueres, who led the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, reminds us that climate stability requires limiting warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius. To do that, we need to start reversing current emissions trajectory, start a downward turn, by 2020. Yes, 2020. That means engaging every sector, food included.

Learn more (via CIVIL EATS) >>

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From the Web: Sustainable business at a crossroads, again

In 2008, when MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group began their sustainability research program, it was the start of the Great Recession, and pundits were predicting the end of sustainability on the assumption that executives would turn away from corporate social responsibility initiatives in favor of “making money.”

But survey results in that first year held a surprise. Contrary to common wisdom, a large number of companies were doubling down on, rather than abandoning, their sustainability commitments.

Investing in business sustainability turned out to be a good bet. Today, more than a dozen companies, from Walmart to Toyota, have billion-dollar sustainable business lines — making money indeed.

But eight years on, these so-called “green giants” are still in the minority.

MIT SMR’s latest report, “Corporate Sustainability at a Crossroads,” shows that most businesses have yet to crack the sustainability code. And now, after our eight annual surveys of tens of thousands of managers and more than 150 thought-leader interviews, we know why: Sustainability success requires a long-term, strategic-level commitment combined with business model innovation that goes way beyond changing light bulbs or charitable giving. Many managers understandably recoil from this level of sustainability commitment.

This brings us to the crossroads, because the election of Donald Trump seems to offer businesses a way out.

Learn more (via GreenBiz) >>

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From the Web: Ikea’s solution to peak stuff? Invest in plastics recycling plant

Ikea has bought forest in Romania and the Baltics, wind farms in Poland and now it is investing in a plastic recycling plant in the Netherlands.

For the Swedish furniture giant, extending control across its supply chain in this way could help it become more sustainable by avoiding environmentally damaging activities like illegal deforestation and plastic waste.

Learn more (via The Guardian) >>

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From the Web: Solving food waste: There’s an app for that

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Toronto startup is looking to solve what its founder describes as Canada’s “food waste epidemic.”

Josh Domingues, who spent the early part of his career in finance with firms including BMO Nesbitt Burns, launched the Flashfood app in January. He is hoping to prevent a fraction of the more than $6 billion worth of food thrown away by restaurants and grocery stores from reaching landfills, where it is converted into harmful methane gas (including consumers, an estimated $31 billion worth of food is thrown away each year in Canada).

The free app enables users to purchase surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores at what is describes as “enormously” discounted prices. App users can view and purchase the food directly from their mobile device, and pick it up later that day in a designated zone within participating stores.

Learn more (via Canadian Grocer) >>

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From the Web: Here’s How Thousands of B Corps are Making the World a Better Place

More than 2,000 B Corps in 50-plus countries—and they’re all making the world a better place. Kim Coupounas, the director of B Lab, has been a part of the B Corporation community since 2007, after she and her husband cofounded an outdoor brand called GoLite. GoLite went on to become a Certified B Corp as it made beautiful outdoor equipment and apparel in an environmentally and socially responsible way.

Over the years, Coupounas has watched the B Corp world flourish under the nonprofit B Lab, which develops and maintains the standards underpinning the B Impact Assessment companies undergo to pursue B Corp certification. “I’ve spent the past three years engaging and growing the community of B Corporations in Colorado,” Coupounas says. “In three years, we more than tripled the size of the B Corp community in Colorado and generated a number of truly innovative practices that are being used throughout the global B Corp community now to enhance B Lab’s mission overall. I’m now focused on reaching companies beyond Colorado and getting them on the path to measuring and improving their impacts.”

Learn more (via gb&d Magazine) >>