Renault’s Public ‘No Confidence’ Vote is a Blow to Better Place

| Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 1 Comment

Better_PlaceOn January 21, 2008, Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO of Renault-Nissan, Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place and Shimon Peres, the President of Israel sat together during a ceremonial event for Better Place, where the company announced plans to build its first pilot electric battery rechargeable grid system in Israel and its partnership with Renault-Nissan that will supply the project’s electric vehicles.

Following the event, Agassi wrote in his blog, “January 21st changes the balance in this industry – if we are right about the business model of PBP, and given the cars will be insanely great (as Renault promised us), there is a possibility of market tipping first in the test markets but very rapidly in the entire car industry worldwide.”

More than five years later, it seems like Agassi, who was forced out of Better Place last October got it wrong. Not only that the company has managed to sell only about 2,000 cars in Denmark and Israel so far, but also Ghosn, one of Better Place’s most enthusiastic supporters, doesn’t seem to believe anymore that the company’s model is viable.

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Marks & Spencer’s Shwopping, One Year Later: Progress and Potential

Leon Kaye | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 1 Comment

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M&S Shwopping spokeswoman Joanna Lumley in Dakar, Senegal

A year has already passed since Marks & Spencer launched its Shwopping campaign in many of its United Kingdom stores. In partnership with the NGO Oxfam, Shwopping has helped move textile and garment recycling a huge step forward. The premise of the Shwopping initiative is customers can drop unwanted clothing into a specially labeled box when they shop for new garments–even if the clothing was not purchased at M&S. With beloved actress Joanna Lumley as Shwopping’s spokeswoman, the program launched in April 2012 with gusto.

So how has the program fared one year later? Yesterday morning I chatted over the phone with Adam Elman from his London office. As Marks & Spencer’s Head of Delivery for Plan A, the company’s sustainability and ethical agenda, Elman updated me on Shwopping’s successes and challenges.

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New Architectural Design Battles Air Pollution in Mega-Cities

Jan Lee
Jan Lee | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 0 Comments

Elegant_Embellishments_air_pollution_EEScientists have been looking for ways to reduce air pollution in cities for decades. Smarter cars, better CO2 emission standards, innovative transportation methods and more intercity bike paths are all part of the strategies that have been used in large cities to reduce smog.

But what if researchers could find a way to “scrub” city air of its already existing pollutants? And what if the structural architecture of a building’s façade could be used to dramatically enhance those air-cleaning properties?

A design company based in Berlin, Germany believes it’s discovered a way to do just that.

Elegant Embellishments Ltd (EE) is the creator of proSolve 370e, a “decorative, three-dimensional architectural tile” that is designed to be installed on buildings to decrease air pollution in urban settings. According to the company’s co-director, Allison Dring, the active substance in the design is a liquid covering that was developed by the U.S. company Millennium Chemicals in 2005. EE’s smart design actually helps make it easier for the neutralizing substance to do its job. And, the design is eye-catching.

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Celebrating Planet and People on Earth Day

Travis Noland | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 2 Comments

reddEarth Day was born on April 22, 1970, as the first-ever nationwide protest against the pollution of the environment. Amidst the scores of environmental advocates emerged backlash from an array of parties concerned about the human implications of focusing on the earth. Senator Jacob Javits warned “that the fight against environmental and physical pollution is so popular that it will [detract from] the longstanding and at least equally vital efforts to deal with poverty, alienation and other economic issues.” On the same day, 2,000 low-income residents boycotted another Earth Day rally in Philadelphia, arguing that “the nation’s newfound infatuation with the environment has distracted attention from the misery of the poor.”

Today, 43 years later, social responsibility is considered a fundamental tenet of Earth Day. Even more striking is the role of business in the environmental discussion. On April 22, 2013, both the social and business cases for environmental sustainability were powerfully demonstrated at the first-ever REDD+ Talks. The event was co-hosted by Code REDD and Wildlife Works – organizations leading the global fight against deforestation by taking the earth’s appeal to large corporations, policy makers, and local communities. These partners aspire to protect over 5 million hectares of highly threatened forests, yet their model revolves around people and financial incentive.

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Health Care Innovations Outside the Hospital

GreenFutures
GreenFutures | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 1 Comment

stethescopeBy Jon Turney

Technology is taking healthcare into the community and closer to home, saving valuable resources

Your imaginary medical drama, like mine, probably begins one of two ways. There’s an emergency call, blue lights and sirens, and a frantic dash to hospital. Or a bored receptionist ushers you toward the consulting room with a routine, “The doctor will see you now.”

This is health care, old style. You go where the doctors are, either by appointment, or when you suddenly have no choice. The systems we have built on that assumption aren’t going to stop any time soon, but they are under increasing strain. Populations are aging, and costs rising. Health inequalities, whether measured across region or class in one country or across the globe, are stubbornly persistent.

Relieving the strain will need new approaches, from health professionals, governments, brands and businesses – but technology could be the key enabler. Until now, medical technologies (more drugs, more tests) have generally increased costs. But information and communication technologies which offer more personal solutions, might prove the exception. They could even speed a reorientation of the whole system.

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Academic & NGO Partners Bring Climate Change Planning to China’s Yunnan Province

3p Contributor | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 0 Comments

IMG_6835By Huijin Yu, Clean Development Mechanism Research & Development Center of School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University

In recent years, more and more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have discovered that climate change is severely influencing poverty-stricken regions of the world, many of which have made an effort to develop solutions in response to these negative impacts. Regions severely affected by droughts or flooding, for example, have developed educational programs to teach and guide local residents to improve their ability of responding to these challenges.

Tsinghua University, a partner of the Alcoa Foundation Advancing Sustainability Research (ASR): Innovative Partnerships for Actionable Solutions initiative has investigated the non-governmental organization Green Watershed for its community governance program with residents’ participation in China’s Yunnan Province. Over the past 12 years, the program has worked to prevent increased detrimental environmental damage in the Lashi Lake area (below is the map of the area) and to maintain a sustainable way of living for local residents.

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San Francisco: Issue an Impact-Rated Muni Bond in Energy Efficiency

3p Contributor | Thursday May 9th, 2013 | 3 Comments

By Judi Brown, Paula Escuadra and Juan Norton

The following is part of a collaborative project for Presidio Graduate School’s Spring 2013 Capital Markets course.

An Open Letter to the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, Praising Fossil Fuel Divestment and Calling for Further Innovation

[Image credit: Bobbo, Surviving California]

Dear Members of the Board:

As MBA and MPA students of sustainable management at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco, we applaud the unanimous resolution passed last month urging the city’s fund managers to divest upwards of $580 million from the fossil fuel production industry. Once again, you have furthered San Francisco’s reputation as a proactive and forward-thinking city that spurs creative solutions to dynamic challenges. It is becoming clearer in the age of climate disruption that municipalities are going to lead social and economic shifts toward a more sustainable world. Given this and San Francisco’s reputation as a pioneer in sustainability, we urge you to take your innovation a step further – become the first ever U.S. city to issue an impact-rated municipal bond.

San Francisco is uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of continued innovation by issuing a bond that highlights and measures social and environmental benefits to society as well as financial returns. At present, estimates of the U.S. municipal bond market have reached $3.7 trillion, making it a significant asset class. Ratings agencies such as S&P, Moody’s and Fitch rate muni bonds only in terms of their short-term financial cash flows. In this way, the underlying risks and rewards of a city-issued bond are not being assessed correctly because systemic risks are ignored. This makes an increasingly volatile market open to greater vulnerability. However, issuing a bond that is rated by impact metrics that provide a more systemic approach to determining its success could strengthen the market, particularly in a city like San Francisco where savvy individual and institutional investors realize the importance of long-term, multifaceted returns.

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Twitter Chat May 17th: Unilever Talks About Sustainable Living Plan

| Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments

It’s that time again! Join TriplePundit readers worldwide as we team up with CSRWire once again for an hour-long twitter chat with Unilever. This time we’ll talk about Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan with Chief Sustainability Officer Gail Klintworth.

Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan has received a lot of attention and inspection since it was launched in 2010. On April 30th the company was awarded, for three years in a row, the #1 score by Globescan – SustainAbility ‘Sustainable Leaders 2013’ survey.

Over the past two years, Unilever has made great progress on their major goals:

1. Help more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being:   The company has reached 224 million people with programs to reduce diarrheal disease through handwashing with soap, provide safe drinking water, promote oral health and improve young people’s self-esteem.

2. Source 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably: Unilever now buys over a third (36%) of itsagricultural raw materials from sustainable sources, with particular progress in palm oil, sugar, cocoa, vegetables and sunflower oil.

3. Halve the environmental footprint of its products across the value chain: Unilever is making good progress in areas it can control. Between 2008-2012, greenhouse gas emissions from energy in manufacturing were cut by nearly a third and manufacturing waste has halved. Over half of Unilever’s 252 manufacturing sites around the world now send zero non-hazardous waste to landfill, and the company has set itself a new target of extending this to all its factories by 2015.

However, its own manufacturing impacts account for only a small part of the total environmental footprint of Unilever’s products in the total value chain – just 4% of its greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint for example. The majority of Unilever’s product footprint is in the sourcing of raw materials (25% of its GHG footprint) and in the way consumers cook, clean and wash with the products (68% of its GHG footprint).

Let’s chat:

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Balancing Resilience and Growth Within the Supply Chain

Leon Kaye | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments
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Deloitte outlines 4 steps to untangle the supply chain

A recent Deloitte study offers a concise overview of the challenges companies face within their supply chains and how they, in turn, can partner with their suppliers to solve current problems and prevent new ones. The challenge is huge for multinational companies and their vendors because the increased demands for transparency clashes with the reality that the supply chain for many a business is becoming more complex and opaque.

As energy prices become more volatile, commodities surge in price and manufacturers look for new markets in which to hire workers, it behooves companies even more to ensure their supply chains are more resilient and socially responsible. NGOs are scrutinizing supply chains across the globe in this age of social media that can turn the shenanigans of a wayward supplier into a massive global headache for a company. Add the recent tragedy in Bangladesh, which follows only a few months after another avoidable catastrophe, and the importance of a more collaborative and transparent supply chain becomes even more crucial.

So what are the “four steps to effective supplier collaboration,” according to Deloitte, and what are some examples of what leading companies are doing to confront these challenges head on?

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Windpower 2013: Ripe Market Conditions for Community Wind Projects

Sarah Lozanova | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 7 Comments

windpower_2013I attended the AWEA WINDPOWER 2013 Conference & Exhibition in Chicago yesterday, where a variety of companies gather each year to collaborate and explore industry opportunities. Although many trends were discussed, one notion that came up was the unique opportunity for community wind projects to thrive in the current economic climate.

From schools to tribal reservations to corporate campuses, community wind is a growing sector in the wind energy industry that involves local involvement and ownership. Although projects are often of smaller scale than investor-owned or third-party industrial wind farms, community wind projects possess qualities that are uniquely suited for the renewable energy market for 2013.

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Largest Canadian Supermarket Chains Phasing Out Cruel Pig Crates

Gina-Marie Cheeseman | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments

Gestationcrate

This is part of a series on Cruelty Free Supply Chains.

The eight largest Canadian supermarket chains will phase out sow gestation crates from their supply chains by 2022. The supermarket chains that made this commitment include Co-op Atlantic, Canada Safeway, Costco Wholesale Canada, Federated Co-operatives Limited , Loblaw Companies Limited, Metro Inc., Sobeys Inc. and Walmart Canada Corp. The Canadian supermarket chains are joining many other companies who, for the past few years, have made pledges to phase sow gestation crates out of their supply chains.

There is a very good reason why Canada’s largest supermarket chains made the pledge: sow gestation crates are about two feet wide, so small that the pigs can’t turn around in them or take more than one step. Breeding pigs are confined in them for almost all of their lives. The Humane Society of the U.S. is adamantly opposed to gestation crates, and says about them, “Due to the duration and severity of their confinement, these pigs’ suffering is among the worst of all factory-farmed animals.”

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SBIO 2013 Semi-finalist: The Amplification Project

3p Contributor | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments

By Candice D. McLeod

Each week leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 5th, where the runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will feature two articles on an SBIO semi-finalists. Meet semi-finalist The Amplification Project.

The Amplification Project is hoping to help corporations, foundations, and policymakers solve their bAP_Final_Logoiggest problems. The company seeks to drive change for social and environmental issues using strategic communication methods supported by rigorous policy research and data.

Founder Richard Greenberg maintains that the company’s competitive advantage over other communication organizations is the collective deep-rooted policy expertise of its team. “We distinguish ourselves from other marketing groups, because we are not just marketing experts, we are policy experts. The added value of The Amplification Project is that we have changed laws, lobbied for issues, and presented in front of Congress.”

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Reinvented Business Growth: Co-Sustaining Locally

3p Contributor | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments
Maggie Anderson at "Doing Good Summit"

Maggie Anderson at the “Do Good Summit”

By Mehrunisa Qayyum

Multi-national corporations boast a cadre of lobbyists, or “Government Relations” departments to watch out for their industries or champion their latest Corporate Social Responsibility project.  But what about local entrepreneurs who do not share the resources–or arguably the “big business” philosophy of maximizing profits? Who champions their small business interests and philosophies?  How do small businesses remain “slightly optimistic,” according to Gallup’s latest findings?

Nonprofit, Think Local First (TLF), may argue that small businesses must champion each other, which is why they held their second annual, one-day, interactive conference for entrepreneurs in Washington, DC. TLF partnered with a variety of social enterprises to host the Do Good Summit - a consortium of businesses that believe economic growth must start locally and within their communities across retail, services, and the arts.

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Charging Your iPhone Could Mean the Death of a Miner

CCA LiveE | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments

By Melissa Lin

Americans are increasingly using high-tech devices in our day-to-day life. You may think your iPhone (3.47 kWh per year) does not use a lot of electricity, but compare it to a non-smartphone (1 kWh per year) from ten years ago. The New York Times states that data centers running your favorite applications like Google (300 million watts) and Facebook (60 million watts) require more power than a medium-size town. Americans are consuming more electricity because of these appliances but the price for electricity has not gone up in the same way. We still demand cheap electricity.

[Video Credit: Post Carbonate Institute]

 

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Supporting Science Education One Key to a Prosperous South Africa

Leon Kaye | Wednesday May 8th, 2013 | 0 Comments

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Cape Town Science Centre, SAP, SAP Africa, MTN, Cape Town, South Africa, science education, science, community engagement, science, Julie Cleverdon

A robotics demo at the Cape Town Science Centre

As Africa emerges as the latest continent to experience vigorous economic growth, the demand for science and engineering education is clearly obvious. One should not generalize a continent with over 50 countries, but one truth about Africa is that the desire for education far outstretches the opportunities available throughout the region. Many global organizations including UNESCO are striving to ensure education remains high on the agenda of governments throughout the region.

The challenges confronting Africa are analogous to what countries in the Middle East face–long term success means enough locals have got to be skilled in fields such as mathematics, engineering or the physical sciences. But the difference in the Middle East is that for now the wealthier countries can import scientists and engineers as a temporary measure–as well as the professors who can transfer such skills and knowledge. Africa does not have that option.

So the ability to spark interest in the sciences has got to start at home. One up-and-coming science museum in Cape Town aims to spark interest among local youth who eventually can help build South Africa’s, and the continent’s, capacity in the sciences.

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