Month: April 2021

Mario Cucinella Architects and Wasp, Italy’s leading 3D printing company, have completed the first house to be 3D-printed from raw earth. The process coined Tecla (standing for technology and clay) is eco-sustainable and environmentally friendly due to the production being zero waste and needing no materials to be transported to the site as it uses local soil. It took just 200 hours for multiple printers to construct the 60-square-metre prototype in Ravenna, Italy.

Plastic waste is piling up at a record pace in our parks, streets and oceans. We’re on track to put more than 53 trillion metric tons of plastic into our oceans and waterways each year by 2030.
It’s time to turn the tide on the plastic pollution crisis.

If the idea of body composting makes you squeamish, you’re not alone. We don’t like to think about death, especially when it comes to the physical aspect of what happens to our bodies after we die. But burial and cremation, our standard methods of disposing of human remains, aren’t great for the environment.
Enter the sustainable death movement. People are searching for ways to dispose of bodies with respect and dignity — without harming the planet in the process.

Although criticised by some, energy from waste is seen as a vital component of the UK’s waste management system. Chris Elliott looks at where it fits as we transition to a circular economy.
It’s one of the burning issues in the quest for a circular economy: is incinerating waste a good thing or not?
On one side of the argument, there are those who believe it can be a useful way of making energy, and that it’s preferable to landfilling. It’s also a way of destroying waste that cannot be managed in any other way, because the material involved is dangerous, such as infectious bio-wastes from hospitals, or hazardous wastes from industry.

Three speakers discussed the reimagination of sustainable cities, Singaporean urban planning and New York City’s green spaces at a Berkeley Forum event Wednesday, also touching on redlining and public health inequities in the United States.

As socially and environmentally conscious people with customers who are the same, we get a fair number of questions about the sustainability practices of our company. The short answer is two fold – 1) We’ve put a lot of work and research into this front, particularly given how small we are and 2) While we’ve made some solid progress, we (and the food industry in general) still have a ways to go. 

Happi Floss is on a mission to replace single-use plastics and we’re starting with flossers. Made with layers of post-consumer recycled paper, Happi Floss is designed to decompose quickly in the compost or soil, unlike our plastic counterparts that can take 400+ years to decompose, if ever.
Created by Doctor Staci, a functional and holistic pediatric dentist, Happi Floss is a woman-founded, owned, and operated company.

The United Nations Global Compact — in association with SAP, Accenture, and 3M — published the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Ambition Guides in September 2020 to mobilise industry around SDG Ambition and scale impact for the 17 SDGs. Collaboration is key to achieving the SDGs and with “Partnerships for the Goals” one of SAP’s key focus areas, its expanded collaboration with Accenture is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at helping businesses capture value from sustainability.

This paper provides an overview of sustainable economic development strategies across the Mackay Isaac Whitsunday (MIW) region in Queensland. We discuss the opportunities that can take advantage of the region’s natural resources through a circular economy approach. The focus of this paper is to stress the need to consider all elements in the value chains that are needed to ensure sustainable bioindustries can be established for many years.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has awarded Grand Valley a STARS gold rating in recognition of the university’s sustainability efforts.  STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, gauges the progress of colleges and universities toward sustainability in all sectors, including education and research, innovation, administration and operations.  Grand Valley’s STARS rating this year was 74.9, up from 70.8 in 2019.

After parent company AB InBev announced that three major businesses – namely Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive and Coca-Cola – are now supporting its 100+ Accelerator to fund sustainable start-ups, beer brand Corona has posted its own update on start-up financing.
The brand is making funds of up to $100,000 per business available to startups working to develop solutions to the world’s plastic pollution problem. To apply for funding under the scheme, called the Corona Plastic Free Challenge, applicants will need to outline how their product, system or technology can be used to reduce or remove plastic from a specific part of the beverage supply chain. Specific focus areas are plastic bottle cap liner alternatives and solutions for keeping products on pallets during transportation without plastic film.

Vegan headphones might sound like the name of an indie band, but they’re real. Headphones made without leather and using sustainable materials are just one of the ways in which using technology responsibly is becoming more important.  This week, we take a look at sustainability in technology, and how things might change going forward.

Auto suppliers told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday they opposes setting a firm date to end the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and warned that a quick shift to all electric vehicles could cost thousands of jobs. California said in September it planned to end sales of new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles by 2035.

Reclaiming Appalachia Coalition Now Accepting Proposals For Innovative Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Economic Development Project Funding

The Port of Seattle Commission hosted a study session today to review progress implementing the Port’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) strategic plan and significant investments of the private sector in SAF production and use in Washington. The study session occurs just days after the Washington state legislature approved policy creating a low carbon fuel standard. The policy to lower carbon emissions from fuel now goes to Washington state Governor Jay Inslee for his signature.

virtual event focusing on sustainable tourism will take place in May.
Presented by TLC, ‘Reset Tourism. Sustainably’ puts nature and the protection of culture and heritage at the top of its agenda.
Taking place on May 25, starting at 9am UK time, it will have a line-up of speakers including representatives from UNWTO, ministers of tourism and specialists in sustainability, hotels operations and development.

THE WHAT? Colgate-Palmolive has begun the switch to a first-of-its-kind recyclable toothpaste tube and will share the technology.
THE DETAILS The company’s Tom’s of Maine has unveiled the first tube recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. The brand will debut the tube for its Antiplaque & Whitening toothpaste and complete the switch across all of its toothpastes in 2020, when the Colgate brand will initiate the transition in Europe and North America.  

THE WHAT? Colgate-Palmolive has begun the switch to a first-of-its-kind recyclable toothpaste tube and will share the technology.
THE DETAILS The company’s Tom’s of Maine has unveiled the first tube recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. The brand will debut the tube for its Antiplaque & Whitening toothpaste and complete the switch across all of its toothpastes in 2020, when the Colgate brand will initiate the transition in Europe and North America.  

Sustainability isn’t a new focus for Pernod Ricard, the global wine and spirits company whose portfolio includes familiar names like Absolut Vodka, Chivas Regal, Jameson, Kahlúa, and Seagram’s.

A natural food preservative spray and a smart tech solution to zero-waste shopping: two winners in this year’s EU Social Innovation Competition on going to market and the growing demand for new ideas.