Month: September 2021

Sustainability management is rapidly progressing from an operational task to a strategic imperative one as environmental and social concerns shape the business environment. Scenario planning is increasingly being used by companies and governments to explore the potential impact of future challenges. Applied in a management education context scenario planning offers teachers of sustainability a tool through which they can promote creativity while developing student knowledge, skills, and abilities, preparing them for work in an increasingly dynamic market environment.

A high-performance version of the zinc-ion battery will enable stationary energy storage that promises to be cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries. Until now, zinc-ion batteries have been severely hampered by their rapid degradation during use. Now, a KAUST team has developed a new electrolyte and electrode combination that improved several aspects of zinc-ion battery performance, particularly the stability over multiple charge and discharge cycles. To combat these issues, the team developed a water electrolyte with a very high salt concentration. The more salt ions present in the solution to bind surrounding water molecules, the fewer free water molecules are available to damage the electrodes.

We can all do our bit for the environment. No matter where you shop, you can recycle your soft plastics at Co-op….

Officials of the former Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) appeared to have been blindsided by the recent announcement of President Duterte to allow the opening of a casino in Boracay Island. Despite repeated text messages from the BusinessMirror, BIATF officials have chosen to remain silent on Duterte’s flip-flop on his “no-casino” policy. One BIATF source said he didn’t want to comment on the issue because, “That’s a decision made by the highest official of the land.” Pressed if BIATF officials were aware about policy change prior to Duterte’s announcement last August 26, the source said in a mix of English and Filipino, “No. It was an unexpected pronouncement.” In a joint news statement late Monday, the BIATF said, “In line with the President’s latest pronouncement that casinos will now be allowed to operate in Boracay Island to augment government funds, [we] will carry out the necessary steps towards this direction.”

INNOCEAN Worldwide announced that it won two prizes, including the grand prize and the main prize, at the famous German design award ‘Red Dot Design Award 2021.’ Red Dot is one of the top 3 design award with the U.S. IDEA and Germany’s iF Design Awards, and it annually selects innovative and creative products and works in various fields such as product design and brand & communication. Hyundai Motor Group’s ‘Little Big E-Motion’ won the grand prize in the film & animation category. Hanwha Group’s ‘Clean up Mekong’ also won the main prize in the spatial communication category. Little Big Emotion is a video content project that shows kid mobility applied with emotion-aware vehicle control technology that enables the communication between cars and passengers is used in the actual treatment. Children patients in the hospital usually feel the short distance from ward to doctor’s office as the most frightening and scary long journey, and it has received good reviews for reducing this stress of children patient with emotion-aware vehicles Little Big Emotion also won the second grand prize at the New York Festival, one of the world’s top 3 advertising festivals, this year.

Last week, Tesla received a profusion of praise for “recycling 100 percent of its lithium-ion batteries.” And since the EV incumbent’s 2020 Impact Report was released last week, this headline has been aggressively stalking me. It has appeared in numerous newsletters, come up on calls and reappeared in my inbox in the form of emails from multiple colleagues, friends and family members. I rarely cover a company’s impact or sustainability report. (The GreenBiz editorial ethos is typically to provide context and look more closely at the “how” and “why” of an initiative, rather than report on the announcement itself). If we’re being honest, I rarely ever read corporate sustainability reports in full. They often have an impossibly optimistic and congratulatory tone that’s a bit too saccharine for even my sweet tooth.

Unsustainable production is a root cause of numerous social and ecological problems. Whilst sustainability certifications face criticism for exacerbating greenwashing, comparative studies have identified improvements in social and ecological outcomes on certified farms. In this paper, we investigate the process by which a sustainability certification can enable a production industry to move beyond mere greenwashing. We conceptualise sustainability certification as a process of marketisation, organising economic activities within a production industry in ways that can enable new forms of thought and action. To examine this marketisation process, we study the case of Rainforest Alliance certification in the Sri Lankan tea production industry. We draw on an extensive six-month period of fieldwork, involving 74 semi-structured interviews with people working across the industry. We find that accounting devices deployed in this marketisation process create new visibilities within the industry to distinguish sustainability-certified tea as a marketable economic good, to equip producers to become economic agents capable of participating in markets for sustainability-certified tea, and to construct an economic exchange connecting supplies from certified tea estates with demands from ethically minded consumers. Our findings contribute to research on accounting for sustainable development, shedding light on the process by which, despite ongoing concerns regarding greenwashing, sustainability certifications can bring about positive impacts on social and ecological outcomes.

The LIFE programme – the EU’s funding instrument for environment and climate action – is set to host two virtual events this week and next week. The programme is hosting the events ahead of and during SERE2021, the 12th European Conference on Ecological Restoration. Organised by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) Europe and the University of Alicante, SERE2021 is taking place from Tuesday, September 7, to Friday, September 10. According to LIFE, the conference will feature discussions on the challenges facing ecological restoration in post-2020 Europe. It will also look at how ecological restoration can benefit damaged, degraded and destroyed socio-ecological systems.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is turning to a Japanese startup for help in creating maps of the wind that will make it safer for drones and air taxis to take to the skies around the world. MetroWeather Co. makes compact, low-cost lidar sensors that can be used to detect hazards like wind shear, allowing unmanned aerial vehicles to operate in urban environments, Chief Executive Officer Junichi Furumoto said in an interview. The Kyoto-based company will work with TruWeather Solutions Inc. in the U.S. as part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program. Autonomous drones and flying cars, long a science fiction staple, are slowly edging toward reality. The four-rotor machines known as quadcopters are already being used for photography, inspections and mapping. Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. are exploring their use for deliveries, while a number of startups and aerospace incumbents are working on electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles that can carry people.

Every year, as a part of Stena AB annual report, Stena Bulk assembles an expansive Sustainability Report that tracks emissions and vessel efficiency across its entire fleet. It goes out not only to company management, but also regulators and international agencies. You and your teams may have just finished assembling a similar one. If so, then you’ll know that each report depends on thousands of points of individual data, with almost every one found in a separate document or format. It means endless hours and weeks of late nights  combing through PDFs, Excel sheets, and emails. For years, this process has been a fixture of life in the office, but thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way. With Orbit’s machine learning and reporting capabilities, it’s possible to reduce the time you and your teams spend assembling reports to a fraction of what it is now. In fact, using Orbit Stena Bulk significantly decreased the time they spent generating Sustainability Reports.

Royal Mail has embarked on a six to nine-month trial of new tyres on a number of electric vehicles (EVs). The tyres are specially designed to help reduce particulate matter emissions and improve the range, efficiency and longevity of vehicles. Announced on 19 August, the trial is a joint venture between Royal Mail, Transport for London (TfL) and ENSO, as part of the London FreightLab innovation challenge. This challenge aims to tackle pollution, congestion and road danger in London. The tyres, from manufacturer ENSO, are claimed to produce fewer microparticles in comparison to normal tyres, and increase vehicle range. Tests carried out by ENSO have seemingly shown that its tyres can also increase EV range by up to 11%, compared to standard tyres. Fifteen electric vans at the West London Delivery Office, near Wembley, will be fitted with the new tyres during the trial.

After the successful launch of its high-speed fiber broadband service in Cebu last June, Converge ICT Solutions Inc., introduces its innovative solutions to empower and support small and medium-sized businesses, corporations, and large enterprises, spanning multiple industries. The B2B arm of the country’s leading fiber internet service provider is hosting a Cebu Roadshow — a month-long series of online events to introduce the brand and showcase its line-up of products and services to different business communities and industry associations such as the Philippine Association of Building Administrators, Inc. (PABA-Cebu), Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations Inc. (CREBA – Cebu Chapter), and Cebu Hotels Information Technology Association (CHITA), to name a few. The Cebu Roadshow will help educate business enterprises with the right tools to empower digital transformation, provide solutions for work efficiencies, and enable business sustainability, especially during this pandemic.

When most people think of shrimp, they think of yummy seafood and very small creatures. You might not expect a small shrimp to pack a very powerful punch. However, the mantis shrimp has the strongest punch of any animal on the planet. Acceleration is key to its incredibly strong punch, with the mantis shrimp able to accelerate its appendages faster than a bullet exits a gun. A single punch can knock the arms off a crab or crack a shell. Scientists have been researching how the mantis shrimp can generate such a powerful punch. Researchers from Harvard have leveraged high-speed cameras to learn more about the mechanics of the powerful punch. The research could pave the way for small robots that also have lots of power.

Fortenova Group’s Croatian water bottling company Jamnica has introduced 100% recycled PET (rPET) made 0.5l bottle for its still mineral water brand, Jana natural. The climate-friendly packaging solution has been developed together with plastic manufacturer ALPLA using plastic from the post-consumer recycling cycle. ALPLA Multi-Country manager Balkan/Adria Primoz Agrez said: “The new 0.5l Jana bottle made entirely of highest quality bottle grade recycled PET from one of our close ALPLA recycling plants is an outstanding result of this joint initiative.”

Seafarers face multiple risks to their health and wellbeing, which can affect safety, performance, and livelihoods. According to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) 2019 annual overview of maritime casualties and incidents study, 66% of incidents are caused by “human factors”, with crew fatigue and lack of situational awareness being major contributing causes. Integrated with the SAFEVUE.ai(1) platform, the SOL-X ATEX Certified SmartWatch transforms operations by extending safety and health intelligence to the edge. It enables connected wellbeing programs, provides real time(2) visibility to front line crew operations, and enhances crew situational awareness vessel wide. The SOL-X SmartWatch is ATEX Zone 1 Certified for use in hazardous environments.

88-Acres is a food brand created from a modern-day love story. On founder Rob and Nicole’s fourth date, Rob had a severe food allergy reaction that landed him in the hospital. The rest is history and an entire brand that fuses the two’s pasts and futures into a world filled with foods that deliver huge flavors without making sacrifices for their allergies. With the help of ROOK/NYC, the brand recently underwent a brand and packaging redesign that helped elevate consumer’s perception of the brand. The result is playful packaging that still maintains the welcoming terminology of being a home-cooked kind of brand. While the brand updated its packaging, it decided to continue with its original logo to maintain brand and flavor recognition for its loyal consumers. The bright colors reminiscent of the flavors within create a unique packaging set that’s fun while proving that this brand is a leader in the category and highly trustworthy.

Shell Energy continues its European expansion with its intended launch as an energy supplier in the Netherlands. The company, present as a supplier in the UK and Germany, intends to supply 100% locally generated wind and solar power to customers. Customers who purchase gas also are being offered a CO2 emissions offset scheme. Under this scheme, customers can opt to pay an extra amount for each unit of gas, which is used to purchase credits from certified forest and tree planting projects that have avoided or absorbed carbon emissions. Among these are the Cordillera Azul rainforest protection project in Peru and the Katingan Mentaya conservation project in Indonesia.

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Colm Kelleher will officially launch 8 newly installed city parklets this week, on August 31st and September 2nd. Following a call-out for “parklet partners” in September 2020, a number of local businesses and community associations were selected to take part in the National Transport Authority-funded scheme.  The parklets, designed by Siobhán Keogh Design and built by Benchspace Cork, are then planted and maintained by the “parklet partners”, with funding for their upkeep administered by the City Council.
The following parklets will be officially launched by the Lord Mayor on Tuesday 31st August:
Cook Street (Partner: Il Padrino restaurant)
South Mall (Partners: The Imperial Hotel and Cork Zero Waste)
Union Quay (Partner: Three Little Piggies Deli)
Sullivan’s Quay (Partners: The Quay Co-op, Creativity & Change – MTU Crawford and Green Spaces for Health)
Wandesford Quay (Partners: Lavit Gallery, Backwater Artists Group, Cork Printmakers and Wandesford Quay CLG)

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras is developing an innovative model to tackle electronic wastes (e-waste) by linking stakeholders in the formal and informal economy, according to officials. Called “e-Source”, the exchange platform that will serve as an online marketplace for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and facilitate a formal supply chain between various stakeholders (buyers and sellers). The initiative is being spearheaded by Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS). According to officials, the initiative aims to make ”Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment” (WEEE) a key resource in the evolution of a circular economy by establishing traceability and recovery of post-consumer e-waste in the market.

Environmental health experts at Flinders University are advancing research into a highly sustainable wastewater recycling program by developing a cost-effective way to harvest microalgal biomass for use in biofuels and other applications. The high-rate algal pond (HRAP) model, recycling wastewater at two regional South Australian locations at Kingston-on-Murray and Peterborough with support from the Flinders University research team, uses algae and bacteria to treat the wastewater.