Focusing on Water Usage Effectiveness for Cooling Systems to Boost Sustainability

Sonoco Europe, a unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON), has become a member of the Industry Council for Packaging & the Environment (INCPEN). This represents an important step in Sonoco’s ongoing effort to further develop its sustainability and corporate social responsibility credentials – and to help promote environmental awareness and decisive action in the wider packaging industry.
INCPEN works closely with its wide-ranging membership base, which includes some of the world’s largest enterprises, as well as small, local firms. The organisation has been working with the United Nations on its sustainable development goals as it continues to work tirelessly to form a society that operates in harmony with the planet’s natural resources.

Old milk containers, juice jugs and toy cups are not the type of products usually associated with high-concept furniture, but two designers in Hong Kong have taken these and other items and upcycled them into stylish pieces of public furniture. Tasked with creating a collection of 12 benches for the town hall in Sha Tin, in Hong Kong’s New Territories, the co-founders and design principals of HIR Studio, Howard Chung and Irene Cheng, turned to the Shing Mun River for inspiration. “The Shing Mun River is the soul of Sha Tin,” says Chung, who grew up in the area. “But even though the river quality has improved over the years it is still quite polluted, so we really wanted to do something to help alleviate the problem of plastic pollution in the water.”

To encourage open innovation that offers sustainable solutions and strives to create a better future, Swedbank Latvia, in partnership with technology ecosystem most active players Helve, Greentech Alliance & TechChill, has established a new co-creation format sustainability accelerator Future Hub. The accelerator will provide selected startups a chance to co-create with leading enterprises in the Baltic market during the acceleration program from March to May 2021. The application process for startups is open until February 16.

UK-based Diem, a startup that aims to combine traditional banking with a service that allows users to sell their unwanted items to the company, has secured $5.5 million in capital via a seed round that was led by Fasanara Capital. Diem provides a user account, a Visa debit card, and financial management tools. However the Fintech firm says it’s differentiating itself from other service providers with its “cash out” feature that lets clients acquire instant credit for unwanted items. Clients may use the Diem app to get an estimate or valuation for their unwanted items such as books, clothing, electronics in “nanoseconds.” If clients decide to sell some goods, then Diem will purchase them directly and will provide instant credit (deposited quickly to their accounts).