Portugal, Cork Flooring and Sustainability

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.

With help from UBRI, UPenn is embracing sustainability with blockchain technology by measuring individual energy consumption.

As the European Union seeks to transition to a ‘circular economy’, the policy focus in 2021 will turn to products: how they are designed, and why so many seem to be made to throw away. The European Commission wants to transform the way we produce and consume products. And when an initial strategy to do so wasn’t delivering as much as hoped, the EU executive gave it another shot earlier this year. The ‘Circular Economy action plan 2.0’, unveiled in March, is a renewed attempt to change the way we produce, use and dispose of goods. Like its predecessor launched five years ago, it doesn’t contain hard legislation yet but instead sets a series of goals, like halving municipal waste by 2030, some of which will be translated later on in hard legal requirements. Main ideas include giving consumers a new “right to repair” for computers and smartphones, establishing green criteria for construction products, updating existing resource use indicators, and planning a Sustainable Product Policy Framework.