Guest Columns
Does the Public Trust You?
Does the public trust your company? Chances are most of us would answer that question with a resounding "yes" and many of us would be wrong. Evidence is mounting that the general population does not trust ...
Tools of the Trade, Part II
In my last article, we began digging into the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit. The toolkit can help companies the their business approach to be more viable, socially responsible ...
The Lost Art of Authenticating Real
Maybe it's the impending election, maybe it's the omnipresence of digital lives, but everyone is talking about authenticity. Oddly, mostly, it’s marketers and branders who have taken up the mantle of offering strategies for "being authentic." ...
Redefining the Relationship between the Environment, Society and the Economy
Read the first article in this two-part series here.
The concept of the "triple bottom line," now widely referred to as the three pillars of sustainability – people, profits and planet – is hindering our ability ...
Closing the Materials Loop
While shopping for copy paper recently, I noticed that recycled multipurpose paper is often priced 50 percent higher than comparable virgin paper. A pack of mechanical pencils made with recycled plastic costs significantly more than the same brand ...
Efficiency in Manufacturing Could Ramp Up Greenhouse Gas Savings
Businesses today are competing in a dynamic marketplace, constantly trying to keep pace with new technology and rapidly changing consumer expectations. They are being asked to deliver goods and services at a faster pace than before and at ...
Two Views of the Value of Sustainability
Sustainability is all the rage as many significantly-sized companies are evaluating it to maximize economic benefits and seeing how it can fit into company plans. We in the environmental community believe that sustainability programs ...
Green Infrastructure: The Next New Deal
In an economy that continues to teeter on the brink of a second Depression, the government remains the largest employer in the United States. In the private sector, the top two employers are Wal-Mart and McDonald's respectively, together ...
The Elephant In the Data Center?
The whole concept of "green" computing has been focused in recent times on the metric introduced by The Green Grid, PUE, Power Usage Effectiveness. PUE is simply the ratio of total facility power divided by the IT ...
Ecological Impact of the Bottled Water Industry
The IBWA reports that the bottled water industry maintains a strong commitment to environmental protection, stating that bottled water waste contributes to about .33 percent of the country’s total waste. The rate of recycling of the PET plastic ...
Commercializing Microbial Fuel Cells
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have the potential to generate electricity while simultaneously providing secondary treatment to wastewater. In a typical application, a microbial fuels cell converts chemical energy to electrical energy via electron exchange between two chambers, ...
Truth in Labeling: Framing the Challenge to Get Results
It's not earth shattering to say that the world isn't "getting" climate change. A recent Nielsen report titled "Sustainable Efforts & Environmental Concerns Around the World" revealed that only 69% of global respondents said they were ...
Ultracapacitor Technology Leading the Way Toward Improved Electric Vehicles
As fuel prices continue to rise, electrification of transportation is increasingly important. This importance highlights the need for improved energy storage solutions with high performance and low resistance in order to meet consumer and manufacturer demands. The answer is found ...
Are Your Servers Running Efficiently?
Last July, the US federal government announced plans to shut 40 percent of its data centers over the next four years. With more than 2,000 data centers, the Obama Administration realized that data center consolidation was part of ...
Leveraging Public-Private Partnerships to Make More Sustainable Food
Consumers today want healthier food that has minimal impact on the environment. The reality, however, is that agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to both carbon and water footprints. As PepsiCo introduces more nutritious foods into our product ...
Five Ways To Make Your Fleet Greener For Less
Once, fleet owners explored green technologies as a means for a public relations bump. Consumers liked seeing green cars and trucks on the road, and they rewarded companies who made those investments. Today, greening a fleet is becoming an ...
Tools of the Green Manufacturing Trade, Part I
As any good engineer knows (and carpenter, surgeon, chef, etc. I imagine) you are only as effective at your task as the tools you have. And your own skill of course.
Over the past two years ...
Regulating the Global Supply Chain: California’s OEHHA Proposes New Playground for Plaintiffs’ Attorneys
Do you know if the ingredients in the products you are selling in California pose hazards such as epigenicity, ototoxicity, phytotoxicity, genotoxicity, or any of the other 40+ hazard traits currently identified in proposed regulations ...
Do I Care about the Environment? You Tell Me
Consumer behaviour change. These three words seem to be appearing with increasing frequency within the conversations around sustainability in many if not most businesses today. Even if the broader debate is not shifting to the demand side, ...
Thinking It Through: Ecodesign in ISO 14006:2011
The famous Native American law which challenges a nation to think seven generations ahead before taking an action is known as the Great Law of the Iroquois. Under this law, it's appropriate to imagine your family 200 ...
Advertisers
Can you accelerate your sustainability efforts?
Complimentary 5 Step Best Practices Guide >>
Renewables Briefing: World’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm, 1.3 MW Solar Installation at Navy's SPAWAR
