From food to fuel to plastic, soy is making the Earth more sustainable in thousands of surprising ways. In the years ahead, it might even do the same on Mars.
The unbridled accumulation of single-use, post-consumer plastic bottles represents a social and environmental crisis affecting populations and landscapes the world over. While industrialized countries have evolved systems and customs that effectively displace this waste stream, the problem is glaringly evident in less-industrialized countries, ill-equipped to control the flow.
Job descriptions for corporate responsibility practitioners commonly include references to supply chain, community engagement and sustainability reporting. Now, add lobbying to the list.
For much of the past 25 years, I’ve dedicated my time to figuring out how mobile technology might help support positive social and environmental change in the developing world. During that time, I created FrontlineSMS, an open source software for grassroots organizations to distribute and collect information via text messages, and it was built from the ground up to reach global scale. Along the way, I spent time living and working in many communities where I both led and witnessed development projects firsthand. I’ve seen attempts at innovation go well, and I’ve seen others crash and burn.
UPS (NYSE: UPS) today announced aggressive new sustainability goals to add more alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles to its fleet while increasing its reliance on renewable energy sources.
In addition to the weight savings, the New Final Drive (NFD) particularly benefits from the actively controlled oil regulation in the final drive, the heart of the axle. This technology and type of construction is without parallel worldwide: the lubricating oil is supplied as needed depending on the speed, torque and temperature. Intelligent oil management minimises the swirl of liquid in the final drive and thus reduces the friction loss from the gears turning in the oil bath. The New Final Drive axle completes the second generation of the Integrated Powertrain from Daimler Trucks and results in fuel savings of up to 6.5 percent for the Mercedes-Benz Actros compared with its predecessor.
Agri Info Design’s app, AgriBus-NAVI, is a simple GPS guidance system to mount on agricultural machinery, allowing farmers to create straight and evenly spaced plow lines on large land plots. Farmers who operate large machinery often struggle to navigate efficiently, leading to excessive fertilizer and pesticide use and wasted seeding. Through the use of this technology, Agri Info Design is laying the groundwork for “cloud farming” and enhanced agricultural productivity. Founder and CEO Yasuyuki Hamada shares his thoughts on how building IT systems for farming can create greater empathy between farmers and consumers and lead to the production of more nutritious crops.
Marcy McClanahan, plant manager and site leader for the Trane Aftermarket Facility, will discuss how Ingersoll Rand, a world leader in creating comfortable, sustainable and efficient environments, is adapting circular economy principles in its manufacturing facilities at the 2017 Sustainability and Circular Economy Summit. The Summit takes place June 26-28 in Washington D.C.
Temple Health is a unique hospital. Located in the heart of Philadelphia, it is one of the city’s leading academic medical centers, working with over 1,000 physicians and scientists to bring innovative treatments to patients. But Temple Health is special, in part because of the close relationship it has with Temple University, which makes it a teaching hospital for tomorrow’s future medical leaders.
“Culture is more important than spend,” says Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK. “Ultimately, people who are excited by technology want permission to do things. If you can give them that permission, that’s when exciting things happen. And who has that authority? It has to start at the top. The role of senior management is to make sure that folks like me don’t hold them up or create trouble for them. My job is to make sure that people get out of the way.”
The SCS Kingfisher certification mark is showing up on an increasing number of products around the world. It differentiates companies that are making...
