The Carton Council, Elof Hansson and Upcycling Group have partnered to open a new facility in the second half of 2025 that will transform post-consumer food and beverage cartons into durable, sustainable building materials, creating another domestic market for recycled cartons.
Cynthia Figge, co-founder and CEO of CSRHub, joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.
Figge described CSRHub, which she co-founded in 2007, as the “largest aggregation of ESG metrics worldwide.” CSRHub rates 17,000 companies on ESG measures and aggregates data from more than 500 sources, she noted.
If sustainability is so “in,” why aren’t more people buying ethically made clothes? The past few decades have changed the shape of the apparel industry. A few iconic media scandals over child labor and sweatshop labor have made Western shoppers sensitive to certain social responsibility topics. People are willing to pay 5 percent more for a product to ensure that it was made under ethical working conditions. The rise of conscious consumption has created new consumer markets in which labels like fair trade, organic and “made in USA” comingle and overlap.
Sustainability—or a lack of it—has punctuated the apparel industry’s most notable moments over the last few decades. They include Nike’s sweatshop scandal in 1991, Patagonia’s public commitment to recycled polyester in 1992 and organic cotton in 1996, Levi’s 2010 launch of its WaterAdidas “Speedfactory” opening in Germany.
Sustainable Brands® recently opened submissions for its internationally recognized startup business competition Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO). Co-sponsored by Makersite and the RISN Incubator at Arizona State University, the competition will culminate at SB’18 Vancouver, June 4-7, with venture finalists presenting their early operational plans to business leaders and investors in the Sustainable Brands community.
In Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, piles of plastic bottles littering the island mushroomed into mountains. Bottled water and other supplies shipped in to help Haitians wound up everywhere — in canals, on beaches and lining the streets. Now, those bottles are finding a second life as printer cartridges.
Emma Lasco works for Smithfield Foods Hog Production in north-central Iowa. Working with roughly 30 contract farmers who grow pigs with Smithfield, Emma ensures that the pigs are healthy and getting the attention and care they need: having an ample supply of feed and water, good ventilation, and that all of the equipment is functioning. Her work helps to create stronger relationships between Smithfield and its farmers.
Most commonly, these regulations require businesses to share in the responsibility of properly disposing of their products at end-of-life. In other words, they can’t sell something and then say, “not my problem now!”
A mix of Dell’s international e-waste recycling and the very expert Benjamin Von Wong’s artistic skills can make a big point about a big issue. E-waste is one of the big new plagues in the environment, and it MUST be managed well.
The SCS Kingfisher certification mark is showing up on an increasing number of products around the world. It differentiates companies that are making...
