Sustainability

For the over 300 CR professionals, CEOs, sustainability executives, and journalists who gathered at the MGM National Harbor, just outside Washington D.C., the 3BL Forum was a fast-paced, idea-packed two days of panels, breakout sessions, issue tables, one-on-one interviews, and networking.

The 2018 annual 3BL Forum has come and gone, but its impact will be reverberating throughout the corporate responsibility field for some time to come.

Global institutions today face what is known as the energy “trilemma”—the need to balance energy security with energy that is both affordable and environmentally responsible. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) currently projects that world energy consumption will increase 28% by 2040. Simultaneously, the energy delivery system around the world is expected to undergo massive disruption in the forms of decentralization, digitization, and decarbonization.

Futureproofing energy supply has become a predominant goal for managing risk and resilience for a majority of companies.

An enormous opportunity exists for organizations with distributed energy load to act by acquiring renewables.

Today, American Express, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Main Street America announced the winners of the 2018 Partners in Preservation: Main Streets campaign. The 11 winning historic sites will receive a total of $1.6 million in grants to fund their respective preservation projects. At the outset of the campaign, an additional $400,000 was allocated to the 20 Main Street communities that participated in the program to increase public awareness of the importance of these historic places and build grassroots support for the participating Main Street districts.

The Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) today announced the winners of its inaugural Compass Awards program recognizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) excellence across three categories: Leadership, Innovation and Implementation.

212 companies—including Okta, Tiffany & Co., Rackspace® and Major League Baseball—have joined Benevity's growing community of over 500 enterprise clients since this time last year.

Duke Energy wants non-residential customers to have another option to install solar power on their premises. The company recently filed to be a certified solar lessor with the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC). Duke Energy Clean Energy Resources (DECER), a non-regulated affiliate of Duke Energy, will build, own and operate on-site solar facilities that will allow customers to access renewable energy without a large upfront investment. DECER is not financially supported by either Duke Energy Carolinas or Duke Energy Progress, Duke Energy's operating companies in the Carolinas.

Kohler Co. has been presented with a 2018 Mahatma Award for Social Good for its “Innovation for Good” (IfG) efforts. Laura Kohler, Senior Vice President-Human Resources, Stewardship & Sustainability for Kohler Co., accepted the award on behalf of IfG and Kohler Co. in New York City during the recently held UN General Assembly.

The Mahatma Awards for Social Good spotlight changemakers and are awarded annually to individuals or organizations committed to addressing complex social issues like safe water, sanitation, disease, poverty and hunger.

Kohler’s Innovation for Good program is an innovation incubator focused on developing and implementing sustainable business solutions to address some of the most pressing problems related to safe water, safe sanitation and reliable power.

Nutopia is a new Living Product Challenge Petal certified carpet plank system from Mohawk Group inspired by the idea of “urban fabric,” where humankind coexists with buildings, streets and other infrastructure. The collection’s designers looked at metaphors for how urban design can translate into patterns of balance, acceptance and integration—where the dichotomy of metropolis is coalesced into a mélange of culture and connection. Earlier this summer, Nutopia officially debuted to the commercial architecture and design community at NeoCon’s 50th anniversary exposition along with four other Living Products from Mohawk Group.

Nestlé today joined forces with other businesses and governments in signing The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment ('Global Commitment') at the Our Ocean Conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The Global Commitment is an initiative of The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment. It aims to rethink the future of plastics by applying the principles of circular economy, in which plastics never become waste. The Global Commitment represents a powerful framework to work collectively on solutions that address the root causes of plastics waste and pollution.