Sustainability challenged students to participate in the Fill it Forward competition to reduce waste from single-use plastics and win $100,000 for sustainability initiatives on campus. The competition, sponsored by Hyundai, is between three southern California schools: Pepperdine University, Santa Clara University and Loyola Marymount University.
Source: pepperdine-graphic.com
It’s not just the coffee bean that is contributing to sustainability – it’s the husk too. And this is the case for Australian-based reusable coffee cup company Huskee. Deborah Williams finds out more.
When he was 16, Eric Lundgren saw a landfill near his small hometown in northwest Washington, filled with brand-new products. Ever since, he’s been building businesses that try to stand between people and their most wasteful instincts. He started an electronics recycling company at 16. He went to prison trying to restore Windows on refurbished computers. He loaded up a junked BMW with used batteries to win a Guinness record for the longest single-charge electric vehicle drive, to make a point. Now Lundgren is converting big, still-usable batteries from electric vehicles (EV) into backups for solar grids and other uses. If people aren’t going to use what’s right in front of them, he and his more than 100 employees will just have to do it for them. After our CEO Kyle Wiens toured the BigBattery plant in Chatsworth, Calif., and I talked to Lundgren about battery recovery, we came away with a whole new perspective on what you can do with a “used” EV battery.
Today sustainability, good corporate citizenship and ethical practices are differentiating companies in all sectors, especially manufacturing. As manufacturers respond, reset and renew their way through the global COVID-19 pandemic, they’re focused on ensuring their workforce is safe, secure and collaborating in new ways. They’re also focused on ensuring operations are as cost effective and efficient as possible, and there’s a growing appetite to adopt new, innovative business models.
Nearly four in five companies have a strategic intent to implement a circular economy framework (62%) or have already put one in place (16%), according to ING’s report. It’s based on a survey of 300 US-based executives in four key economic sectors: automotive, consumer electronics and telecoms, food and agriculture, and healthcare.
3R initiative launched today by Danone, Veolia, Nestle and Tetra Pak will promote market-based systems to tackling waste…
It may be time to ask how being part of the circular economy can help your organization accelerate digital transformation and eliminate ewaste.