1.What’s trending ?
Ethical Consumption
Consumers are increasingly evaluating products according to moral considerations such as cruelty free, vegan, free-trade, organic, emissions free, plastic free and demanding modern slavery-free working conditions. This trend is putting pressure on global corporations to be transparent about their supply chains and provide more comprehensive disclosure on their conduct in Sustainability and Annual Reports. Companies that want to remain competitive in the future understand that individual purchasing decisions can have a long-lasting influence on the range of goods on offer.
2.What’s impacting the industry?
Embedding Sustainability in Organisational Culture
A corporate culture reflects the beliefs and norms that underpin employee behaviour on a range of issues. Corporate culture determines how companies operate in terms of business hours, employee benefits, turn-over, absenteeism, client and customer satisfaction, meeting conduct and team dynamics. Norms and expectations shape how organisational members believe they are expected to behave in order to fit in, get things done, and at times, to survive. Studies have shown that CEO and Senior Management behaviour influences corporate culture: so leadership plays a key role in setting the standards for corporate culture.
Getting started with establishing a sustainability culture can seem daunting. If you have been assigned with the task of establishing or having responsibility for rolling out a corporate sustainability culture it can be hard to know where to start. A useful overview is the ‘embedding sustainability in organizational culture’ report which examines the body of knowledge regarding what works and what doesn’t.
Furthermore, it breaks down the process into key stages, specifically:
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Fostering Commitment
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Clarifying Expectations
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Building Momentum for Change
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Instilling Capacity for Change;
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and A Call to Action.
This Report goes into more detail on some key elements of this process, including: Organisational Behaviour Diagnostic, Participation in the Sustainability Strategy, Benchmark Sustainability Performance, Long-term Vision and Purpose, Senior Management as Role Models and Inspiration, Active Communication, Recognise and Support Internal Champions, Link Sustainability to Personal Actions and Open Dialogue and Continual Improvement.
3.What technology is available right now.
The Veganbottle: An All-Natural Alternative to Plastic Bottles
Created by LYSPACKAGING, the VEGANBOTTLE® is made from an all-natural bioplastic that could replace plastic bottles forever. Everything in the VEGANBOTTLE®, from the cap to the wrapper, is made from 100% biodegradable materials.
The bottle is made from sugar cane extracts. Sugar cane requires far less water than other crops, and the manufacturing of the bottle itself depends on little energy.
The advantages of sugar cane: A 100% vegetable material, sugar cane is a crop that does not require a lot of water and does not encroach on farmland food. VEGANBOTTLE® is made with a simple manufacturing process with an excellent environmental record.
VEGANBOTTLE® is manufactured with materials complying with the EN13432 standard for biodegradability and compostability and can be recovered as bio-waste at the end of its life.
4. What are we watching?
Jane Goodall ” We need to act with our head and heart together”
5. What are we listening to?
In this live conversation recorded at Stanford Energy Week in January 2019, Chris Nelder hosts a freewheeling chat with Jonathan Koomey about some of the things we think we know, and a lot of the things we don’t know about energy transition. They talked about:
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the vogue concept in energy transition to “electrify everything,” sometimes also called “deep decarbonization”
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energy efficiency
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conservation
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electrification
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low-carbon fuels
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how to reduce greenhouse gases that are not the products of combustion
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the fast-changing trends in electric vehicles, and how we’re going to accommodate the loads of EVs on the power grid
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the ways to move space heating and other thermal loads over to the power grid, and how we might be able to meet those needs without combustion or electrification
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how much electricity storage we’ll really need in a deeply decarbonized future
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how much seasonal storage we’ll need, and what kinds
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differences between economic optimizations made today for a future 20-30 years off and technical optimizations made along the way
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what the options might look like in 20-30 years, particularly if we are at the beginning of a vigorous and deliberate energy transition
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whether space heating, transportation, and other loads might find themselves in competition for economic carrying capacity on the grid as they become electrified.
So join us for this wide-ranging romp through some of the more interesting questions in energy transition!
Quote we are contemplating:
“Buy less, choose well.”
– Vivienne Westwood, Fashion Designer