Filed under: conflict resolution, government accountability, human rights, policy | Tags: foreign policy, human rights, innovation, thought leadership
Not sure how John McCain ended up in the same article as Desmond Tutu or Paul Farmer, but a great read nonetheless.
Filed under: climate change
US forgives over $30M in debt in exchange for rainforest conservation plan with Indonesia. Nice.
Filed under: base of pyramid, energy, poverty alleviation, sustainable products, technology
Faced with decrepit electricity grids, expensive diesel generators with high fuel and maintenance costs, and a shockingly large population still without access to energy, small-scale renewable energy has sparked a shift in remote communities worldwide. Even without a strong distribution network and limited financing solutions for low-income customers, off-grid renewable energy in rural regions of Africa and Southeast Asia continues to explode due to high demand. Exciting to see healthy competition grow between companies operating in this space- the more the better as prices are driven down and families and businesses demand higher quality products and increased microloan support. However, the need for innovative financing could never be stronger. Solar is useless if its prices still remain out of reach. Let’s hope accessible finance follows close behind.
Filed under: corporate leadership, finance, sustainable business | Tags: john elkington, natural capitalism, sustainable business, triple bottom line
Ignoring environmental destruction as businesses costs us a global net loss of $1.9-4.5 trillion in capital per year. What better way to change your bottom line??
Filed under: energy, sustainable design, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable products, technology | Tags: industrial development, MIT, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable product design
Modern manufacturing methods are spectacularly inefficient in their use of energy and materials, according to a MIT research study of the energy use of 20 major manufacturing processes.
“The seemingly extravagant use of materials and energy resources by many newer manufacturing processes alongside claims of improved sustainability from products manufactured by these means is alarming,” Gutowksi and his colleagues announced, now published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T).
Filed under: innovation, open source, sustainable business, sustainable design, sustainable products, technology | Tags: corporate sustainability, intellectual commons, nike, sustainable design, sustainable manufacturing
Nike recently partnered with Salesforce, Yahoo, Best Buy, Creative Commons, IDEO, Mountain Equipment Co-Op and others to form the GreenXchange, a web-based marketplace that will allow companies to collaborate and share intellectual property that leads to new sustainability business models and innovation.
The idea, launched by Wikinomics author Don Tapscott and Nike’s Sustainability Innovation team, is similar to the Eco-Patent Commons, an initiative started by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and IBM in 2007. The Eco-Patent Commons (EPC) created a conglomerate of IT/tech companies in Silicon Valley that were willing to share intellectual property related to solving environmental and corporate social responsibility problems. The EPC also supports sharing IP for sustainable growth in developing countries.
Nike will share more than 400 of its patents for research. One of these include their Environmentally Preferred Rubber, which contains 96 percent fewer toxins than traditional rubber. It could, for example, be used by MEC for a new line of bike tubes, helping the company bring a greener product to market cheaper and faster.
Filed under: government accountability, human rights | Tags: censorship, china, government transparency
Google is potentially cutting off all business with China after the government had ‘Chinese dissident’ Google accounts attacked.
“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
Filed under: innovation, sustainable design, technology | Tags: data center, energy efficiency, innovation, sustainable design
Google claims to have the world’s most efficient data centers, yet just one of their hundreds of centers uses enough energy to power over forty thousand US homes. Finland just put them to shame with their latest design for an underground data center that will redirect heat captured from computer servers to heat the city’s homes. As data centers have been a long-standing concern for the IT industry as servers only grow larger as business increases, it’s a relief to see such creative and practical innovation for the design of new centers. Silicon Valley, please take note.
