This post looks at the pressing issues of electronic waste and at the environmental and financial costs of recycling this growing mountain of obsolete computers, displays and peripherals. It suggests that a wider adoption of reverse logistics more generally in the electronics industry may help to manage the end of life process. This is a growing problem, even though the size of electronics keeps shrinking the sheer volumes continue to grow as these devices become ever more ubiquitous.
Twitter has done a great deal for CSR communications. The social network brings CSR leaders closer,facilitates networking, as well as partnership creation, and dealmaking. Twitter gets the news and information out about CSR conferences out to a larger audience, as well as being the absolute best source of CSR news. CSR reports are always announced on Twitter and it is used as a CSR jobs recruitment platform too. It is also used to promote brands, customer service, or to announce new products and services, which all these link to CSR as well. This is all helping to create greater interest in the CSR body of knowledge. Ultimately, Twitter makes CSR info accessible to more people and it is changing the way people view it.
Using financial data from 1,833 firms with US revenues of more than $1 billion in 2008/09, independent analyst firm Verdantix finds that spending on 29 sustainability initiatives will grow from $28 billion in 2010 to $60 billion in 2014. Over the 2009 to 2014 period the US sustainable business market will experience a 19% compound annual growth rate. The sustainable business market forecast finds that growth of 11% in 2010 will increase to 16% in 2011 and 24% in 2012. Growth in spending is driven by improved economic growth, risk drivers, competitive dynamics, innovation diffusion, higher oil prices, state-level GHG regulations and renewable energy policies. The study covers all industries and all sustainability initiatives from energy efficiency to spending on strategy, risk and brand.
There is an increasing number of women who are in leadership roles in sustainability. As part of Women’s History Month, let’s take a look at ten women who are making strides in sustainability and shaping ethical consumerism. Add women in sustainability that you admire to the list in the comments section.
Elaine Cohen explores the changes that are taking place in sustainability report and makes an assessment on the implications of those changes on organization sustainability. She provides a list of characteristics of what she thinks are needed in an effective online sustainability report that is transparent, engages the reader, and opens up a dialogue.
In this first post of the BIOFUEL UPDATE — a newly introduced feature of The Green Economy Post — I write about how so called first generation Biofuels such as Corn Ethanol that are derived from food crops or grown on land that otherwise would be used for food crops may be worse for global warming than burning gasoline is! This reconfirms in my mind the pressing need for the biofuel sector to move towards non-food biofuel crops that also are grown on marginal land; crops such as algae, switchgrass, jatropha etc. In other news the Danforth Science Center in Saint Ls. MO gets $15 million in federal funds. Fedex announces plans to get 30% of its fuel from second generation non-food crop biofuels by 2030. OriginOil has developed a simpler and more efficient way to extract oil from algae.
