News from Leading Brands

Keep up with the latest impact news from companies embracing the triple bottom line, shared via 3BL's publishing platform.

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Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Mohawk's Bandy to Be Recognized with Prestigious Greenbuild Leadership Award

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced the recipients of its 2018 Leadership Awards, an annual recognition of the outstanding individuals and organizations at the forefront of the green building movement. George Bandy Jr., Mohawk Industries vice president of sustainability and commercial marketing, will join five other distinguished honorees, including global apparel retailer NIKE, for the USGBC Leadership Awards Reception on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, in Chicago. Individuals and organizations representing diverse expertise from across the green building industry will be celebrated in tandem with the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.

Health & Healthcare

Nestlé Partners with Tembo Education to Drive Greater Nutritional Awareness in East Africa

Nestlé has partnered with Tembo Education to deliver customised, nutrition-based curriculums to families across Kenya, through SMS and WhatsApp messages. The aim is to help families provide their children with the best possible nutritional start in life by delivering information, tools and tips that could tackle malnutrition and potentially save lives.

The initiative, launched through Nestlé’s open innovation platform - HENRi@Nestlé, forms part of Nestlé’s ambition to improve nutritional levels across the East and Southern Africa region (ESAR). According to joint assessments conducted by Kenya’s County Departments and UNICEF last year, nearly 73,000 children are severely malnourished in Kenya alone.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

LA Kings Host Halloween Party at Ronald McDonald House

AEG’s LA Kings and Blue Shield of California teamed up to host a Halloween Party at the Los Angeles Ronald McDonald House on Tuesday, October 30. Throughout the afternoon, volunteers from the Kings and Blue Shield of California – including LA Kings center Nate Thompson and his wife Sydney – prepared and distributed gift bags, decorated cookies with guests, led Halloween-themed arts and crafts and played a lively game of ball hockey.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

GM’s Toledo Transmission Receives Ohio EPA’s Top Environmental Stewardship Award

General Motors' Toledo Transmission plant was recently recognized for excellence in environmental stewardship by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This year, the plant was awarded the Platinum Level – the highest-level award from Ohio EPA’s Encouraging Environmental Excellence Program (E3) – making General Motors one of five organizations to receive this recognition this year.

Environment

Smithfield Foods Collaboration with Environmental Defense Fund and Roeslein Alternative Energy Helps Bring Monarch Butterflies Back in Large Numbers

Smithfield Foods, Inc. is the first food company to participate in a new program with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) to restore key prairie habitat for monarch butterflies, as described in this video. Their efforts are helping bring back the iconic insect, which has experienced a 95 percent population decline since the 1980s and could be listed as a threatened species in June 2019. However, the monarch is currently undergoing what is anticipated to be the largest migration in 10 years.

Health & Healthcare

FCA US Offers Employees, Families Personalized Support and a Digital Tool to Better Manage Critical Gaps in Diabetes Care

FCA US today announced it will enhance support for employees, retirees and covered dependents managing diabetes by offering them personalized care and a digital tool to help better manage critical gaps in their diabetes care.

Research, Reports & Publications

Symantec Looks Back on 10 Years of CR Commitment

We are proud of the progress we have made, and the impact we have had over the last 10 years—even as we continue to embed sustainability practices throughout our company and value chain.

Health & Healthcare

Introducing Sysco Simply: A Platform Dedicated to Health and Well-Being Food Solutions

Sysco Corporation, the leading global foodservice distribution company, announced today the launch of Sysco Simply, a platform designed to enable our customers to accommodate the growing consumer demand for varied dietary and lifestyle choices. Based on customer insights, feedback and industry trends, the first focus area of Sysco Simply is plant-forward dining; including vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian and plant-based protein products.

Energy

VMware and the City of Palo Alto Advance Sustainability Efforts with a Proof of Concept for a New Community Microgrid

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), a leading innovator in enterprise software, announced its intent to explore developing a microgrid at its headquarters campus with the City of Palo Alto. A microgrid is a system of generators, batteries, and electric loads that can be operated in a controlled, coordinated way to provide resiliency. Microgrids can operate while connected to the main power grid or can power critical electric loads when off-grid. The VMware microgrid will serve as a testbed for the company and the City of Palo Alto to explore the potential of microgrids to advance resiliency at the corporate and community level. Palo Alto and VMware will also explore a partnership to use this microgrid to augment the community’s emergency services by providing a charging site for the City’s emergency

Education

T. Rowe Price: Kids Who Get Everything on Their Holiday Wish Lists Are More Likely to Develop Spendthrift Habits

T. Rowe Price’s 2018 Parents Kids & Money Survey, which sampled 1,013 parents of 8 to 14 year olds nationally, found that parents who try to get everything on their kids’ holiday wish lists are more likely to report that they have gone into debt for their kids, worry that they’re spoiling their kids, and have kids who are less likely to save their own money. Additionally, parents who participate in promotional days, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, are more likely to splurge. The survey was conducted in January 2018, shortly after the 2017 holiday season.

Environment

Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. Makes a New Pledge to Help Tackle Plastic Waste

In 1947, decades before the concept of sustainability became popular, then Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO General Robert Wood Johnson wrote in his book, Or Forfeit Freedom: “We must use our resources wisely, avoiding waste of both raw materials and scrap, while we seek substitutes for things already in short supply.”

Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Whirlpool Corporation Announces New Collaboration with The Walt Disney Company

Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) and The Walt Disney Company today announced that Whirlpool brand will be the Official Kitchen and Laundry Appliance of Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida and Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

Events, Media & Communications

Four Need-to-Know Insights from 3BL Forum

This week, business executives, nonprofit leaders, government officials and issue advocates met in National Harbor, Maryland for the annual 3BL Forum (formerly Commit!Forum).

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Alliance Data Partners with Habitat for Humanity to Help Families Build Strength, Stability and Self-Reliance Through Shelter

Alliance Data, a global provider of data-driven marketing and loyalty solutions, is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to help create a world where everyone has a decent place to live. The company’s $300,000 contribution for U.S. and global Habitat builds, along with the commitment of associate volunteers, means more families will discover strength and stability through more resilient homes and communities.

Research, Reports & Publications

What’s Trending: Giving in Numbers: 2018 Edition Is Out!

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Giving in Numbers report is now available! In keeping with tradition, this year’s report incorporates many of the classic analyses that have characterized this industry-leading report, including total giving by industry, employee volunteer data, and operations. New this year is an expanded section on international giving and a deep dive into measurement of outcomes. As always, we look at trends across the field and offer dozens of case studies to bring the report to life and, hopefully, inspire readers to advance their efforts. What do you think are some of the biggest corporate societal trends?

Education

Discover Expands Pathway to Financial Success in Schools Program with Discovery Education Offering Financial Education Curriculum to Middle School Students Across the Country

Fifty-nine percent of Americans ages 18-26 who have taken a financial education course believe the lessons will save them more than $10,000 over the course of their lifetimes, according to a new survey from Discover.

Environment

Coming Attractions: A Sneak Preview of HPRC Projects in Progress

HPRC members and partners are bringing forth new projects to encourage and increase healthcare plastics recycling.

Environment

4 Corporate Sustainability Trends all Business Leaders Should be Watching in 2018 - Part II

Earlier this year, I identified 4 corporate sustainability trends that all business leaders should be watching in 2018. Those trends were: growth in companies setting Science-Based Targets, greater attention towards reducing supply chain emissions, tech and internet companies stepping up on sustainability, and increased innovation.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Up for More Good? JetBlue for Good Month Kicks Off with Grant Contest for Nonprofit Organizations

JetBlue today announced it is up to even more good this November, JetBlue For Good Month. To kick-off this month of kindness and good deeds, JetBlue has launched the JetBlue For Good Grant contest to provide much-needed funds for nonprofits to continue their work helping others within their local communities.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

November Is National Adoption Month! 5 Ways You Can Get Involved

Every child deserves a safe, loving and permanent family. That is the simple, yet profound motivation behind National Adoption Month. Celebrated across North America each November, this special month of awareness building helps to increase the number of families considering adoption and celebrates the joys of creating families through foster care adoption.

Research, Reports & Publications

Inaugural U.S. Financial Health Pulse Report Finds Only 28 Percent of People in America are Financially Healthy

The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI), the nation’s authority on consumer financial health, in partnership with the Omidyar Network, MetLife Foundation, and AARP, today unveiled its inaugural U.S. Financial Health Pulse, the first-ever annual benchmarking survey around a composite financial health framework that provides a holistic look at how people in America manage their finances day-to-day, build resilience, and pursue opportunities over time.

Environment

Cisco Announces New Goal to Reduce Its Use of Virgin Plastic by 20%

At Cisco, we are focused on making sustainable thinking a business imperative. Using the lens of the circular economy, we are changing the way we do business, including being more deliberate about how and when to use plastic.

Like many companies, Cisco uses plastic across its product portfolio and in its packaging. Plastic has a lot of benefits, from its technical properties to its low cost and its light weight, which help reduce logistics emissions. However, it also comes with many, well‑documented challenges.

Health & Healthcare

Aflac CEO Meets His Match With Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals® Tough Questions Program

In what he describes – tongue firmly in cheek – as “one of the toughest interviews I’ve ever done,” Aflac Chairman and CEO Dan Amos, the second longest tenured CEO in the Fortune 200 and 4-time recipient of the Harvard Business Review’s recognition as one of the 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World, recently sat down at the company’s headquarters in Columbus, Georgia, for an interview with 11-year-old cancer survivor Chloe Davison of Grants Pass, Oregon. In this “hard-hitting” examination, they covered several crucial topics such as where Amos’ dogs sleep when his wife is traveling, how the Aflac Duck came to be and My Special Aflac Duck™ – a robotic duck designed to help children cope with cancer that Aflac is giving to every newly diagnosed child with cancer, between the ages of 3-13.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Subaru Fulfills Love Promise to Oregon Humane Society With Largest Corporate Donation Received in 2018

Subaru of America, Inc. today announced the donation of nearly $57,000 to the Oregon Humane Society (OHS) as a part of the Subaru Loves Pets initiative to help improve the safety and wellbeing of animals in local Oregon communities. The gift marks the single largest corporate donation received by OHS in 2018 and is the result of the pets-focused initiative of the automaker’s Love Promise philanthropic platform.

Latest Campaigns

  1. AEG's Commitment to Social Impact and Volunteerism
    AEG embraces its responsibility to enrich the lives of people in the communities around the world where we do business, and to use business to create...
  2. Carbon Footprint
    We are accelerating our efforts to help build a low-carbon economy and avert the worst impacts of climate change. Our goal to reduce our GHG emissions...
  3. Environmental Sustainability
    As sustainability leaders, we implement our sustainability strategy across all company activities along the entire value chain, from raw materials to...
  4. Corporate Social Responsibility
    Corporate Social Responsibility
  5. Sustainability Report
    Our latest Sustainability Report highlights recent accomplishments and progress toward achieving goals in the environmental, social and governance...
  6. Kingfisher Around the World
    The SCS Kingfisher certification mark is showing up on an increasing number of products around the world. It differentiates companies that are making...
  7. License to Operate
    Corporate governance, risk management, operational integrity, and regulatory compliance are demanding challenges that companies face in today’s ever...
  8. IWBI | WELL Building Standard
    Our built environment can shape our habits and choices, regulate our sleep-wake cycle, drive us toward healthy and unhealthy choices, and passively...
  9. Leading ESG & Sustainability Stewardship
    The new CNH continues on its longstanding path of excellence in sustainability, which is recognized by the foremost authorities.
  10. Green Mountain Energy Commitment to Sustainability
    At Green Mountain Energy Company, we share our customers’ commitment to the environment and sustainability. We are inspired by the success that we...
  11. KeyBank's Community Investment
    In states where Key has a presence, there are approximately 1.7 million low- to moderate-income (LMI) households. Many LMI individuals don’t have bank...
  12. SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights
    Highlighting the top news, commentary, and research for the week coming from SHQ. The highlights newsletter also spotlights one profiled organization...
  13. Responsible Investing
    Responsible Investing
  14. FedEx | Awards & Recognition
    We are consistently ranked among the world’s most admired brands and employers. Read more about honors and recognition for FedEx’s ongoing effort to...
  15. FedEx | Delivering for Good
    Doing what we do best for those who need it most. When disaster strikes, and there’s not a moment to lose, our people mobilize the FedEx global fleet...