Impact & Sustainability News From Leading Brands

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Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

KeyBank Provides $3 Million in Financing for Ammon Affordable Housing Property

KeyBank Community Development Lending & Investment (CDLI) has provided a $3 million construction loan with 9% LIHTC financing for the acquisition and rehabilitation of Peterson Park, an existing 39-unit USDA Rural Development affordable housing property, located in Ammon, ID, that will add one additional unit upon renovation. The property is comprised of five, two-story buildings, with units reserved for tenants earning between 30-60% area median income (AMI). The project will benefit from a Rental Assistance Contract for all 40 units.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Essity Ranked One of the World's 100 Most Sustainable Companies

The ranking is based on publicly disclosed data from 2016 based on up to 17 key performance indicators (KPIs) covering environmental, social and governance relative to company peers. A total of 5,994 publicly listed companies with gross revenue of minimum USD 1 billion have been analyzed, encompassing all sectors and industries. The global 100 companies come from 22 countries, where Essity is one of five Swedish companies on the list.

Education

Do You Know a Young Problem Solver? The AT&T and Imagination.org Inventor's Challenge Is Back

Every year, we see new inventions that solve problems and entertain. 2017 brought us a smartphone with face recognition, an electric vehicle for the masses and a stress-relieving toy everyone from your 5-year-old to your grandmother was obsessed with, seemingly overnight.

Social Impact & Volunteering

In the World: Teaching Tech Skills to Refugees

Gabriel Abebrese and Gunnar Schoenig both volunteer with the charity App Camps, which gives young people, including refugees, the skills to start a career in tech. The two Barclaycard employees tell us about the satisfaction they get from helping the young people grow in skills and confidence – and how some are already earning money from their ideas.

Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Why Data Privacy Day Is Every Day: A Q&A With Our Top Privacy Experts

In recognition of International Data Privacy Day, which celebrated its 20th anniversary yesterday, we invited four Alliance Data and its businesses’ privacy subject matter experts to share some thoughts about why data privacy is so central to the company’s values and obligations, as well as some of the changing trends around privacy.

Health & Healthcare

Five Food Trends for 2018

Rainbow bagels, unicorn food and milkshakes as big as a person’s head are so yesterday. What will be on plates over the next 12 months? As 2018 arrives, culinary leaders at Sodexo, the leader in Quality of Life Services, have named their food trends for the year. Kevin Cecilio, Sodexo’s senior director, culinary innovations, believes these five trends will be on the table over the next 12 months.

Green Infrastructure

A Sustainable Solution for Food Waste: Transforming Waste Products Into Energy in Michigan

With food waste from local manufacturing threatening to overwhelm available waste treatment capacity in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the City has begun a project to convert that waste to energy. Tetra Tech is leading the design phase of a $38-million waste-to-energy biodigester as part of the city’s goal of using 100-percent renewable energy to power city buildings by 2025. Biodigesters combine organic waste with microorganisms in air-tight tanks, creating a biogas that produces energy to power and heat buildings.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Five Social Impact Trends That Inspire Us

For purpose-driven companies, these are interesting times. We have always believed that our mission at Salesforce is to improve the state of the world. In fact, studies show that purpose is a number one driver behind business success. Brand perception, consumer loyalty, employee retention and stakeholder optimism are all tied to how a company actson its purpose.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Brown-Forman Earns Top Marks in 2018 Corporate Equality Index

Brown-Forman Corporation received a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2018 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Brown-Forman joins the ranks of 609 major U.S. businesses which also earned top marks this year. This is the eighth consecutive year Brown-Forman has received a perfect score.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

EDIE Sustainability Awards 2018

Last week the team went to the EDIE Sustainability Awards 2018. We were proud to be a finalist for the employee engagement and behavioural change category for our Sustainable September campaign. Unfortunately we lost out to Virgin Atlantic Airways (Congratulations to them!) but we are still very proud of the recognition and excited to continue in our progress towards our 2025 Sustainability goals as a corporation! Sharene Katsoulas, Isabel Gonzalez Jungblut, Jenny Wassenaar

Energy

March for Science: Why Carbon Offsets are Good Science

Science has been around since the beginning of human civilization. It was the engine behind Aristotle’s ambitious effort to fly and even earlier than that, it helped the Babylonians fashion an understanding of time and their universe.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Brown-Forman Named in WSJ Management Top 250 List

Brown-Forman Corporation was named one of the best-managed U.S. companies in the first-ever list of well-run businesses by the Drucker Institute, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Brown-Forman ranked 37 out of 250, scoring five stars (out of five) for employee engagement and four stars (out of five) for customer satisfaction, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.

Media & Communications

Big Year, 2018 – Tipping Points for Developments in Corporate Sustainability & Sustainable Investing…

Volume & Velocity. Those may well be the key characteristics of developments in corporate sustainability and in sustainable investing in the year 2018.

Education

Learning by Doing: Promoting Financial Knowledge in Chile

Recent research from Chile’s National Institute for Youth, shows that many Chilean youth from ages 15 to 29 struggle with excessive debt. Four percent of Peruvians between the ages of 15 and 19 years old carry debt; and this amount increases as they get older, of those between the ages of 20 and 24, 36% carry debt; and 55% of Peruvians aged 25 to 29 years old carry debt.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Arrow Electronics Employees Support Food Bank in Neu-Isenburg

Employees from the Arrow Electronics office in Neu-Isenburg, Germany recently volunteered their time at local food bank Speisekammer. For several weeks, Arrow employees helped food bank staff transport, unpack and dispense food to the low-income families who utilize Speisekammer’s services.

Innovation & Technology

Five Digital Trends Shaping the Future of Mining

Goldcorp’s #DisruptMining event in March will generate new ideas for innovative technologies that could fundamentally transform the mining sector. With asset productivity as a major issue facing the mining industry today, companies are looking to digital technology to reduce costs, drive productivity and enhance financial performance.

Environment

Rebecca Leber on the Dawn of Solar Protectionism

This week on Sea Change Radio we dig deeper into one of those recent headlines, and see how bad the news actually is. The decision to impose a 30% tariff on solar panels and solar cells coming from overseas is a move that leaves most renewable energy advocates apoplectic.

Innovation & Technology

How Data Is Transforming Decision-Making Around EHS&S Management

David Williams, Director of Environment and Sustainability with Teva Pharmaceuticals, describes how access to sophisticated data analytics tools are transforming the EHS& sustainability management profession.

Environment

CSR Reporting Leads to Better Performance

In this Q&A, we talk to the Senior Sustainability Specialist at The Mosaic Company, who told us concrete examples of how sustainability reporting leads to better performance.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Environmental Remediation Project Earns EPA Honors

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) is being recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Wastewater Management for the National Vulcanized Fibre (NVF) Yorklyn Site Wetland Project in Yorklyn, Delaware.

Health & Healthcare

LUNGevity Foundation Announces Initiative to Save Lives Through Increased Adherence to Lung Cancer Screening

LUNGevity Foundation announced the launch of Project ACTS – Increasing Adherence to CT Screening for lung cancer – a multi-stakeholder project funded by a grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation through their Bridging Cancer Care™ initiative. Project ACTS will develop and evaluate tools to promote stronger adherence to lung cancer screening protocols so that patients can fully benefit from potentially life-saving CT screening.

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Getting Real About Innovation: Why Accion’s U.S. Network Made the Leap to Digitize Its Lending Operations

Technology can be a double-edged sword – especially when it comes to small business lending. While there’s plenty of justified excitement over the potential of providing underserved SMEs with fast access to loans through digital platforms, there are also considerable reasons for caution. Though alternative lending products can boost access, many lack transparency regarding the true cost of the loan, and therefore risk trapping small businesses in a cycle of debt.

Innovation & Technology

Pioneering Virtual Reality and Its Potential to Improve Our World

Imagine this… You put on a pair of virtual-reality glasses. You see a school in a poor, rural Chinese village. You turn your head to see inside the door and you find a group of students gathered in a small classroom, learning with technology.

Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainability Across the Economy: Bain & Company Joins WBCSD

Bain & Company offers management consultancy services to many of the world's leading business leaders. Bain advises clients on strategy, operations, information technology, organization, private equity, digital transformation and strategy, and mergers and acquisitions, developing practical insights that clients act on and transferring skills that make change stick. Founded in 1973, Bain has 55 offices in 36 countries, and its deep expertise and client roster cross every industry and economic sector.

Environment

Ecocentricity Blog: What Does a Penguin Say?

At the time, no one individual was to blame, and humans were not intentionally trying to wipe these birds off the face of the planet. The people of the day simply weren’t aware of how their collective actions were impacting the great auks.

Latest Campaigns

  1. AEG Celebrates Inclusion
    At AEG, we embrace inclusion and strive to create a workplace where our employees feel welcomed, valued and respected for the viewpoints, ideas...
  2. Collaboration and Partnership
    Cascale shares updates on its strategic partnerships with industry stakeholders geared toward shifting the industry into one that gives back more than...
  3. AMD Environmental Sustainability
    Advancing sustainability across our operations, supply chain manufacturing and product stewardship
  4. AEG Celebrates Inclusion
    At AEG, we embrace inclusion and strive to create a workplace where our employees feel welcomed, valued and respected for the viewpoints, ideas...
  5. Sustainable Products and Innovation
    Ongoing research into innovative solutions enables CNH’s brands to manufacture products that respect the environment while satisfying customers’...
  6. Healthy Spaces Podcast: Season 5
    Welcome to Season 5 of Healthy Spaces by Trane Technologies, the podcast where experts and disruptors explore how climate technology and innovation...
  7. 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...
  8. Impacting Today and Tomorrow
    What we do matters and our associates can expect opportunities to create real impact at work and in the community.
  9. International Paper | SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS
    Vision 2030 Goal: Improve our climate impact and advance water stewardship
  10. Shared Goodness Promise - Hershey's ESG Progress
    The Hershey Company is committed to publishing annual environment, social, and governance reports that give updates on our publicly stated goals and...
  11. Sustainability by Antea Group
    At Antea Group, we believe the best sustainability programs integrate sustainability into core business practices, we identify and act on relevant...
  12. PSEG People & Communities
    PSEG is committed to improving the lives of our customers, our employees and the diverse communities we serve throughout New Jersey and Long Island...
  13. KeyBank Foundation: Helping Communities Thrive through Education, Workforce Development, and Service
    KeyBank Foundation helps build thriving communities by supporting organizations and programs that foster thriving students and a thriving workforce...
  14. AEG Celebrates Inclusion
    At AEG, we embrace inclusion and strive to create a workplace where our employees feel welcomed, valued and respected for the viewpoints, ideas...
  15. Sustainability- Carnival Corporation's Way of Doing Business
    Carnival’s approach to sustainability is a full-time commitment; it is not a cost of doing business, it is a way of doing business. We at Carnival...