Responsible Production & the Circular Economy

The Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange is an innovative market-based program dedicated to restoring and conserving high-quality monarch habitat on America's private working lands. It’s been dubbed an ‘Airbnb for butterflies’ because it’s the only program of its kind that can open the vast untapped potential of large-scale farms and ranches to make habitat available for monarchs at an unprecedented scale and pace.

Smithfield Foods, a global food company that is also the world’s largest hog producer and pork processor, is the first food company to participate in the program, contributing $300,000 to restore key prairie habitat for monarchs in Missouri.

Lichen, a modular plank carpet system from Mohawk Group, was the Best of Competition winner in the 2017 Nightingale Awards. The collection blends concepts of sustainability and biophilic design.

We are very excited to see the Climate Collaborative community growing today with General Mills and its nine Natural and Organic (N&O) brands making new climate commitments. With these new commitments, the entire General Mills N&O product line is now represented in the Collaborative.

Alongside this announcement, General Mills is also coming on board as a Climate Collaborative donor at the highest Catalyst level, which means they’ll be helping fund vital programming and events as we look to the project’s second year.

It is incredibly exciting to have such a large company see the value in the collaborative platform we’ve created—and to see them expand the strong record of climate performance from Annie’s and EPIC out to all of their other natural products brands.

Jason F. McLennan, partner and CEO of McLennan Design and founder of the International Living Future Institute, has been dubbed a “troublemaker”—but in the best way possible. His work uncovered the importance of sustainability before it was a buzzword and movement in the design industry. Starting his career as an architect, McLennan said he was focused on sustainability from the start of his path, focusing on its importance “before it was cool.”

We all know the basic concept of supply and demand in economics, which makes sense in most settings: the more demand for something, the more supply is needed to meet it. Put the spotlight on scientific research and the relationship between supply and demand becomes a bit skewed. The suppliers (researchers and scientists) are often completely disconnected from the demand side, which can consist of anyone from policy makers to farmers. This means that some of the best available science and evidence often never reaches the people who demand it and, if it does, it’s commonly in a format that is too complex to understand and therefore also often not useful as input into decision-making processes.

Check out this video that highlights how SCS Global Services empowers companies to build business value through sustainability by safeguarding the environment, climate, health and supporting the needs of workers and communities. Find out why we are the leading third-party certifier in the industry by following our upcoming #100waysSCSempowers campaign on social media to see all the ways we work with various organizations around the world.

General Mills today announced a strategic sourcing agreement with Gunsmoke Farms LLC to convert 34,000 acres of conventional farmland to certified organic acreage by 2020. The farm, located west of Pierre, South Dakota, will grow certified organic wheat and other organic rotational crops. General Mills will use wheat grown on the farm to make Annie’s pasta products, including its signature Mac and Cheese.

From investing in sustainability enhancing technology to supporting regenerative agriculture programs, General Mills is taking on one of today's most pressing environmental issues.

More than a third of us wear a uniform at work. The problem with that is, as with most garments, when uniforms reach the end of their life they are merely tossed in the bin. In fact, a staggering 90% of the 33 million corporate garments given to staff every year end up in landfill. That adds up to 15,000 tonnes of clothing. The cost of waste disposal alone comes to £1.2m in Landfill Tax.