Responsible Production & the Circular Economy

As featured in the digital 2016 AkzoNobel Report: Our latest company film, highlighting how we create everyday essentials to make people’s lives more liveable and inspiring.

Today marks the United Nations’ 43rd World Environment Day – a global awareness day intended to encourage people to reconnect with nature and remind us why keeping our planet healthy is so important. It’s a day to encourage action for environmental protection, something that remains top of mind for Ingersoll Rand as we seek to reduce the environmental impacts of our operations and product portfolio.

Today at the World Circular Economy Forum, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) announced its new circular economy initiative, Factor10. Factor10 brings companies together to reinvent how business finds, uses and disposes of the materials that make up global trade. It’s an initiative that will help to identify and remove the barriers that exist, while creating solutions that businesses all around the world can implement.

Today at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) released its CEO Guide to the Circular Economy.

The circular economy – an economic model focused on designing and manufacturing products, components and materials for reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling – promises big opportunities for the private sector to drive new and better growth and accelerate innovation. Shifting to the circular economy could release $4.5 trillion in new economic potential by 2030, according to Accenture.

Pentair, a global leader in sustainable water solutions, and aquaponics farming innovator Urban Organics, are opening a new, 87,000-square-foot indoor aquaponics farm in St. Paul, Minn.

Industry by industry, third-party certification of sustainability performance is increasingly helping to move the dial toward more responsible production and supply chain practices in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals. Nowhere is this more apparent that in the case of palm oil. Within the past few years, palm oil certification under the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standard has reached a remarkable 21% penetration of the global market. This watershed achievement is paving the way for product manufacturers to incorporate certified palm oil into their product ingredient specifications, shifting entire industries and making a positive difference for people and the planet. Read more at http://ow.ly/XZ9o30ceq9Q

General Motors’ sustainability approach enables the company to serve its customers and shareholders, increase operational efficiency, mitigate risk and improve the communities where it does business. GM summarizes its impact in its annual sustainability report at gmsustainability.com.