About 15 years ago, Finnish energy company Neste decided to change its course. Since 1948, Neste was in the oil business, but the health of the planet and future generations began to weigh on the company’s leadership. 

With much of the world still viewing climate change as an inconvenient truth, Neste’s executive committee and board of directors decided to embark on an ambitious transformation from fossil fuels to renewables. Now, Neste is a global leader in renewable fuels and the third most sustainable company in the world, according to Corporate Knights.

Mars teams up with Huhtamaki to use recycled plastic for pet food
Confectionery giant Mars has announced plans to use recycled polypropylene plastic into the primary packaging for some of its popular pet food brands.

University of California Recognized by CHESC with Innovation Award for Sustainable Procurement Excellence
University's procurement department selected by CHESC as a sustainability leader for its innovative use of supplier sustainability ratings in partnership with EcoVadis

Today, The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) has joined the U.S. Plastics Pact, a collaborative, solutions-driven initiative rooted in four ambitious goals intended to drive significant systems change by unifying diverse cross-sector approaches, setting a national strategy, and creating scalable solutions to create a path forward toward a circular economy for plastics in the United States by 2025. The first North American Pact of its kind, the U.S. Pact is a collaboration led by The Recycling Partnership, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

The Scottish multinational brewery and pub chain announced yesterday it became carbon negative, which makes it the world’s first international beer business to reach this status.

Thanks to a £30 million investment plan, BrewDog launched a series of unprecedented initiatives to remove carbon from the atmosphere and so help the fight against climate change.

The North Face has unveiled its new limited-edition Recover Tee, showcasing the label’s sustainability commitment by recycling plastic bottles. Titled “Bottle Source,” the three-tee capsule has been produced from more than 18,000kgs of plastic bottles that were collected from waste streams in the Alps.

The T-shirts themselves come in either long or short sleeve, and feature a new version of the The North Face’s heritage logo. For the capsule, the logo is decked out in blue, pink or green.

As well as aiming to reduce the plastic waste in the Alps, “Bottle Source” is also intended to raise awareness for the rubbish dumped in the mountains. With each item created, The North Face will also be donating 1 Euro to the Summit Foundation. This foundation supports the clean-up programs in the Alps and helps to protect wild places, ensuring that the mountains remain a great place to explore.

Slashing carbon emissions
Danish firm DSV Panalpina is the fourth largest third-party logistics business in the world. It orchestrates the movement of goods by road, air, sea and rail. 

As an asset-light company, DSV Panalpina has set ambitious science-based targets to reduce the carbon emissions from all shipments and decarbonize its entire supply chain.

One company, Sendle, is the first 100 percent carbon-neutral shipping carrier in Australia and the United States. As a certified B Corporation, Sendle considers concerns about the environment to be a key stakeholder in business decisions. 

Sendle reduces the environmental impact of shipping by tapping existing carriers and filling vehicles to ensure every trip is maximized. Then, it offsets the carbon emissions of every package. 

Since its launch in 2014, Sendle has offset more than 9 million miles of carbon emissions. That’s equivalent to driving a one-ton truck from Earth to Mars and back 128 times.

The European Commission, in a strategy due next week, will lay out measures to tackle EU greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. Reports speak of 30 million electric vehicles by 2030 and related infrastructure.

According to a draft document seen by Reuters, “The EU’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050 cannot be reached without introducing very ambitious measures to reduce transport’s reliance on fossil fuels.” The news agency further quotes the EU Commission estimating that the targets would require “at least 30 million zero-emission vehicles by 2030”.

In October 2019, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group pledged to eliminate all single-use plastic, across its portfolio of 33 luxury hotels, by the end of March 2021.

A year on from the Group's pledge, this second progress report highlights both the achievements made to date and some of the continuing challenges.

The company has committed to eliminating single-use plastic across all areas of its hotels, including rooms, spa, transport, restaurants and bars as well as in areas unseen by the guest, such as offices and kitchens.

The focus remains on the elimination of 60 of the most common single-use plastic items identified by hotels which are estimated to make up 95% of the total number of items. Many of these items have now either been eliminated or are in the process of being phased out as plastic stock is depleted. So far, the Group's hotels have eliminated an average of 70% of the 60 most commonly used items, excluding supplier packaging, with steady progress across all departments.

The desire to switch to lifestyles with gentler environmental impacts is on the rise. But as the pandemic slims down wallets, firms must offer lower prices to inspire responsible consumption, states a new study.

Unilever Plc said on Wednesday it would invest 1 billion euros to eliminate fossil fuels from its cleaning products by 2030, cutting the carbon emissions created by the chemicals used in making the products.

The household goods conglomerate behind the Omo, Cif, Sunlight and Domestos brands said that, instead of petrochemicals, the products would use constituents created from plants and other biological sources, marine sources such as algae and waste materials.

Chemicals in its cleaning and laundry products make up 46% of its Home Care division's carbon emissions across their life cycle.