Category Archives: Innovation

EDF Heads to Atlanta for TSC's Spring Member Summit

By | Published: May 13, 2013

This week, Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Retail Team travels from Bentonville, AR to Atlanta to attend and speak at the The Sustainability Consortium’s (TSC) second Member Summit. EDF is an NGO member of TSC, an independent organization of diverse global participants who collaborate to improve consumer product sustainability through all stages of a product’s life [...]

Also posted in Events & Activities, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Walmart | Leave a comment

Walmart's Sustainability Trilogy: A Close-Up Perspective from EDF's Office in Bentonville

By | Published: May 10, 2013

By: Alisha Staggs, Bentonville-based project manager at Environmental Defense Fund In Marc Gunther’s recent article "Walmart’s index: a real life toy story," he calls the Walmart supplier Sustainability Index, "the biggest environmental initiative in the company's history," and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) agrees. He also questions whether "Walmart is taking this too far”"and "how the [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Chemicals, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Walmart | Leave a comment

Don't let those water savings go down your company's drain

By | Published: May 8, 2013

Think of all the times you've turned on a faucet and no water came out… I'll be the first to admit I can't remember the last time this possibility even crossed my mind. The truth is we take water for granted, and don't stop to question its seemingly unlimited abundance. Recently we've seen clear signs [...]

Also posted in About Us, Behavior, Partnerships, Tools, Water | Leave a comment

Did you know that the adidas Group has a sustainability venture capital fund?

By | Published: May 3, 2013

By: Elizabeth Turnbull Henry Elizabeth Turnbull Henry was an EDF Climate Corps fellow at the adidas Group in 2010. After completing her EDF fellowship, she was hired on by the adidas Group as Senior Manager of Environmental Affairs. She has since hired multiple EDF Climate Corps fellows -, and has been an active participant in [...]

Also posted in EDF Climate Corps, Partnerships | Leave a comment

Caterpillar collaborates internally and externally to cut costs and carbon

By | Published: May 1, 2013

All companies – from consumer products to manufacturers to retailers – can find significant cost and carbon emissions savings in their logistics network. The latest example is Caterpillar.  Its efforts were recently highlighted in Inbound Logistics – a leading industry publication. Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment, cut carbon emissions and [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Goods Movement, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Partnerships, Supply Chain Management, Tools | 1 Response

Cutting Water Use – It Starts by Keeping Score

By | Published: April 29, 2013

By John Schinter, Executive Director of Energy at AT&T When I was hired in 2009, my task was – and still is – to improve the way AT&T manages energy use. The company understood that inefficient energy use was having an environmental impact and costing us money. In 2010 and 2011, we found energy savings [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Energy Efficiency, Partnerships, Tools, Water | Leave a comment

Carlyle's Annual Report Highlights $7 Million in ESG Savings

By | Published: April 26, 2013

The Carlyle Group's annual report, released last week, highlights significant savings and environmental impact from the sustainability programs ongoing at Carlyle portfolio companies.  In addition, as Carlyle continues to branch out beyond buyouts it's showing an interest in integrating ESG into investment decisions in other asset classes, beginning with real estate. Environmental initiatives have saved [...]

Also posted in Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Partnerships, Private Equity, Tools | Leave a comment

Rubicon Global Disrupts the Waste Stream through Entrepreneurism

By | Published: April 16, 2013

By Elizabeth Hill, Director of Corporate and Social Responsibility, Rubicon Global Why do we throw trash away? Because we have already extracted the value out of a product and we do not need what is left over. What remains is usually seen as dirty or useless. It goes into the can and out of our [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Paper & Packaging, Supply Chain Management, Tools | Leave a comment

Industrial Ecology: A Call for Papers

By | Published: April 12, 2013

By Reid Lifset, Associate Research Scholar, Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology, Associate Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is an ensemble concept that specifies ways in which firms can and are currently starting to deal with their environmental impact. It builds on a [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Education | Leave a comment

Saving Business from Itself

By | Bio | Published: April 9, 2013

Is the business community its own worst enemy? That was my takeaway from a recent post on FastCompany’s blog. In it, Joss Tantram makes the provocative argument that trade — “rights of enterprise, private trade and market activity” — is a fundamental human right.  But he also notes that that right is increasingly at risk, given [...]

Also posted in Behavior, Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Leave a comment