Business & Finance

Certified Greenhouse Farmers and SureHarvest have begun collaboration on a next generation sustainability certification platform based on the principles of performance metrics, technology innovation, continuous improvement and stakeholder engagement. SureHarvest CEO Dr. Jeff Dlott says it will be the first comprehensive performance-based system in agriculture.

Sue Chiang, pollution prevention co-director of the Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health, spoke with CIO Journal about how IT departments can make their work greener. Read the full story

When I first joined the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, I was both inspired and slightly skeptical about its ambitious goals. The newly established Luskin Center sought to “create a new model of problem solving to permanently alter how scholarship impacts society.” Three years later we are still learning how best to translate research into real-world policy solutions in the areas of environment, energy and sustainability. Yet through it all, I am confident that our business model is both effective and replicable.

At MIT, the project was led by a graduate student group at the MIT Sloan Laboratory for Sustainable Business, under the guidance of Jason Jay, Ph. D., director of MIT's Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society and a lecturer in sustainability at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Dr. Jay is also conducting research on organizational structures and processes that promote environmentally sustainable business practices. The project was recently completed, and Sugarmade is now incorporating the MIT team's recommendations into the LCA.

In August 2011, federal marshals raided the Gibson Guitar Corporation in Tennessee, apparantly preparing to charge the famous builder of instruments with trafficking in illegally obtained wood. In the aftermath of the raid there was intense media attention on the company and its sourcing practices. Andrea Johnson of EIA was interviewed by NPR because of her previous work on Gibson's allegedly illegal sourcing practices in Madagascar.

Michael S. Stevens is the Co-Founder and Principal of Pioneer Mountain Group, an environmental consulting firm based in Hailey, Idaho. PMG provides a range of management, conservation, scientific and natural resource production and marketing services to clients including non-profit organizations, investment firms, and private landowners. The firm’s current projects are in the western United States, Latin America and Canada.

Garrett Fitzgerald is the sustainability coordinator for the city of Oakland, and says Solar Mosaic is a great alternative for people who are passionate about renewable energy, but do not have the financial or logistical capacity to install their own solar system. He said they are a model for combining social good with economic benefit. “These kinds of companies are the future of the green economy in Oakland,” Fitzgerald said. Read the full story

“The move to build sustainability into the merchandizing side of the business is a game changer for the consumer products industry,” says Tim Greiner, managing director of Pure Strategies, whose firm is working with Walmart to build category-specific evaluation tools. According to Greiner, Walmart’s aggressive move into category scorecards will have a profound effect on other retailers' programs and on the entire consumer products value chain. Read the full story

Like the Haugheys, Evan Goldsmith, founder and owner of Hope for Women, was inspired to start his business after multiple trips to India in the 1990s. He worked on a service project in the Himalayas creating pressed-flower greeting cards with local women for a group in the U.K., and said he wanted to stay connected after moving back home. “I realized the market was growing for socially valuable products,” Goldsmith said. “Flashing forward to 2003, the Fair Trade movement was starting to grow with coffee and chocolate.”