Can you label your carbon footprint like calories? Read this amazing piece about Allbirds before you do anything else…

Businesses-heroes

BUSINESSES – HEROES

BUSINESSES – HEROES

Corporations hold significantly more responsibility for greenhouse gas production than do individuals. In fact, as few as 90 companies cause as much as two-thirds of global emissions. That share also represents the magnitude of impact corporations can have on reducing greenhouse gas production – by going green themselves thereby influencing the economy towards clean energy.

Not all companies are greenwashing. So far (September, 2022), over 370 companies listed in RE100’s list of companies, have pledged to go "100% renewable" (up from 175 in 2020).  Some of their goals are for carbon neutrality (meaning they have committed to producing as much renewable energy as they consume) and some goals are focused on sourcing 100% renewable electricity for portions or all of their business needs. Walmart, for example and among other things, has a goal of avoiding one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and working hard to get their 2,300 suppliers on board, figuring they are all in this together. One of the avenues they are pursuing is “to educate their suppliers on renewable energy options and help them through the conversion — a process Walmart’s Senior Director of Sustainability Zach Freeze said can be daunting for any supplier — especially small ones.”

The RE100 companies are taking action in numerous ways to become renewable — through their production, their infrastructure, supply chain, and/or transportation. They are conserving, reusing, replacing and/or recycling in one commendable manner or another.

Although not a member of RE100, an announcement in September 2022 startled the business and climate world. With the statement, “Earth is now our only shareholder,” Patagonia’s founder Yvon Gouinnard gave his company to a charitable trust committed to reinvesting any profit, not needed for running the business, to fighting climate change.

Inevitably we will be missing some remarkable companies below. There is more information in some of our other sections:

  • Companies specifically focused on investments or divestment or insurance are in the ECONOMICS section
  • Utilities or other energy companies, promoting or facilitating clean energy, are in the ENERGY section
  • Companies solely focused on waste, trash or recycling are in the WASTE section.

Current News

IKEA’s Latest Climate Target: Glue

By Dieter Holger 03/01/23
Inter IKEA—which owns the IKEA brand, develops its products and manages its supply chain—said around 5% of its value chain’s carbon footprint comes from fossil-based glue in its particle-and-fiber boards, used in products such as…
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United States Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions

02/07/23
About the U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions
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Bloomberg Philanthropies Expands Global Clean Energy Transition Program in 15 Developing Countries

09/21/22
Today at the United Nations Climate Action: Race to Zero and Resilience Forum, UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions Michael R. Bloomberg announced the expansion of his efforts to accelerate the clean energy…
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The climate philanthropists

By David Gelles 09/16/22
Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, on Wednesday revealed that he and his family had given away the company and that all future profits from the apparel maker would go toward fighting the climate crisis.…
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Patagonia: Billionaire boss gives fashion firm away to fight climate change

By Daniel Thomas and Noor Nanji 09/15/22
The billionaire founder of the outdoor fashion brand Patagonia has given away his company to a charitable trust. Yvon Chouinard said any profit not reinvested in running the business would go to fighting climate change.…
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Can $3.5 billion help fix climate change? Laurene Powell Jobs wants to find out

By Sammy Roth 09/01/22
As secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency under Gov. Gavin Newsom, Blumenfeld has played a key role in efforts to bring clean drinking water to low-income homes, end the sale of gasoline-fueled cars and…
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Bill Gates vows to drop off world’s rich list

By Daniel Thomas 07/14/22
Billionaire Bill Gates has pledged again to give his wealth away, adding that he will eventually "drop off" the world's rich list. It came as the Microsoft co-founder announced he would make a $20bn (£17bn)…
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Ocean CleanUp Launches Huge System in Pacific Garbage Patch to Clean a Football Field Every 5 Seconds

09/03/23
Last week, The Ocean Cleanup organization that has been tackling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch deployed their System 03 for the first time—nearly three times larger than the previous technology and capable of cleaning the…
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Sloan Foundation grant to help support equitable transition to renewable energy

08/03/22
The shift to renewable energy is projected to increase as the world transitions to a low-carbon energy system. The expansion of wind, solar, hydropower, biofuels and other low-carbon technologies has not accelerated at the pace…
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The A List 2021

05/23/22
In the year of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report and COP26, the need for transformational, urgent and collaborative change across the world is more urgent than ever. Environmental issues such as climate change, water risk…
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Walmart Expands Sustainability Effort by Investing in Vertical Farming Company

02/07/22
The investment is part of a $400 million round of Series E funding for Plenty, which uses vertical farming architecture that combines engineering, software and sustainable crop science to grow multiple crops on one platform.…
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Ørsted Scores ‘A’ on Gold Standard Climate Action List – Again

01/04/22
Global environmental non-profit CDP acknowledges Ørsted as a global leader on climate action for the third year in a row. Since CDP’s assessment, Ørsted had its 2040 net-zero target approved as science-based as only one…
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Regenerative Agriculture, Coming Soon to a Timberland Shoe Near You

05/07/21
Regenerative agriculture was once a backwater of experimental farming strategies. Now Timberland, and its parent company VF Corporation, have pushed it into the limelight by announcing the first regenerative rubber supply system in the apparel…
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Earth Day 2021: Awakened Not Woke

04/23/21
It’s Earth Day 2021, and I hope the world’s leaders will boldly go where none have gone before. I am optimistic.
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Facebook meets 100% renewable energy goal with over 6 GW of wind, solar, 720 MW of storage

04/15/21
Facebook said Thursday it had procured enough new renewable projects to meet 100% of energy needs for its global operations through clean resources, as of last year. The company has contracts in place for more…
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At Yale, new FedEx-supported center to focus on climate change solutions

03/03/21
A $100 million gift from FedEx will help fund a new center at Yale University focused on developing natural solutions for reducing atmospheric carbon. The Center for Natural Carbon Capture will support and accelerate research across academic…
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Accelerating the fight against COVID-19

02/10/21
Giving public health professionals the tools to protect the public and save lives.
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Ikea Has More Renewable Energy Than It Can Use, and That’s Just the Beginning

02/04/21
As an early adopter of rooftop solar, Ikea is always worth watching for innovative, energy-centric approaches to retailing, and the latest news from the company could ripple out to influence other retailers, too.
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Apple Promises to Be Carbon Neutral by 2030

07/29/20
Lisa Jackson, Apple's VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, recently dropped the company's latest Environmental Progress Report. It's easy to be skeptical about such things, especially when you see people l
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Unilever’s New Climate Plan Puts Carbon Labels on 70,000 Products

06/15/20
More than that, it’s going to show its work: each of the company’s 70,000 products will show on their labels how much greenhouse gas was emitted in the process of manufacturing and shipping them to…
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Allbirds Is The First Fashion Brand To Label Its Carbon Footprint Like Calories

04/15/20
Sustainable fashion brand Allbirds has just announced it has become the first fashion brand to label every item produced with its carbon footprint.
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Jeff Bezos commits $10B to climate. How should he spend it?

02/19/20
The funding announcement "dwarfs other philanthropy in this realm," and could go toward anything from an amplified Beyond Carbon campaign, to a mass electric vehicle rollout, stakeholders mused.
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PRH Makes Progress in Green Initiatives

02/18/20
Following the February 17 announcement by Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann that the conglomerate will be carbon neutral by 2030, PRH global CEO Markus Dohle sent a letter to employees outlining the publisher’s role…
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These are the most sustainable corporations in the world

01/21/20
From Microsoft going carbon negative to Starbucks announcing a (somewhat vague) goal to become “resource positive,” it seems that major companies are announcing new sustainability efforts every day. But which ones are doing the most…
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JetBlue announces plans to become carbon neutral on domestic flights in a first for the US airline industry

01/06/20
JetBlue is tackling the high environmental impact of flying by aiming to become carbon neutral on all domestic flights by July 2020, according to a press release Monday.
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Michael Bloomberg Promises $500 Million to Help End Coal

06/06/19
Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, said on Friday he would donate $500 million to a new campaign to close every coal-fired power plant in the United States and halt the…
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Going Zero Waste

02/11/22
Kathryn is the founder of goingzerowaste.com and author of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste. She focuses on the health and wellness of self and the planet! Her positivity is infectious, inspiring you to make a change: big…
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PCC Community Markets

02/04/20
It looks like plastic. It acts like plastic but it isn’t. And, it’s compostable. Seattle based PCC Markets is eliminating its recyclable plastics packaging and making it compostable. PCC CEO Cate Hardy said their goal…
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Mosaic

07/23/19
Billy Parish’s company, Mosaic, has simplified the solar market by offering a solar mortgage that customers pay down using the savings from their electricity bill. Even accounting for interest payments of five or six percent,…
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Everlane

07/03/19
Everlane has committed to no new plastic in their supply chain by 2021, and created a line of outerwear made from discarded plastic bottles.
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Athleta

07/03/19
60% of Athleta’s materials are now made from sustainable fibers.
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Allbirds

07/03/19
Allbirds has pledged to be carbon neutral in 2019. They will purchase credits from third-party verified emissions reduction projects, commonly known as “carbon offsets.” These projects do things like protect trees that capture and store…
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Tesla

06/11/19
Elon Musk is the co-founder and CEO at Tesla, overseeing all product design, engineering and manufacturing of the company’s electric vehicles, their battery products, and solar roof tiles. Since the company’s inception in 2003, his…
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GreenWave

05/22/19
Bren Smith, GreenWave executive director and owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm, pioneered the development of restorative 3D Ocean Farming through kelp farming off the coast of Connecticut. A lifelong commercial fisherman, he was named…
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Impossible Foods

05/22/19
When Pat Brown, a former pediatrician-turned-Stanford professor discovered that problem was — namely the “catastrophic use of animals in our food system” — he realized he had to go “all in.” Brown is the founder…
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Solar Roadways

05/22/19
Determined to solve the climate crisis, Scott and Julie Brusaw founded Solar Roadways after learning the U.S. had over 72,000 square kilometers of asphalt and concrete surfaces exposed to the sun.
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Patagonia

05/22/19
In a letter posted to LinkedIn in 2018, Patagonia’s CEO, Rose Marcario announced the company is donating all $10 million to non-profit groups who work on issues related to climate change and the environment. Patagonia’s…
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Grantham Mayo van Otterloo (GMO)

05/02/19
Jeremy Grantham is the co-founder and chief investment strategist at Grantham Mayo van Otterloo (GMO) and founder of the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. He has committed to devote 98 percent of…
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