Air fuel innovation, gaming in the real world and sustainable shipping

Virgin jet fuel

Virgin Atlantic is setting a high bar as the first in the airline industry to use biofuel made from industrial steel production waste gases, which generates half the carbon emissions of standard jet fuel.

The process captures the waste gases from industrial steel production – which would otherwise be emitted into the air – then ferments and chemically converts the gases to ethanol, which is turned into biofuel. Virgin has partnered with the New Zealand industrial biotech firm LanzaTech to make it happen.

LanzaTech is so keen on this process that it says roughly two-thirds of the world’s steel mills could use it, which means gases captured from the steel industry alone could generate upwards of 57bn litres of biofuel annually.

What’s more, the technology is also likely to work for the chemical and metal processing industries, which would dramatically alter the aviation industry, and its effect on the environment.

The Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels will monitor the process and ensure the new biofuel meets stringent environmental, social and economic standards. Virgin is also working closely with Boeing and Swedish Biofuels to get the green light to use the fuel on commercial aircraft, and expects to launch a “demo” flight within a year a half. If all goes well, the first commercial planes powered by the biofuel should take off in China in 2014.

Gaming for good

With the growing popularity of social gaming, newcomer Beekin wants to be the first company to create a social gaming platform that helps people do something good in the real world.

According to Beekin founder Michael Fox, the game will focus on 10 to 15 humanitarian missions based on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

For example, Mission: Malawi will have the goal of raising $200,000 – real money in the real world – and increasing awareness of the need to build a health clinic, provide school materials and develop a clean water system.

Each mission features a host of challenges, ranging from knowledge-oriented tasks such as quizzes, to social elements, such as spreading the word via players’ social networks, to donation-based activities. Players accumulate points in each mission, which can be redeemed for virtual and real-world prizes.

There’s also a “metagame” option for the real gaming buffs, which connects several mission challenges to a much larger, Farmville-like asset management game with a broader storyline to keep players hooked and, hopefully, continue donating.

To help spread the word and achieve the company’s goal of raising $1m for humanitarian causes within its first year, Beekin unites four partners per mission: players, a brand, a celebrity and a non-profit organisation. 

According to Fox, half of the funds required per mission will be come from players in small donations (as little as $0.25). The remaining funds will be matched by the brand partner, which also pays a hefty brand-marketing fee to be featured in the game.

Celebrities will help draw public interest to the missions, and non-profit partners will receive 100% of the funds to make the mission a reality. Non-profits will also need to share photos, videos and progress reports with the players so they stay informed about how their money is being used. Among the groups Beekin is currently working with are the UN Foundation, Heifer International and Unicef.

“We believe Beekin represents the future of philanthropy because it harnesses key forces – social networking, crowdsourcing and gamification – and leverages powerful partnerships to make an exponential impact,” Fox says.

Beekin will launch its beta site in March 2012 with the MTV Networks and the UN Foundation, and go public starting with five missions in the summer. 

GM adds no-waste plants

US car maker General Motors has revved up its zero-landfill commitment, adding two no-waste facilities in Argentina to its roster. More than half of GM’s 145 global facilities are now landfill-free.

To achieve zero-landfill, GM encourages its employees to consider innovative ways to reduce and reuse. For example, one of GM’s Michigan facilities turns paint sludge into plastic that’s used for engine shipping containers, while another facility recycles cardboard shipping materials into sound-absorption material for its vehicles.

According to John Bradburn, GM’s manager of waste-reduction efforts, the company has been tracking its waste practices for 15 years and in the past decade has developed scorecards with specific goals and metrics for each plant, reported on a monthly basis and tied to plant managers’ performance evaluations to keep accountability and motivation high. Additionally, GM holds quarterly global conference calls to share best practices, and regularly holds commodity and resource-specific calls with its suppliers.

These waste reduction efforts prompted GM’s landfill-free initiative. On average, GM’s landfill-free manufacturing sites either recycle or reuse 97% of their waste and convert the remaining 3% to energy.

Sustainability plan sets sail

Fifteen leaders in the global shipping industry including Maersk Line, Rio Tinto Marine, BP Shipping, and the China Navigation Company have joined forces with non-profit groups Forum for the Future and WWF in the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI), the industry’s first collaborative effort to address how it can contribute to a sustainable future. Recently, the group set out its action plan to drive a more sustainable shipping industry in its Vision for 2040 report.

Commercial ships transport an impressive 90% of global trade. And while emissions from the shipping industry account for just 3% of the global total, the SSI expects that number to rise to between 7.5% and 10.5% over the next 40 years.

Consequently, SSI members have focused their plan on several work streams, such as financing new, cleaner technology, reducing vessels’ life-cycle impact, and producing a global standards framework to improve transparency, simplify verification and promote the highest performance standards. The plan does not, however, set specific target numbers.

Each work stream will be overseen by the SSI Steering Group, and will include frequent progress reports to industry stakeholders.

“Shipping has reached a crossroads,” says Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future. “After years of following a commodity-focused ‘boom and bust’ business model, leaders in the industry have aligned to ask more of themselves – emphasising the urgent need to take the lead in reshaping the entire industry ahead of regulation.”

J&J cleans up its baby shampoo

Johnson & Johnson is in hot water with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of public interest groups that’s been campaigning for several years to get the 120-year-old company to remove a potentially cancer-causing chemical from its Baby Shampoo.

According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ latest report Baby’s Tub is Still Toxic, J&J’s Baby Shampoo sold in the US, Canada, China, Indonesia and Australia contains quaternium-15, a preservative that kills bacteria by releasing formaldehyde. Yet J&J Baby Shampoo sold in several other countries – including Japan, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK – lacks the chemical.

The coalition recently sent a letter to J&J signed by two dozen interest groups (representing 3.5 million people), asking the company to immediately cut formaldehyde-releasing preservatives from all its baby products worldwide, and threatened to boycott the brand if action wasn’t taken immediately.

J&J has since responded with a statement, noting its baby products “meet and often exceed the government safety standards for every country and market in which [they] operate”, but due to public concern is phasing out these types of preservatives in its baby products worldwide, and has already reduced their use by 33%.

Nike’s new venture

Sportswear giant Nike is stepping into some new shoes as a supporter of start-ups that promote sustainability or a healthy lifestyle through its new sustainable business and innovation (SB&I) lab.

In 2009 as part of Nike’s revamped strategy to fast-track corporate responsibility in all facets of its business, the company reconfigured its corporate responsibility team into the SB&I group, an amalgamation of 130 sustainability specialists including Nike’s “lean”, “energy” and “compliance” teams that handle Nike’s suppliers.

Part of SB&I is the innovation lab, which is dedicated to finding and supporting fresh start-ups, as well as growing strategic partnerships with government and non-profit groups to drive the company’s enterprise and industry-level solutions, according to Nike’s website.

The SB&I lab is not, however, a traditional venture capital fund. Nike spokesman Ryan Greenwood notes that the lab does not have a dedicated investment fund, and that “recommendations that come from the lab, as with any other area of the Nike business, will be reviewed by management to determine if they align with our strategic and financial goals”.

Nike has remained tight-lipped about the types of “sustainable innovation” projects the lab will support, and how much money will go to these projects. But the company is very vocal about its mission. “It is in our nature to innovate and bring cutting-edge innovation to our athletes,” says Greenwood. “Nike has always partnered with the most creative, innovative thinkers across the world in everything we’ve done, including sustainability initiatives. The SB&I lab is another expression of our culture and commitment to collaborations and partnerships.”



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