OLIVE EARTH

Indian Sustainability Eco-system

Saturday, May 19th

Last update11:45:03 AM GMT

Headlines:

sustainability orientation is a competitive need concludes CII summit

Wind power to achieve full parity by 2016

IBM opens solar powered data center in Bangalore

Levi strauss encourages water sustainability

Indian industry fares poorly in the Sustainability reporting rankings by EIO

Solar energy cost to fall in India - Lanco

Challenges to Solar energy growth in India

SOLARCON India 2011 to be held in Hyderabad

Sustainable supply chain management in Asia

HSBC research on indian wind energy market

You are here:: News and Opinions

Corporate Imperative

Google invests in Solarcity

Olive News

Earlier this week, Google opened an electric vehicle charging network at its Silicon Valley headquarters, which now stands at the world’s largest workplace charging system and underscores the company’s low carbon drive. Now, as Bloomberg reports, Google Inc. (GOOG) agreed to put $280 million in a new project financing fund for SolarCity Inc., a financier, installer and owner of rooftop photovoltaic systems, in the Internet search engine’s biggest clean-energy investment. Google's director for green business operations today suggested that it will enable more homeowners to lower their energy bills while also shifting to renewable energy, allow SolarCity to expand its business and facilitate wider deployment of solar.

Responses (0)

Hits (449)

Sustainable Consumption - Oxy-moron or next stage-of-maturity

Founders

After the Industrial revolution began, we are in the second stage of maturity in terms of our consumption pattern and consumerism. In the first phase of consumption, it was a seller’s market. Since the products were scarce, consumers had to buy what the producers produced. New products were pushed into the market and in a supply constrained environment these were lapped up by consumers. The second stage of maturity in which we currently are in was a logical successor to this phase where supply picked up and had to be matched against demand. With the entry barrier for technology availability dwindling and funding becoming more prevalent, enterprises started competing in a free market where consumer defined what the product should be. Innovation drove the success and failure of companies, with stagnancy leading to death of corporations. Those were the days when there was no real perceivable threat to the civilization as far as availability of natural resources was concerned. Fueled by availability of infinite options and sellers competing to capture the ‘life time value” of a consumer, overdrive to consume was accentuated to a frenzied proportion. It was more evident in the developed countries where there was no disincentive for limitless consumption in a booming economy.

More...

Responses (0)

Hits (416)

Sustainability Leadership from Wal-Mart

Founders

In February 2004, during a private trip to Coco Island, Peter Seligmann, co-founder and CEO of Conservation International, impressed upon Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton and chairman of Wal-Mart that Wal-Mart could have great influence on environment protection by influencing its vast customer and supplier base much more than whatever the family foundation was contributing toward environment protection. In October 2005 Wal Mart CEO Lee Scott called for three broad goals: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain people and the environment. Since then they continue to be tracking (36 of 38 goals in the last count).

Responses (0)

Hits (733)

Electronic Industry demonstrating proactive corporate citizenship on Conflict Minerals

Founders

This is what Intel posted on their CSR blog on May 19 2010: Intel shares the deep concern of many Americans about conflict minerals. Activities related to obtaining minerals that fuel conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are unacceptable. We are actively engaged in efforts to identify a solution through our supply chain and together with our industry. We appreciate the recognition of the leadership actions we have taken on this issue to date. We also support the objective of US legislation to address this problem. We want to be certain that the legislation will be implementable, achieve real change in the mineral supply chains and not result in an unintended ban of legitimate trade from the DRC. We are working with industry partners, organizations, and Congressional offices to address this. In the meantime, we are not waiting for legislation to continue to drive action in our own supply chain and with our industry.

Responses (0)

Hits (707)

Greening of the Electronic Industry supply chain - pioneering action by IBM

Founders

The actions taken by leading industry players in like Retail and CPG particularly in reducing the carbon footprint in their extended supply chain has been commendable. While Hi-Tech has always rated pretty high in their over-all sustainability orientation visible action in driving carbon footprint reduction across the value chain was not significant. IBM has raised the bar by its effort to cascade sustainability orientation action across its supply chain.

Responses (0)

Hits (203)