Software Advice's Michael Kopley spoke to a number of experts in the retrofit and sustainable energy sources sector to come up with 10 of the most sustainable -- and easiest ways  -- of retrofiting your facilities. Take a look! And if we missed any, drop us a note in the comments below.  

By Ashley Halligan, Analyst, Software Advice As more colleges across the country are making efforts to become more sustainable campuses in both construction and practice, schools are receiving recognition and making news for their clever efforts. A recent Mother Nature Network article reported 90 U.S. colleges banning the sale of bottled water on campus, many campuses instead offering water bottle filling stations. Another example of sustainable practice in action, Virginia Commonwealth Uni...

By Bushra Azhar If you are a company contemplating your corporate social responsibility strategy (CSR) in the Middle East how do you answer the most basic question that sets strategy, i.e., "Is there such a thing as a socially conscious consumer?" Do consumers ever worry about how ethical a company is without considering first how good the deal is for their own wallets? In the absence of any substantiated data, I have been on the fence about this question for a long time now; consumers do c...

By Dr. Daniel Sonke, Manager, Agriculture Sustainability Programs, Campbell Soup As Campbell’s 2011 CSR Report goes to press, our Agriculture Sustainability Programs are still very new. But agriculture sustainability is not new to the company. I started working at Campbell in August 2011 as the Agriculture Sustainability Programs Manager knowing that the company had won several awards for assisting its vegetable growers to significantly reduce pesticides in the 1990s. A Long History ...

By Francesca Rheannon In The Way To Wealth, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.” Although written some 250 years before the terms “ecological footprint” and “carrying capacity” came into parlance, his words offer sage advice for a world over-consuming its way to catastrophe – although now one should substitute “use up” for “sell.” Our necessaries – a liv...

When historian Thomas Kuhn published his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, not only did he introduce the term ‘paradigm shift’ to the world, but the theories he presented also caused a sort of paradigm shift in themselves as to how we understand the evolution of science. Rather than progressing in a linear and continuous way, science sometimes finds unexpected new answers that turn old assumptions on their head. At a point in history when old assumptions on ho...

By Trish Zecca, Program Manager, Global Nutrition & Health, Campbell Soup Company For me and many others, the words “Campbell’s Soup” have always meant cold winter evenings…a warm bowl of soup and feelings of home, comfort, and contentment…as well as the catchy "Mmm Mmm Good" jingle. Today, after having worked for Campbell Soup for the last three years I still feel all that and more. For more than 100 years Campbell’s has strived to Nourish People&...

By John Izzo Can one person really make a difference when it comes to influencing corporate social responsibility? Absolutely! Take the case of Beth Terry, an accountant in Northern California who challenged a major corporation to start a recycling program for one of their most popular products. Her story is an inspiring example of how one person with the right intentions can influence companies. Plastic waste and pollution is a massive problem. Americans alone use and throw away 2.5 milli...

By John Elkington Nowadays, we use the word “paradigm” very loosely.  A reformulation of a toothpaste suddenly becomes a “paradigm shift” in dental hygiene and beauty. A slight redesign of a car gearbox becomes a “paradigm shift” in mobility. But that isn’t remotely what Thomas Kuhn meant when he spoke of paradigms in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published 50 years ago in 1962. I read it as a teenager – and it irrever...

By Kal Stein, President & CEO, EarthShare There are many issues affecting our planet and our daily lives, and many ways of dealing with them. Consider the issue of climate change, for example. Not only are there a number of suggestions and initiatives to mitigate its effects, there are also those who deny that it is even taking place, and yet others who would insist that it is not a man-made dilemma. As I made clear in a recent post, the need for reliable environmental information from ...

By Amanda Bauman, Manager of Community Affairs, Campbell Soup The goal set was ambitious… a bit lofty even. The term 'big hairy audacious goal' (BHAG) sprung to mind. But no matter what your reaction when reading Campbell’s 2010 CSR report, our 2020 destination goal for Nourishing Our Neighbors probably incited a reaction similar to this: “Now, how exactly do they plan to do that?” Trust me, staring at those words on a piece of paper two years ago I had the same re...

It’s called ABNJ or Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, and makes up 64 percent of the surface of the world’s oceans. Yet, this part of the planet has no protection from the massive destruction by private interest fishing operations. At the United Nations yesterday, a Program on Global Sustainable Fisheries Management and Biodiversity in ABNJ was introduced to protect the biodiversity of this area, which some consider to be the last global “commons” on Earth. Areas Be...

By Francesca Rheannon When the financial system melted late in 2008, the endowments of private colleges took a big hit. In December 2008, Harvard University estimated its losses at 22 percent in the first four months of FY2009, totaling $8 billion. The financial pain spiraled out to swamp many others, including students, faculty and staff members, alumni, and the local economy. The fallout included “layoffs, slashed benefits, hiring freezes, reduced student services, construction dela...

By Frances Moore Lappé “Trying to save the planet is just a lot of nonsense because we can’t do it,” says ninety-two-year-old Professor James Lovelock, known for his “Gaia hypothesis” that the biosphere is a single living organism. Ross Gelbspan, acclaimed author of Boiling Point, tells us that “we have failed to meet nature’s deadline” and warns, “The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the...

By Katherine Gustafson As city dwellers across the U.S. develop an interest in fresher, more local, and more sustainable food, innovative methods of producing food in urban areas multiply. These enterprises take all forms, from nonprofit urban gardening programs serving low-income residents; to massive farm businesses restoring blighted city blocks; to high-tech aquaculture companies producing food on rooftops. There are thousands of urban-ag projects of many kinds blooming in towns and cit...