Sustainability

June 28, 2018

The changing needs of higher education spaces for students and universities to thrive

Where we learn matters. On the face of it this might seem like an obvious statement. There’s no questioning the fact that the UK is home to some of the best universities in the world. In fact, four of the top 20 universities in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 20181 are in the…

June 18, 2018

Taking a New Perspective on Climate Protection

Project Drawdown Launches in Europe “It is time for Europe to reframe its climate protection efforts,” said German Energy Agency Chief Andreas Kuhlmann, at the recent Drawdown Europe launch in Berlin. “Project Drawdown shows how this can be done in a way that encourages cooperation, understanding and action. It is an exceptional coalition of some…

May 4, 2018

Designing with the WELL Building Standard in mind

At the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), our mission is to lead the movement to promote health and wellness in buildings and communities everywhere. We are very pleased to see the growing investment and interest across the globe, including initiatives such as the WELL Building design guide published by Interface. By placing people at the…

April 24, 2018

Rethinking the World’s Waste Dilemma

China’s shift in recycling waste plastic Recently, the door closed to what was, until now, the dominant market for recycling waste plastic. In 2017, the People’s Republic of China announced that it would no longer accept 24 categories of recyclables and solid waste, instead replacing imported materials with recycled material collected domestically. In the previous…

March 27, 2018

GreenBiz 2018: The New Carbon Economy and Other Observations

At this year’s GreenBiz event, our Chief Sustainability Officer Erin Meezan participated in a panel called “Building a New Carbon Economy: Strategies for Turning Waste Carbon from Liability to Asset.” We sat down to unravel what that really means and how businesses can work alongside academia, non-government organisations and government to build this new “economy.”…

March 14, 2018

The factory that welcomes bees

There’s an air of excitement buzzing through the Interface factory in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. We’ve recently installed hives to house 20,000 bees, transforming a wasteland at the rear of the factory into a small bee-friendly nature reserve. There are around 5,500 known beehives in Northern Ireland – but the bee population has dwindled in recent…

February 27, 2018

Addressing Ocean Plastics with NextWave and the Circular Economy

There is an African proverb that states, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want go far, go together. This is certainly true in the circular economy. We are increasingly seeing companies realise the power and value of collaboration. Just recently, a cross-industry consortium of companies joined forces to tackle the global…

February 1, 2018

Top Sustainability Trends for 2018

To state the obvious, 2017 was quite the unpredictable year. While sustainable business leaders and climate advocates knew there’d be inevitable changes with a new U.S. presidency, few could have anticipated just how volatile the past 12 months were. From the U.S. federal administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord to the Environmental Protection…