Algramo Develops Refill Business with Unilever

In the outskirts of Santiago, inexpensive food is very hard to come by. There are only few supermarkets, and the food at local stores is typically priced 30-40% more expensive than normal. Chilean based startup Algramo has developed a solution to address this challenge. Founded in 2012, the company is solving economic and environmental issues through its vending machines. Algramo dispenses staple products, like grains, rice, beans, lentils, and sugar “by the gram” (al gramo) to low-income customers. Now partnering with Unilever and others, the company has developed a reusable packaging solution for household cleaners and detergents.

Getting Around in the Circular Economy

Sustainable mobility is one of today’s biggest challenges and the increase in introductions of electric vehicles has proven this. According to Bloomberg’s 2019 outlook on the Electric Vehicle market, it is expected that 57% of all passenger vehicle sales will be electric by 2040, and 80% of shared mobility will be electric with companies as Uber and Lyft gaining market share.

Give Your Business More than a Sustainable Twist

Many firms fail to successfully implement their sustainability strategies, not because they lack the desire, the willingness or even the belief in the impact of sustainability on their businesses, but because they fail to identify proper objectives for their efforts. Setting a clear and meaningful purpose can help an organization to coalesce various efforts and goodwill and gives a shared sense of direction. Practice the creation of a purpose-based business with The Cover Story tool and the Bob’s Burgers Workshop.

Selecting Circular Economy Strategies

The circular economy is a concept in direct opposition to the more traditional linear way of thinking, i.e. take-make-dispose. To help teams get more comfortable with the notion of developing Many Alternative Sustainable Solutions (MASS) by identifying sustainability challenges and selecting circular economy strategies, experimentation is recommendable. This Business Model Canvas team training exercise is aimed at experimenting with the development of circular economy solutions based on the value proposition of the BMW i3.

Value Proposition Design for the Circular Economy: Adidas & Parley

Born as a spin-off of the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik founded in 1924, the world’s second largest sportswear manufacturer needs no introduction. Throughout the decades, the Adidas brand has become synonymous with top athletic performance as well as iconic, personal style with its Adidas Originals line. How does the almost 100 year old company stay fresh? One way is through innovating for a sustainable future.

Sustainable Innovation in BMW's Business Model Canvas

“Think ahead” is the statement claimed by the BMW Group for their holistic approach of sustainable mobility. With the launch of Project i, BMW addresses its business strategy from a different perspective, since it defines sustainability as the next premium for products and services for individual mobility. The 4 Actions Framework can be used to determine which actions have been taken by BMW to reconstruct their Business Model Canvas towards a more sustainable one.

The McDonald’s Business Model Canvas

The McDonald's brand is probably one of the best-known across the globe. Let's dig a little deeper. In our range of Business Model Canvas series, we present the McDonald's business model. What are the strategic differentiators and in which areas might there be room for sustainable innovation to create a more circular business model?

Circular Economy in Chemicals: Materiality in Material Science

According to chemical industry association Cefic, the EU chemical industry’s share of world markets has seriously declined in the past 20 years. In 1995 EU industry sales amounted to €326 billion, representing 32.3% of worldwide sales. Two decades on, the EU chemicals sales have grown almost 60% but the market share has dropped to a meagre 14.7% in 2015. This “dilution effect” looks set to continue. Demand for chemicals is growing strongly in China, India and other emerging countries but slowly in Europe and North America, where Europe sells most of its chemicals. What can sustainable innovation contribute to this challenge?

Circular Crustaceans: Learning from a Frontrunner Failure

At increasing speed, the world is currently undergoing the energy transition. For businesses around the globe, this means new challenges and possibilities for innovation and transformation towards circular economy business models are emerging. So are businesses cashing in on those opportunities? Doubtful: research suggests that 84% of executives agree that innovation is important to the growth strategy of their company. Unfortunately, only 6% of executives were pleased with the innovation performance of their company. What can we learn from fail-often start-ups to help address those new possibilities for innovation?

Umicore: Mining the Opportunities of the Circular Economy

In a joint effort, GRI and RobecoSAM investigated the most material issues in the Mining, Metals and Electric Utilities sectors from both the company and investor perspective (refer to download section). Surprisingly, they found little agreement on the top issues concerning strategic direction between both. Where investors are keen to learn how companies plan to keep up with these long-term changes and trends, such as commodity prices, climate change and resource scarcity, companies tend to emphasize their performance on more operational topics such as environmental management and health & safety.