Business
Looking for positive and inspiring business stories? From green operations to employee rights, from innovative corporate structures to diversity and inclusion, the Business section at The Optimist Daily has got the latest innovative solutions from the corporate sector.
IKEA launches new collection made of leftover rice straw to reduce smog in India
Once the rice is harvested in India, the straw is commonly burnt by small-scale rural farmers to make way for the new crop. This smoke contributes to the smog peaks that cause numerous health problems for the population of northern India, where nine out of 10 of the world's most polluted cities are Read More...
Wrangler has come up with a way to make blue jeans that isn’t super wasteful
Think about classic blue jeans. The rich color comes from indigo, and it’s so ubiquitous both in fashion and in the American cultural imagination that it’s easy to imagine denim cloth as a naturally occurring phenomenon. It’s not. To get that blue-jeans hue, the yarn that’s eventually Read More...
Making Friends with Coyotes and Critters: A film review of The Biggest Little Farm
“For a new generation to be able to simultaneously make a decent living and pursue a profession that they feel is synonymous with how they want to live on this planet is an exceptional opportunity.” - Alan York By Kristy Jansen In 2007, a group of my friends and I read Barbara Read More...
Facebook takes giant leap towards its goal of achieving 100% renewables by 2020
On a whopping 4,600 acres of land in West Texas, a massive new solar farm – one of the largest in the United States – is now under construction. For Facebook, which is investing nearly half a billion dollars into the project, it’s the next big step into achieving the company’s goal to be Read More...
This British company is using old coffee cups to make reusable coffee mugs
Disposable coffee cups are a pain to recycle. That’s because typical paper coffee cups have a plastic lining, which means that in order to recycle them, you need to separate the materials, which requires specialized equipment. You would hope that more people would start using reusable cups rather Read More...
Adidas and Parley are removing tons of plastic from the oceans
When Adidas teamed up with Parley last year to bring out a line of shoes made from ocean plastic, it seemed more like a greenwashing marketing gimmick rather than an actual solution. Sure, the shoes showed how we can transform ocean plastic into something useful, but there were doubts that this Read More...
Recycling can be confusing for consumers. This company is out to change that
Each year, people trash 12 billion tons of flexible plastic packaging, according to the consultancy Resource Recycling Systems. Cheap and ubiquitous, items like grocery, dog food, and snack bags are recyclable in theory but are often made from layers of different materials that are too costly and Read More...
Multinational retailer Urban Outfitters will start renting out clothes
The sharing economy is now making its way into the fashion industry as Urban Outfitters, a multinational retail company, looks to rent clothes to younger shoppers. In an effort to boost engagement with millennial-age consumers, the 49-year-old retailer is launching a new company called Nuuly by Read More...
How does your company rank when it comes to employee treatment?
If you were to ask the average American worker what the top priority for the company they work is, they’d likely tell you their employer cares most about its shareholders, then at a distant second, its customers. The workers themselves come last. That’s what Just Capital, an organization Read More...
LEGO now runs only on renewables thanks to wind turbine built with LEGO pieces
Everyone knows that LEGO is all about building things, but it turns out their magic also extends brick by brick to positive systemic change. Recently, the 86 year-old multinational company met its goals of having all its production facilities powered entirely by renewable energy, three years ahead Read More...