… Royal, called on her country to stop eating Nutella to avoid palm oil, she inadvertently highlighted the hidden role it plays in the global economy. And, as fires set to clear land … oil, it is in our cookies, our shampoos, and is used as a biofuel. As a versatile plant with efficient, high yields, oil palm, and the oil derived from it has become a … vegetable oils, production pressures have led to undeniable environmental and social impacts on both global and local scales. The most notable of those impacts stem from …
… its presence in the United States market. In the previous five years, Trina, a company with manufacturing and headquarters in Changzhou, China, had managed to grow rapidly by selling … buyer’s market. At the same time, the oversupply was pushing prices down further so that “grid parity” – the point at which solar power could compete with conventional power sources …
… in the U.S., would use aluminum1 rather than sheet steel in the truck bed and cab. Starting with the 2015 model year, the F-150 would be the first mass-market vehicle to be built with major body construction from aluminum. Alcoa spent $300 million expanding its Iowa factory and planned another $150 million on facilities in Tennessee to meet the demand … increasingly rigorous fuel economy standards for U.S. vehicles and consumer preferences for high mileage vehicles. To meet those standards, automakers had begun using aluminum to …
… Throughout the world, Cummins Inc. meant diesels. The company designed, manufactured, distributed, and serviced diesel and natural gas engines, for transportation, … it manufactured components, including filters, turbochargers, and aftertreatment, used with its own engines and with the systems of other manufacturers. The components and engines … found a business advantage in its early entry into China – first meeting China’s need for high quality diesel engines for trucking and off-road construction and later developing …
… and even in biofuel. This wide range of uses has stimulated cultivation and oil extraction; annual global production has increased more than nine-fold since 1980. By the … campaign took off in 2010, when the organization targeted a GAR customer, Nestlé, with a report and a provocative video that went viral on social media sites. Nestlé quickly … plant on any land that was primary forest, GAR agreed to tough bans on cultivating palms on high carbon stock (HCS) forest and peat land – commitments that made the company a leader in …
… The road to SELCO’s success, however, has not always been smooth. Hande cofounded SELCO (with Neville Williams) in 1995 to sell and service photovoltaic (PV) systems in his home … spiked and sales declined. Investors put pressure on Hande to lay off employees and contract the organization. With the help of the World Bank’s commercial finance arm, the … Hande was able to keep his sales and service organization intact, complete with its core of highly motivated employees. Most importantly, SELCO was able to continue devising innovative …
… project received a significant boost. While the proposed wind farm was located in an area with abundant wind resources, absent a creditworthy off-taker the project would not have … project that Walmart de México undertook had to work in concert with Mexico’s electricity grid and rate-making structure. Mexico’s political leadership had announced a commitment to … officials were loathe to take on projects that took them too far from the company’s central activity of retailing. The company’s investment group analyzed sustainability projects on …
… to end deforestation, development of peat lands and exploitation of locals not only with their own operations, but also from all of their suppliers. For environmental NGOs, the … demand for palm oil had skyrocketed from 1990-2010 and crude palm oil (CPO) became the most highly traded edible oil. The palm oil boom had significant impact on economic development in rural Indonesia. Forty percent of Indonesia’s palm oil was …
… good times, growers have little incentive to improve their operation – they have minor contactwith the roasters or customers and no knowledge of how their crops get translated into the … coffee a mass commodity, the second wave when Starbucks initiated a move to quality and higher prices.) Specialty coffee roasters had worked to build cafes and brands around …
… wind energy remained strong and Suzlon had added significant capacity. Indian textile manufacturer Tulsi Tanti founded Suzlon in 1995 to avoid having to rely on India’s notoriously unpredictable and expensive electric power grid to power his family’s textile operations. After commissioning two wind turbines, Tanti discovered that wind energy was an even better business than textiles. Within six years of its incorporation, Suzlon had become the dominant player in the Indian …