Patagonia will donate 100% of Black Friday sales to environmental groups
Outdoor clothing company Patagonia has announced that it will donate 100 percent of proceeds from sales on Black Friday, both in store and online, to grassroots environmental groups. Patagonia has long been viewed as a leader in environmental stewardship, and has always donated 1 percent of its proceeds to charity. On Black Friday 2014, the company hosted “Worn Wear Swap” events at eight major stores, where people could swap old garments for new ones. Meanwhile, Patagonia’s competitor REI has chosen to lock its doors on Black Friday in order to encourage people to spend time outdoors instead of shopping. More than 2.5 million people have signed REI’s #OptOutside pledge. (Tree Hugger)
Facebook said to create censorship tool to get back into China
Facebook has quietly developed software to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas in order to help it get into China, according to current and former employees interviewed by the New York Times. The employees caution that the software is one of many ideas the company has discussed with respect to entering China, and it may never see the light of day. But the project illustrates the extent to which Facebook may be willing to compromise one of its core mission statements, “to make the world more open and connected,” to gain access to a market of 1.4 billion Chinese people. (New York Times)
Supply Chain
From bitcoin to puke-tracking: Walmart uses blockchains to monitor food
Walmart is the latest company to try out blockchain technology in the hopes that it can track food through the supply chain and pick out and recall tainted products. Blockchain technology was initially applied to secure money transactions, underwriting the rise of Bitcoin. But recently, there has been a push to use it in other industries. Walmart has teamed up with IBM and Tsinghua University in Beijing to track pork in China as it moves from the farm to the shelves, and is also tracking packaged produce in the US. Using tags and sensors, a product’s location, temperature, and other statistics could be recorded in a blockchain ledger at each step of the way, meaning contaminated or spoiled goods can be quickly identified, tracked, and pulled from the reach of consumers. (Ars Technica)
Policy
Trump to scrap Nasa climate research in crackdown on ‘politicized science’
Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said. Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favour of exploration of deep space. This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”. Climate scientists at other organisations expressed dismay at the potential gutting of Earth-based research. (Guardian)
Sustainable Development
NGOs criticise “business as usual” European SDG plans
SDG Watch Europe, an alliance of NGOs including Solidar, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and WWF, has criticised the European Commission’s Communication on the next steps for a sustainable European future. SDG Watch Europe members have expressed their disappointment that the Communication does not provide any substantial new information about how the EU intends to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality. The alliance claims that the lack of consultation with civil society in the preparation of the Communication was not acceptable. The Communication is a “justification of business-as-usual… Without fundamental policy changes and upscaling ambitions we will never deliver on the ambitious commitments of the new global agenda” the civil alliance says. (SDG Watch Europe)
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