BSR Insight Articles About Sustainable Consumption
Food Waste: A Business Opportunity?
Nathan Springer, Associate, Advisory Services
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently found that Americans waste the equivalent of US$165 billion in food each year. Just like any type of supply chain inefficiency, this could be considered an opportunity. Not only is food waste costly, it perpetuates issues with food security and has environmental implications. Food waste in landfills accounts for nearly 25 percent of U.S. methane emissions. Agriculture uses 10 percent of energy, 50 percent of land, and 80 percent of fresh water expended in the U.S.—waste reduction efforts could help the industry decrease its reliance on these resources. The NDRC offers suggestions to government, business, and consumers to decrease food waste: Read more
Precious Waste: Finding Gold in Discarded Electronics
Julia Robinson, Communications Associate
The Case for the Responsible Use of Antibiotics in Food-Producing Animals
Roger McElrath, Manager, Advisory Services
For years, antibiotics have been administered on meat-producing farms to treat sick animals or prevent infections when there is a known disease risk. The meat industry also uses antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes to grow animals faster or to compensate for the effects of overcrowding or unsanitary conditions. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the use of antibiotics in food-animal production accounts for approximately 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States. Recently, experts have concluded that there is a direct link between the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals and the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. At the same time, a growing number of consumers are making buying decisions based on the health, environmental, and social attributes of food—including whether the animals that were used for their meat were administered antibiotics. In many respects, the U.S. meat industry has provided a safe and economical supply of meat protein to satisfy the increasing demand of consumers. But underlying that success has been an industrial-scale approach to raising food-producing animals that has created social and environmental challenges, including the need for and/or generation of large amounts of water, waste, and greenhouse gases. While these issues are well-known, less understood are the impacts of the industry's antibiotic usage. Read more
The Better for Wear: Reducing the Impacts of Clothing
Susanne LeBlanc, Analyst, Advisory Services, BSR
According to a WRAP U.K. study of 7,950 British adults, the most significant opportunity to extend the useful life of garments is by making clothes last an additional nine months beyond their current average lifespan of 2.2 years. That would reduce carbon emissions by 27 percent, water use by 33 percent, and waste output by 22 percent. WRAP U.K. also estimates that the cost of resources used to make and clean clothes could be reduced by almost US$8 billion a year. Read more
European Environmental Agency Report: Sustainability Themes for the Coming Year
Julia Robinson, Communications Associate
The European Environment Agency's latest annual report covers four main sustainability trends for the year ahead: Read more
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