Read the full post from the Iowa Waste Reduction Center.
Back in 1999 an IWRC newsletter highlighted the top 12 efficiency problems associated with painting and coating operations. Thirteen years later these problems haven’t gone away, and in fact, are just as prevalent. To improve the efficiency of your painting and coating operations, you need to recognize these problems and address them.
Read the full post from the HBR Blog Network.
In 1996, James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones popularized the term “lean thinking”. It was their expression for what they’d observed studying Toyota’s manufacturing operations: an absence of waste. Today, lean concepts have moved beyond the factory floor to become an organizing set of principles and practices applicable to all business operations and activities, including entrepreneurial start-ups. Every idea in your company can benefit from a lean approach, be it a product, process, service, or strategy. But what does it really mean to be lean?
It’s often easier to describe what lean isn’t than what it is. Lean isn’t about being spartan, skinny or stingy. It isn’t about slash-and-burn cost cutting, reducing headcount or beating up suppliers to get the lowest price. Being lean means systematically removing anything impeding the free flow of value to the receiving party. Lean innovation isn’t about doing more with less; it’s about doing better with less. That might sound like a nuance, but think about it: You’ve undoubtedly said “no more” many times, even about something good. When was the last time you said, “Let’s not have better”? There’s no limit on better.
To keep your innovation efforts lean, you have to wage an all-out war on waste. There are seven basic varieties…
Read the full story from the Times Union.
New York and six other Northeastern states are threatening to sue the Obama administration for allegedly violating its own air pollution rules by ignoring methane emissions from oil and gas production, including the hydrofracking drilling method being reviewed in this state.
A potent greenhouse gas that contributes to man-made climate change, methane was absent from updated rules covering the fossil fuel industry under the Clean Air Act unveiled this summer by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Read the full story from Western Illinois University.
A small wind turbine was installed Dec. 6 at Western Illinois University to serve as a curriculum resource, while addressing sustainability goals of the University as part of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs’ (IIRA) Illinois Wind for Schools project.
Read the full post at Yale360.
Don’t expect the U.S. Congress to take any action on climate change in the next four years. But by continuing to use its regulatory authority and working with the states, the Obama administration can make significant progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Read the full story at GreenBiz.
More than half of chief executives regard energy and raw material costs as a major threat to their growth prospects, according to a new survey of nearly 800 corporate bosses from around the world.
Preliminary findings from PwC’s Annual Global CEO Survey reveal concerns over energy costs and resource scarcity are at a three-year high, with 53 percent of chief executives claiming the issues have overtaken sluggish consumer spending as one of the top threats to future growth, a seven percentage point increase on last year.
Read the full story at GreenBiz.
Past True Cost columns have relied on generic product data. This month, we provide a case study based on actual product data, following the work PUMA has done to identify the environmental price tag of its products.
