Category Archives: Sustainability

Wal-Mart Assortment, gas prices and one stop shopping

A Wall Street Journal article (March 21, 2011) describes adjustments to Wal-Mart’s strategies to increase the number of shoppers who do one-stop shopping at the store. Wal-Mart’s US chief, William Simon, claims that as gas prices increase, shoppers will be … Continue reading

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Recyclebank and consumer incentives to recycle

A Wall Street Journal article (March 17, 2011) describes the operation of Recyclebank. The company serves as an interface between consumers and their municipalities by weighing garbage and providing points that can be redeemed by consumers (around $ 150 per … Continue reading

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Rebound or Backfire Effects of Energy Efficiency Mandates across the supply chain

A New York Times article (March 8, 2011) describes the impact of energy efficiency mandates across products. Front loading washers, a response to energy efficient washer mandates, are observed to result in dirtier clothes and perhaps, as a consequence multiple … Continue reading

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Recycling Cell Phones and Supply Chain Impact

A Wall Street Journal article (March 5, 2011) describes the growing used cell phone recycling industry.   Consumers preferring old models so they do not heave to learn new features, or desiring a lower cost phone, seem to flock to these … Continue reading

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Amazon’s Subscribe and Save Pricing and Supply Chain Impact

An article in the New York Times (March 5, 2011) describes Amazon’s Subscribe and Save service in which consumers get 15 % off and no shipping for committing to deliveries of select products with a certain frequency .  The article … Continue reading

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Green Score for Jeans based on Supply Chain Evaluation

A New York Times article (March 2, 2011) describes an effort to catalog the environmental impact of every step in the global supply chain of apparel, from cotton growth, to fabric, to dyes, textile manufacturing, packaging, shipping, retail through to … Continue reading

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Natural Gas extraction wastewater supply chain

A New York Times article (March 1, 2011) describes the supply chain of wastewater that is generated when hydrofracking – a process of injecting water and sand at high pressure to break rock formations and release natural gas.  In Pennsylvania, … Continue reading

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Are Consumers using products longer ? What is the Impact ?

A New York Times article (February 26, 2011) provides data suggesting that consumers are waiting longer to replace products – 4.5 months longer for cars, 2 months longer for cellphones and one month longer for laptops.  Some of the reasons … Continue reading

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Targeted Emissions cuts before general carbon focused cuts

The Economist (February 17,2011) suggests that piecemeal focused emissions reductions of specific gases may generate fast results while building a more general consensus. For example,the article cites HFC-134a as a gas 1,000 times more warming than carbon dioxide. Similarly, carbon … Continue reading

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Emissions Rules Relaxation and Industry Impact

A New York Times article (February 23, 2011) describes the current EPA emissions rules – rolling back requirements for industrial boilers, incinerators etc.  The impact is to permit many plants, municipalities, universities etc to reduce their costs of compliance – … Continue reading

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