SF Approved List - SF Approved Green Products DEV SITE. Supermarket giant rolls out greener alternatives to plastic milk bottles | Environment. Supermarket giant Sainsbury's is to roll out "eco-friendly" milk bags and jugs across its entire product range in a multi-million pound move to reduce the carbon footprint of milk consumption. In partnership with supplier Dairy Crest, Sainsbury's is putting its full marketing weight behind the product, confident that reluctant consumers now understand how to use it after a series of technical modifications and an education programme.
The push comes despite the failure of a similar product by rival supermarket Waitrose, which launched in 2007 and was quietly shelved this April. Sainsbury's will today stock whole-milk bags following healthy sales of a trial of semi-skimmed milk bags, to be followed by skimmed and 1% fat milk bags next year. It says customers have bought twice as many as originally predicted – currently 120,000 semi-skimmed milk bags per week or one in every 10 two-pint semi-skimmed units sold.
As well as using less packaging, the product is also cheaper. Walk Score Adds Transit Score and Commute Report Features - GOOD Blog. Thanks to Walk Score, the super handy online tool that measures a neighborhood's walkability, millions of people now know if they live in a Walker's Paradise (with a score of over 90) or an area where it's notably harder to get by without a car (below 70). Today, Walk Score is rolling out Transit Score, measuring how well an address is served by public transit.
It was a natural next step for the mission-driven business that promotes walkable communities for environmental, economic and health benefits, says CEO Josh Herst, from Walk Score's Seattle-based headquarters. "We introduced transit information so you can decide where to live and work based on services and amenities, and understand your transit options. " Like Walk Score, which uses an algorithm based on the distance of local amenities and services to calculate a number, Transit Score relies on distance to nearby transit stops but also the connectivity of local transit lines.
Rent a Bike With Your Cell Phone. Social Bicycles (SoBi) is developing a new bikesharing system that does away with the need for expensive parking stations and special bikes. Instead, SoBi would rely on a wireless enabled on-bike checkout and locking system that interfaces with cell phones. The new system would enable users to find nearby bikes by cell phone and lock their bike to almost anything. In addition, the system attaches to almost any bike. This combination of technologies promises to drop the cost of bikesharing system by two thirds. This innovation reminds me of the evolution of carsharing, though SoBi is not a peer-to-peer system.
To illustrate, it's possible that a SoBi system could be implemented without the need for a municipality's involvement beyond standard business licensing. Image courtesy of SoBi.