Disrupting manufacturing: Innovation and the future of skilled labor
The common assumption today is that robots will soon drive our cars, manage our work, and manufacture our goods. But what is the reality of disruptive innovation in U.S. manufacturing? And how should schools educate skilled labor for this new era?
WinCo: worker-owned grocery chain that pays benefits, pensions, living wages
WinCo is a midwestern chain of worker-owned stores that consistently underprice WalMart, while still paying a living wage to their staff and decent prices to their suppliers. Their secret appears to be a smaller selection of goods, sourced directly from factories -- but surely the fact that they're not extracting billions in profits for a family of rapacious plutocrats also helps keep prices low. Burt Flickinger III, a reputable grocery store analyst, called them "Walmart's worst nightmare." They provide health benefits to all employees who work 24 hours per week or more, as well as pensions. They are expanding into Texas, and Time's Brad Tuttle predicts that they'll double in size every five to seven years. Prices are kept low through a variety of strategies, the main one being that it often cuts out distributors and other middle men and buys many goods directly from farms and factories.
Cyberhippietotalism
CYBERHIPPIETOTALISM is a theoretical & practical counter-culture platform, committed to establish & promote hackbases: hacker live-in labs-residences, and so enable a full-time hacker lifestyle, focused group work (hackathons), or a temp retreat. (Quitting yr job & cancelling your rent to live as a Nomad Hacker is optional.)
The circular economy
Umicore Workers at Umicore in Brussels separate out precious metals from electronic waste. When my battered 1969 Toyota car approached the age of 30, I decided that her body deserved to be remanufactured. After 2 months and 100 hours of work, she returned home in her original beauty.
Europe’s circular-economy opportunity
Adopting circular-economy principles could not only benefit Europe environmentally and socially but could also generate a net economic benefit of €1.8 trillion by 2030. Europe’s economy has generated unprecedented wealth over the past century. Part of the success is attributable to continuous improvements in resource productivity—a trend that has started to reduce Europe’s resource exposure. At the same time, resource productivity remains hugely underexploited as a source of wealth, competitiveness, and renewal.
Circular Economy Reports
As part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s mission to accelerate the transition to the circular economy, we have conducted analysis and published the first ever report series highlighting the economic rationale for the transition to a circular economy – an opportunity in excess of 1 trillion USD for the global economy. About 'Towards the Circular Economy' The purpose of Towards the Circular Economy reports is to make the case for a faster adoption, quantify the economic benefits of circular business models, and lay out pathways for action. McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, provided the overall project management, developed the fact base and delivered the analytics for the Towards the Circular Economy reports. Executive summaries and full reports are available to download in PDF format for free, with hard copies available to purchase from this website.
Where sustainability is business as usual
IKEA makes informed choices As the Airbus A 380 majestically descends down to the Kastrup airport in Copenhagen, Denmark, you are greeted by the clear light blue sky above and the dark blue water below, dotted by offshore wind farms like little pearls bobbing in the sea. The sight confirms you have entered the Nordic countries.
Cradle to Cradle Design
Overview The Cradle to Cradle CertifiedCM program is a third party, multi-attribute eco-label administered by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute that assesses a product’s safety to humans and the environment and design for future life cycles. The program provides guidelines to help businesses implement the Cradle to Cradle framework, which focuses on using safe materials that can be disassembled and recycled as technical nutrients or composted as biological nutrients. Unlike single-attribute eco-labels, the Cradle to Cradle CertifiedCM program takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating the design of a product and the practices employed in manufacturing the product.
Sensing the Inevitable, Companies Begin to Adapt to Climate Change
Most have yet to incorporate climate change into their business plans, but a few are finding a way. Download PDFUnlock the Full Report This article is part of the July / August 2016 Business Report, Climate Change. View the full report
