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Trending GL BALLY Edible Garden Greenthumb™ Agtech solution drives sustainability impact for Walmart Project Gigaton Edible Garden AG Incorporated's patented Agtech solution, Greenthumb™ helped drive Walmart's Project Gigaton goals in 2021, leading Edible Garden to be named a Project Gigaton "Giga Guru." Project Gigaton is Walmart's initiative to remove emissions in the global value chain by 1 billion metric tons – a gigaton – by 2030.
Edible Garden's highlighted performance as a Project Gigaton "Giga Guru" included: recycling over 38 tons of cardboard, saving 21,000 gallons of gasoline and conserving over 500 barrels of oil while avoiding a total of 442 tons of CO2 in emissions. The patented GreenThumb software application allows Edible Garden to reduce waste and spoilage, tightening the food chain while fulfilling customers' needs. Greenthumb is a tool that is used by Edible Garden's greenhouses and their partner farms to cut waste and build efficiencies into operations. "This is a full enterprise solution we've rolled out across our partnered greenhouses, where each greenhouse will cross reference each other," said Scott Prendergast, Chief Data Officer. "We continue to promote traceability, food safety, and reduction of food miles and this application optimizes all of these areas."
Scotch & Soda’s sustainable packaging drive In December 2021, Amsterdam-based men's and women's clothing brand Scotch & Soda announced plans to introduce sustainable packaging (for delivery packaging and in-store). The brand has said that, by the end of 2022, it will package at least 1 million of its garments globally with bioplastic bags – a form of biodegradable packaging made from corn starch and sugar cane that has been created in collaboration with sustainable packaging company TIPA. It is currently using plastic polybags and has already had of 1 million pieces packed in TIPA’s compostable packaging solution and continue to increase the number further for the following seasons. By 2025, it aims to eliminate the use of conventional plastic polybags from all product categories. Jelle de Jong, sustainability director at Scotch & Soda, shared, “Last year, we partnered with TIPA – an innovator and manufacturer of compostable packaging. It has developed a material that is 20% bio-based and 80% fossil fuel-based, biodegradable, fully compostable and mimics the protective characteristics of plastic. In addition, we believe there is room for improvement when it comes to the collection and composting of bioplastic packaging in the fashion industry. By working with TIPA and local waste processors, we aim to promote the process of composting and make a selection of our stores part of a global infrastructure supporting this initiative.” “We will encourage recycling of our compostable packaging at selected stores. We hope a product, traditionally considered waste will, through the composting process, return nutrients to the soil,” he explained.
46 CELERITY March - April 2022
Robots support Nike’s supply chain logistics Nike’s supply chain has been disrupted in the pandemic, but new ‘collaborative robots’ will help achieve sustainability ideals & hit customer expectations. Nike has installed over 1,000 robots to help ship out orders from its distribution centres. Nike has welcomed the robot fleet due to COVID-19’s disruption of the global supply chain. Cobots are now supporting Nike’s factory employees with sorting and packing sportswear products, as some human employees remain too sick to work. “Our new Court Distribution Centre represents Nike’s continued investment in a fast and flexible supply chain to deliver the full range of our product to consumers when they want, where they want it,” commented Eric Sprunk, Chief Operating Officer, Nike. Nike has revealed that the robots have helped the company to triple its digital order capacity in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In a recent report, Nike admitted factory shutdowns in Vietnam and Indonesia due to Covid-19, caused the company to lose three months of production during the first quarter of fiscal 2022. Vietnam supplies 51% of Nike footwear and 30% of its apparel. In Indonesia, 24% of Nike’s footwear is manufactured alongside 12% of its apparel. The firm is determined to eradicate waste from its supply chain over the next five years and to become zero carbon by 2025.
