The Overbrook Foundation’s Sustainable Consumption & Production program seeks out efforts that support innovative ideas in sustainability, particularly around the production and consumption of materials. Projects funded range from promoting EPR (extended producer responsibility) legislation to building sustainable paper markets to innovative recycling methods. Climate change, with a particular focus on energy efficiency and youth engagement, receives distinct but limited support.
Below is a list of the Foundation’s 2013 grantees through its sustainable production and consumption portfolio.
Corporate Ethics InternationalGeneral Operating Support – $10,000The mission of Corporate Ethics International (CEI) is to bring corporations back in service to, and under the control of, the citizenry. CEI pursues this mission through several projects, including the Business Ethics Network (BEN) project, founded in 2003 and which is the organization’s flagship project. BEN includes over 700 individual corporate campaign activists and 150 campaign organizations. In terms of capacity-building, BEN provides education, facilitates collaboration and increases recognition of campaign successes with the funding community and the public. Work in 2013 includes supporting their professional activist network (the Citizen Activist Network), services such as their webinars, Corporate Campaign University, activist listserv, and building on its 2012 work to help the public understand the role of the U.S. Chamber in political campaigns and corporate lobbying. |
Dogwood AllianceThe Paper Campaign/Carbon Canopy - $10,000Dogwood Alliance mobilizes diverse voices to defend the forests and communities of the Southern U.S. — the largest paper producing region of the world — from destructive industrial forestry. For the past 10 years, Dogwood Alliance has been on the leading edge of catalyzing a shift in the U.S. paper market toward greater use of post-consumer recycled and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper. Dogwood’s goals for 2013 are to convince Yum! Brands/KFC to adopt sustainable paper packaging guidelines and practices through a sustained public pressure campaign, and to engage McDonald’s in a multi-stakeholder collaborative working to improve forest conservation on private lands in the South as a strategy for achieving its new supply chain management goals. Dogwood is also working to enforce new fiber sourcing policies and actions for International Paper that address controversial logging practices and expand the acreage of Forest Stewardship Council certified forests in the South. |
Environmental Defense FundSustainable Corporate Production and Consumption – $50,000Environmental Defense Fund’s mission is to preserve the natural systems on which all life depends. Guided by science, EDF believes that changing corporate behavior is as important as changing individual behavior, and works to design and transform markets to bring lasting solutions to the most serious environmental problems. Through its Corporate Partnerships Program, Environmental Defense Fund works with leading companies to create new best practices for environmental performance, leveraging their influence to create positive change. More recently, EDF has added equity leverage – using ownership positions to exert pressure for change – and a third leverage point: using peer networks to foster innovation and collaboration. EDF will continue to use all three levers to reduce energy use, global warming emissions, waste and toxic pollution. |
Environmental Paper NetworkGeneral Operating Support – $20,000 (first payment of a two-year grant)Environmental Paper Network was formed by non-profit organizations in 2002 as a project to accelerate macro-level transformation in the paper industry and foster strong collaboration among organizations working toward this common goal. In 2013 EPN will focus on three areas: creating strategic opportunities for collaboration among member organizations; managing collaborative projects and resources that increase the adoption of sustainable solutions, including the Paper Calculator, PulpWatch.org, WhatsInYourPaper.com, and the Paper Steps/Eco-Paper Database; and providing capacity for participation in critical product standard rule-setting processes for the paper sector. |
Natural Resources Defense CouncilPromoting Extended Producer Responsibility and Sustainable School Food and Packaging – $70,000 (first payment of a two-year grant)Founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement, NRDC has become one of the nation’s largest environmental advocacy organizations. NRDC lawyers helped write some of America’s bedrock environmental laws. Today, the NRDC staff of more than 300 attorneys, scientists and policy experts work out of offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing. NRDC is also working to advance replicable models of product stewardship – putting the burden on producers to make sustainable choices in packaging their products and take responsibility for the waste they create – by advancing extended producer responsibility legislation in Rhode Island and California. Recently, NRDC has been asked to advise six of the nation’s largest school systems – including New York City – on procuring antibiotic-free chicken and phasing out the wasteful, antiquated Styrofoam lunch trays still used in school cafeterias. |
Product Policy Institute
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