Earth Day at 50: Time for a Sustainability Mindset

We now live and work in a world where uncertainty has become a part of everyday life. The COVID-19 crisis has rightfully dominated the headlines, but the challenge of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions remains critical.

Earth Day is “now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event,” and its 50th anniversary is a challenge to governments, companies and individuals to examine how they shop and do business, and to think critically of how they impact the environment.

It’s been a busy year for Digimarc on the sustainability front, in the last 12 months we signed the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, which is focused on building a circular economy; saw the Digimarc Platform identified by members of the HolyGrail initiative as the best Platform to improve plastic sorting at waste facilities; got our plastic sorting R&D work filmed by the BBC; and established a Digimarc “Green Team” to ensure we conduct everyday business in our cubicles, employee meeting rooms and break rooms in an environmentally-sensitive manner.

We’ve also been focused on how the Digimarc Platform can support retailers and consumer brands looking to become more sustainable. We’ve identified four key ways our Platform can help business, shoppers and the environment:

• Limit Food Waste - Digimarc Barcode on fresh product labels allows employees and scanning systems to quickly identify inventory that is nearing expiration and surface these discounted, fresh items to consumers so they are sold and not discarded as waste.
• Reduce Inspection Line Waste - The Digimarc Platform delivers data redundancy that makes automatic identification of certain packaging components easier during the manufacturing inspection process. This reliability reduces product waste due to mislabeling and other inaccuracies, which can imperil consumer safety.
• Improve Plastic Sorting Rates - Digimarc Barcode on product packaging can improve plastic sorting at waste separation facilities, reducing the amount of plastic deposited in landfills and in our environment. Digimarc is working with leading consumer brands to revolutionize plastics recycling as part of the HolyGrail 2.0 project.
• Educate Consumers on Package Recyclability - Retailers with a mobile shopper app can utilize the Digimarc Mobile software to enable package scanning of items with Digimarc Barcode. This can help shoppers and employees scan packaging to better understand the recycling options for that item, including where to recycle and redemption values.

To keep up with Digimarc’s sustainability-related news and events, click here.