Tag: 3BL

National Logistics Day was June 28th. Join us in celebrating our logistics professionals who play a vital role in ensuring each specimen is treated like a life and delivered to our labs across the country. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our purpose of working together to create a healthier world, one life at a time.

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From scanning requisitions in Processing to Logistics Supervisor
16 years at Quest
Great Midwest Region – Denver, Colorado

Q: What did you initially want out of your career?
Tejah: I wanted stability from an organization I could trust and grow with. It wasn’t about a specific role I wanted to achieve. I just wanted to work hard, find security, and make a difference.

Q: How has what you wanted changed over the years?
Tejah: As I continue to grow and learn, I realized I am a people leader. I spent years as a group leader in processing and found success working with others and being of service. I like leadership and I have been leading a team in the logistics department for the last year.

Q: Did you ever take any risks with taking on a new role, and were you encouraged to move into different roles or did you move on your own?
Tejah: I took a huge risk moving from my previous role in processing to a new leadership role in Logistics. The risk is associated with my lack of experience and acumen in the Logistics field. When I considered the role, the Logistics manager made sure I felt comfortable and encouraged to apply. I want to continue my growth as a leader and progress my career as much as possible.

Q: What tools or offerings from Quest did you utilize to help you in your career progression? (tuition reimbursement, EMPower trainings, etc)
Tejah: Experience has been key. Up until I became a group leader in the logistics department, I relied on my interpersonal skills and natural leadership ability to find success as a leader. I am currently in my 5th month of LQSMA, and I find it rewarding and beneficial. I am also planning on revisiting my college education in the near future.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who desires more from their current career?
Tejah: Always get with your supervisor or manager and express your desire to grow. Be engaged in whatever you do, be of service, and don’t be afraid to jump in and be an owner.

Q: Which of our 5Cs do you connect with most, and why? (Customer First, Care, Collaboration, Continuous Improvement, Curiosity)
Tejah: Care and collaboration come to mind first and foremost. Coming from a processing background, I have an innate ability to provide care to all I do. I also really enjoy working with others to find solutions to problems.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Tejah: I would like to thank my current management for helping me blossom in my current role and progressing my career. I also am thankful for my previous manager for showing me how to be a leader to others.

WIESBADEN, Germany, July 23, 2024 /3BL/ – Dow (NYSE: DOW) recently announced the launch of NORDEL™ REN Ethylene Propylene Diene Terpolymers (EPDM), a bio-based version of Dow’s EPDM rubber material that goes into automotive, infrastructure and consumer applications.

A key component of automotive weatherseals and hoses, Dow aims to support not just the automotive industry in achieving its sustainability goals with the launch of NORDEL™ REN EPDM, but as EPDM also goes into building profiles, roofing membranes, wire and cable, among others, NORDEL™ REN EPDM can help the decarbonization of building and construction and more.

“At Dow, we recognize the necessity to support our customers in their decarbonization journeys, as we drive towards our own carbon neutrality,” said Zshelyz Lee, Global Automotive Plastics Circularity Team Leader. “With our commitment to deliver 3 million metric tons per year of circular and renewable solutions by 2030, we are proud to bring NORDEL™ REN EPDM as the newest offering to help our customers achieve their ambitious sustainability goals and create a better tomorrow.”

By using bio residues from other industries as raw material, NORDEL™ REN EPDM can further support Dow customers in the rubber industry to offer their own customers a lower-carbon product. As only waste residues or by-products from an alternative production process are utilized, these raw feedstock materials will not consume extra land resources nor compete with the food chain.

The plant-based EPDM will be made through an ISCC PLUS certified mass balance system which traces the flow of bio-based raw material through a complex value chain and attributes it through verifiable bookkeeping. Crucially, the resulting product offers identical performance to virgin material with no requalification required, helping customers accelerate their transition to more sustainable options without the need for additional time or carbon emissions from the construction and maintenance of a new parallel production stream.

Dow’s Path to Zero

The arrival of NORDEL™ REN EPDM is part of Dow’s continuous endeavors towards carbon neutrality. The technology behind NORDEL™ EPDM production, Dow’s Advanced Molecular Catalyst, already results in a highly efficient process that uses 24% less energy than the conventional Ziegler-Natta process, and thus 39% lower carbon footprint for the standard NORDEL™ EPDM grades, which has been validated by a third-party life cycle analysis (LCA).

Aside from extending its range of innovative low-carbon options to help customers reduce their Scope 3 emissions, the company is also accelerating investments in renewables and transformative next-generation technologies to reduce its own Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, achieve net zero and protect the planet.

About Dow 
Dow (NYSE: DOW) is one of the world’s leading materials science companies, serving customers in high-growth markets such as packaging, infrastructure, mobility and consumer applications. Our global breadth, asset integration and scale, focused innovation, leading business positions and commitment to sustainability enable us to achieve profitable growth and help deliver a sustainable future. We operate manufacturing sites in 31 countries and employ approximately 35,900 people. Dow delivered sales of approximately $45 billion in 2023. References to Dow or the Company mean Dow Inc. and its subsidiaries. Learn more about us and our ambition to be the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company in the world by visiting www.dow.com.

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For further information, please contact:

Patrick Kennedy (Porter Novelli) 
+32.49.97.303.96 
patrick.kennedy@porternovelli.be

MetLife Sustainability Report

Approach

MetLife’s investment portfolio helps finance job creation, business growth and community development around the world. More importantly, MetLife’s investments help us keep the financial promises we have made to our customers. MetLife’s General Account (GA) assets under management (AUM) of $423 billion1,2 is invested responsibly for the long term. We seek out investments that are diverse, stable, secure and offer competitive, risk-adjusted returns. We evaluate risks, including financially material environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, that we believe have an impact on investment performance. How our sizable and diversified investments are made is integral in helping MetLife live our purpose.

As part of its 2030 DEI Commitments, MetLife pledged to originate $1 billion in investments that advance diversity by 2030. This was achieved in 2023 with more than $1.4 billion invested between 2021 and 2023, including investments in private equity, agricultural lending and real estate debt and equity.

MetLife Investment Management, LLC and certain of its affiliates (MIM)2, our institutional investment management business, manages most of MetLife’s GA portfolio, as well as third-party institutional client portfolios. MIM is a well-established global investment manager with specialist investment teams that support MetLife’s GA investment objectives. This includes embedding ESG integration principles in decision-making and being a responsible investor as a means to a long-term, value-driven portfolio.

MIM acquired Affirmative Investment Management (AIM)2, a specialist global ESG fixed income investment manager with capabilities in impact investing, verification, reporting and engagement, to strengthen MIM’s ESG investment and reporting capabilities and provide deeper analysis of sustainability and risk considerations across MIM’s core competencies in public and private fixed income. See AIM’s 2023 Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Report to learn more about AIM’s history of supporting the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Highlights

$420B+ of MetLife General Account (GA) assets under management (AUM).1, 2$58.5B+ in total MetLife GA responsible investments, with a focus on the core areas of infrastructure, green, municipal bonds, affordable housing and impact investments.4, 5$12.2B+ total new green investments since 2020 for MetLife GA, with nearly $2 billion in annual investments in 2023.$1.4B+ in investments made between 2021 and 2023 that advance diverse firms, achieving our commitment several years early.3$166.5M+ of impact investments originated since 2020, with approximately 25% allocated 
to climate change priorities.6

Download the full MetLife 2023 Sustainability Report

1 As of December 31, 2023. At estimated fair value.

2 See Explanatory Note.

3 As of December 31, 2023. Cumulative goal for this 2030 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Commitment: $1 billion between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2030.

4 Represents MetLife GA responsible investments managed by MetLife Investment Management, LLC and certain of its affiliates (MIM) at estimated fair value as of December 31, 2023.

5 For definitions of responsible investments, impact investments and green investments, please see the Glossary. MIM may periodically refine or otherwise modify its definitions and the components thereof based on data availability or other factors.

6 Represents impact investments originated solely for the MetLife GA and MetLife Foundation.

Cascale, formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, is thrilled to announce the addition of three new members in the second quarter of 2024. Committed to driving collective action towards a more sustainable, equitable, and restorative consumer goods industry, Cascale represents over 300 organizations worldwide. The organization’s membership spans various sectors, including apparel, footwear, textiles, home furnishings, outdoor sporting goods, and bags and luggage.

Please join us in welcoming Cascale’s new members of Q2 2024:

Anode Sustainability Certification Promotion Services Co. LtdDK Company A/SHUGO BOSS AG

Through Cascale membership, organizations across the consumer goods value chain gain access to the Higg Index, impactful collective action programs, member-exclusive training and events, and a thriving network of industry leaders, innovators, and sustainability advocates.

Be part of a global alliance committed to a sustainable future. Together, members can drive impactful change in the consumer goods industry. Click here to explore Cascale membership.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., July 23 2024 /3BL/ — The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department (WASD) recently selected Black & Veatch, a global leader in critical infrastructure, to provide design and engineering services for renewal and replacement projects at its three wastewater treatment plants.

The project, comprised of major upgrades to critical elements of the three treatment plants, includes the plants’ biological processes, filtration and disinfection systems, electrical generation buildings and injection well pump stations.

As part of this contract, Black & Veatch will also support WASD as they implement processes to reuse 60 percent of its wastewater to meet the state of Florida’s Ocean Outfall Legislation (OOL) requirements. The legislation requires that utilities in Southeast Florida eliminate the daily use of ocean outfalls by the end of 2025, reduce nutrient discharges, and implement a reuse system that is technically and economically feasible.

“As regulations evolve, the Black & Veatch team specializes in supporting utilities in upgrading and updating their infrastructure to maintain current standards,” said Mike Orth, president of Black & Veatch’s Governments and Communities sector. “Bold new water and energy nexus strategies are needed to solve our client’s pressing needs. Our team is ready to leverage our more than a century of expertise in critical infrastructure to deliver modernization and new sustainable water reuse solutions to Miami-Dade County.”

This solution, the implementation of Effluent Energy Recovery Systems, uses non-potable water to cool plant buildings — replacing cooling towers with heat exchangers, saving the county millions of dollars and allowing the department to meet their legislative requirements for water reuse. The high quality, non-potable water then will be disposed of through deep injection wells not connected to the county’s drinking water source. Moreover, the reuse system will be powered almost entirely from renewable energy sources, following Miami-Dade County’s commitment to sustainable practices.

“The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department is committed to being a model utility of excellence in reliability, resilience, and environmental stewardship,” said Water and Sewer Director Roy Coley. “We are eager to partner with organizations such as Black & Veatch and invest in opportunities that will best position the department to provide the highest quality of services to our customers. “

Contact Black & Veatch for more information.

Editor’s Notes: 

To learn more about Black & Veatch’s wastewater treatment, click the link here.

About Black & Veatch 
Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Follow us on www.bv.com and on LinkedIn, Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram.

Media Contact Information:

MEGHAN LOCKNER | +1 201-977-1628 
24-HOUR MEDIA CONTACT | Media@bv.com

Eastman

KINGSPORT, Tenn., July 23, 2024 /3BL/ – Eastman, a global specialty materials company, and Tri-Cities Airport, a regional airport serving the Tri-Cities, Tennessee, area, announced they are working together to collect plastic waste. These partners have strategically placed plastic recycling receptacles throughout the airport for the convenient collection of plastic bottles and food containers, promoting responsible recycling practices. The collected plastic will be sorted and processed by Eastman’s new mixed plastics processing facility, a part of the molecular recycling plant which is the largest material-to-material recycling facility in the world now operational at its Kingsport, Tennessee, manufacturing site.

“Eastman is happy to announce another local partnership to help us as we all work to fight the plastic waste crisis,” said Brad Lich, Eastman executive vice president and chief commercial officer. “This partnership demonstrates our shared vision for a more sustainable future, where plastic waste is seen as a valuable resource that can be transformed into new products. It’s another proof point of how local businesses can come together to foster sustainability to help keep our region beautiful.”

The partnership is one of the many initiatives Eastman is undertaking to support the circular economy and the sustainability of its operations in the region.

“At Tri-Cities Airport, we are dedicated to sustainability and are excited to partner with Eastman in this important recycling initiative,” said Gene Cossey, president and CEO of the Tri-Cities Airport Authority. “By providing convenient recycling options for our passengers, we are promoting responsible practices within our community and contributing to the innovative solutions developed here in our region.”

About Eastman

Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company’s innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,000 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2023 revenue of approximately $9.2 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. For more information, visit www.eastman.com.

Media contact 

Kristin Parker 
1-423-229-2526 
kristin@eastman.com

Eastman

KINGSPORT, Tenn., July 23, 2024 /3BL/ – Eastman, a global specialty materials company, and Tri-Cities Airport, a regional airport serving the Tri-Cities, Tennessee, area, announced they are working together to collect plastic waste. These partners have strategically placed plastic recycling receptacles throughout the airport for the convenient collection of plastic bottles and food containers, promoting responsible recycling practices. The collected plastic will be sorted and processed by Eastman’s new mixed plastics processing facility, a part of the molecular recycling plant which is the largest material-to-material recycling facility in the world now operational at its Kingsport, Tennessee, manufacturing site.

“Eastman is happy to announce another local partnership to help us as we all work to fight the plastic waste crisis,” said Brad Lich, Eastman executive vice president and chief commercial officer. “This partnership demonstrates our shared vision for a more sustainable future, where plastic waste is seen as a valuable resource that can be transformed into new products. It’s another proof point of how local businesses can come together to foster sustainability to help keep our region beautiful.”

The partnership is one of the many initiatives Eastman is undertaking to support the circular economy and the sustainability of its operations in the region.

“At Tri-Cities Airport, we are dedicated to sustainability and are excited to partner with Eastman in this important recycling initiative,” said Gene Cossey, president and CEO of the Tri-Cities Airport Authority. “By providing convenient recycling options for our passengers, we are promoting responsible practices within our community and contributing to the innovative solutions developed here in our region.”

About Eastman

Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company’s innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,000 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2023 revenue of approximately $9.2 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. For more information, visit www.eastman.com.

Media contact 

Kristin Parker 
1-423-229-2526 
kristin@eastman.com

Originally published by Closed Loop Partners.

The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project is focused on supporting customers to create return habits, a key factor to the success of reuse. The city-wide initiative is a critical step forward to catalyze and scale reuse systems, building on half a decade of work by the NextGen Consortium––a collaboration managed by the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, in partnership with many global foodservice brands.

The mix of large national chains, local independent restaurants, convenience stores, community hubs and public locations makes this initiative distinctly powerful in shaping consumer habits and cultural norms. More than 30 restaurants in the City of Petaluma will be participating in the initiative, including Starbucks and licensed Starbucks cafés in Target and in Safeway, owned by Albertsons Companies; Peet’s Coffee; KFC and The Habit Burger Grill, owned by Yum!; Dunkin’; as well as many local cafés and restaurants.

Continue reading here. 

Learn how more than 30 restaurants in Petaluma, CA will swap out, at no cost to the consumer, reusable cups for single-use cups and the impact that this will have in the local community here and read more about Albertsons Companies and our Recipe for Change on our website.

Originally published by Closed Loop Partners.

The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project is focused on supporting customers to create return habits, a key factor to the success of reuse. The city-wide initiative is a critical step forward to catalyze and scale reuse systems, building on half a decade of work by the NextGen Consortium––a collaboration managed by the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, in partnership with many global foodservice brands.

The mix of large national chains, local independent restaurants, convenience stores, community hubs and public locations makes this initiative distinctly powerful in shaping consumer habits and cultural norms. More than 30 restaurants in the City of Petaluma will be participating in the initiative, including Starbucks and licensed Starbucks cafés in Target and in Safeway, owned by Albertsons Companies; Peet’s Coffee; KFC and The Habit Burger Grill, owned by Yum!; Dunkin’; as well as many local cafés and restaurants.

Continue reading here. 

Learn how more than 30 restaurants in Petaluma, CA will swap out, at no cost to the consumer, reusable cups for single-use cups and the impact that this will have in the local community here and read more about Albertsons Companies and our Recipe for Change on our website.

MILAN, July 23, 2024 /3BL/ – The Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) in Lecce renews its collaboration with Lenovo for the installation of a powerful new HPC (High Performance Computing) system that will support climate change research by providing increased processing capabilities and optimizing energy use for the operation of the high-capacity computing infrastructure.

“Cassandra”, Lenovo’s new HPC system that will be installed in Lecce, is composed of 180 SD650 V3 nodes with two Intel® Xeon® Max 9480 CPUs, the first x86 processor with high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and can reach a processing power of 1.2 PetaFlops[1] peak, with an increase of 100% compared to the solution currently in operation at CMCC.

Cassandra also ensures better energy efficiency, allowing electricity consumption for system cooling to be kept 15% lower than similar air-cooled solutions, with the use of Lenovo Neptune™ Direct Water-Cooling technology that is able to capture up to 98% of the heat produced by the supercomputer. Liquidcooling saves the energy used for the fans, and thanks to the increased efficiency, the temperature of the CPUs does not reach critical values, avoiding the reduction of the maximum frequency of the cores.

In addition, CMCC plans to integrate the system with a dedicated AI workload solution based on 2 nodes with 8 Nvidia H100 GPUs each. The installation of this system is planned for the second half of the year.1

HPC to solve the challenges of climate change

Founded in 2005 with the financial support of the then MIUR, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Finance, the CMCC was born with the specific aim of carrying out studies and models of the climate system, ensuring reliable, timely and rigorous results useful for designing sustainable growth, protecting the environment and developing adaptation and mitigation policies based on knowledge Scientific.

Today, the CMCC is a global reference point for the integrated study of climate-related issues and is one of the few facilities in Europe dedicated exclusively to research on climate change and its interactions with society and economic systems. HPC systems are valuable tools for CMCC scientists, who have the task of processing, thanks to supercomputers, the data collected in the field to predict how the climate will change and what effects these changes will have on the planet and human activities.

On the new Cassandra supercomputer, climate simulation models of the earth system, the ocean, both global and regional seasonal forecasting systems, AI-based climate change applications will be executed.

A strong partnership

Lenovo’s new supercomputer will be installed in 2024 at the CMCC Supercomputing Center (SCC), which has been active since 2008 and is currently the largest computing facility in Italy entirely dedicated to the study of climate change, as well as one of the most advanced in Europe. The Supercomputing Center already hosts an HPC system from Lenovo: “Juno, installed in 2022, which has a total computing power of approximately 1,134 TFlops and is based on Intel® Xeon®processors and NVIDIA GPUs.

“We are delighted with this renewed collaboration with CMCC, which today is a center of excellence in Europe for research on climate change, a crucial topic for our time and for future generations,” said Alessandro de Bartolo, CEO and Country General Manager Infrastructure Solutions Group at Lenovo. “High-performance computing is a valuable tool to address the challenge of complexity in research institutes, laboratories but also in the enterprise because it makes calculations, analyses and simulations that were previously time-consuming and expensive accessible. Lenovo is the world’s leading supplier of supercomputers and at the same time took the top spot in the Green500, the ranking that measures the energy efficiency of HPC systems. Our ambition is to constantly elevate the performance of supercomputers by ensuring that our HPC systems maintain sustainable energy consumption levels.”

“Over the years, since the first installation of HPC systems at SCC, Lenovo has proven to be a very reliable technological partner by offering cutting-edge solutions, which have allowed CMCC researchers to obtain important results in climate simulations,” notes Prof. Giovanni Aloisio, Director of the CMCC Supercomputing Center.

The new supercomputer will be installed by Ricca IT, a Lenovo certified business partner, which over the years has gained significant experience in the HPC and AI fields, among the most recognized companies on the Italian scene. 

1 A petaflop equals a thousand trillion calculations per second (a trillion is a million per third), where “peta” stands for 10 to 15 (10^15) while “flop” stands for floating point operations per second, i.e. the number of floating-point operations performed in one second.