![futurescope:
Nike Makes Sustainable Materials Data Available To All
via Co.Exist:
The shoe company has a lot of data about different materials, where to get them, and what they do to the planet. And now they’re making that info available to try to improve the world’s supply chains. […] Nike announced this week the Nike Open Challenge for Sustainable Materials, which asks anyone who might be interested to use its dataset of sustainable materials (developed over the past eight years) to “let anyone select materials beautifully, simply, and accurately, based on sustainability,” according to Random Hacks of Kindness, Nike’s partner in the challenge. Ultimately, RHOK imagines a tool that could let manufacturers compare non-organic cotton from a great supplier to organic cotton from a decent supplier on the fly. […] Even if you don’t have the chops to develop a tool for the Open Challenge, Nike still may have some useful information for you: the company’s recently launched Material Choice and Impact site. We can see, for example, that Nike’s nylon women’s shorts have a high waste and water impact, but don’t have much of a chemistry or energy impact.
[read more @Co.Exist & @RHOK] [NIKE: Challenge & API & Material Choice and Impact]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m562643wcW1r08k60o1_500.png)
Google’s Non-Split Stock Split
The key aspect of Google’s earnings yesterday was the don’t-call-it-a-stock-split stock split. I say “don’t-call-it-a-stock-split” because it technically wasn’t one, but it was effectively one. There will now be double the number of Google shares outstanding. It’s just that the shares won’t all be equal. Half of them will be of a different type of class, which is important when it comes to company governance. Those shares will carry no voting power.
I’m not going to pretend to understand all of the intricacies here. But I think Felix Salmon has the most interesting take on the news. He flat-out calls the maneuver evil.
He notes that for much of the 20th century, dual-class voting shares were illegal. And even when they came back in 1986, the idea was to have protections in place. The majority of independent shareholders (so, non-management and non-directors) were supposed to approve such a move.
But Google didn’t see to that. Instead, they appointed a small committee of independent directors (so, just those that don’t actually work at Google) to make the call on the proposal. And because that committee approved it, it will now go before all the shareholders for a vote in June. And, notably, that vote will include Google’s management.
