Shake Shack — Fast food chain is the latest to trial four-day work week
No shame if reducing the working week by an entire day is too extreme for your brand! How else could you show your staff you take burnout seriously?
US-based fast food chain Shake Shack announced in March 2019 that it was trialing a four-day work week for some of its employees. Designed to help its recruitment and retention efforts, Shake Shack's program applies to managers working at restaurants in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Antonio and Detroit. The trial comes after a report by a New Zealand-based insurance firm, Perpetual Guardian, which found that its four-day work week trial improved its employees' productivity by 20% and work-life balance by 24%.

The Dawn — Retreat offers burnout rehab for executives
That this program is choosing to go brain-cell-level-deep with its participants demonstrates how severe burnout can be.
A Thailand-based rehab and wellness center, The Dawn, launched a therapeutic retreat for burnt-out executives in Q2 2019. The program is designed to help overworked executives cope with and prevent workplace stress. Participants undergo a psychological evaluation and are involved in activities such as personal training, meditation, yoga, one-on-one and group therapy, trauma release sessions and transcranial magnetic stimulation treatments. The cost of the two-week program is USD 6,000.

Anti-996 — Developer projects protest China's 996 working culture
Even in the most work-centric societies, people are speaking out. Is there an unhealthy practice in your sector your brand is brave enough to help change?
Two Chinese contributors published the Anti-996 license on Github in Q2 2019. It takes a stand against a 996 work schedule (9 am to 9 pm, six days per week) that some Chinese companies enact. If a coder adopts the Anti-996 license, any companies using their software must agree to follow Chinese and international labor standards, and not allow 996 without overtime pay.

Rite-Aid — Drugstore switches from selling e-cigarettes to CBD
Rite-Aid’s move is a telling sign of the times: it’s becoming more lucrative to trade in wellness and stress-relief than in harmful vices. Does your brand need to make a similar pivot?
April 2019 saw US drugstore chain Rite Aid announce that it will begin selling CBD products in its stores. The roll-out will coincide with its ceasing sales of e-cigarettes. For the pilot rollout in 200 stores across Oregon and Washington, Rite Aid will stock CBD lip balms, lotions and creams.

Thriva — Stress test tracks spikes in users' cortisol levels
How can you help your customers or staff identify when their stress peaks, and prevent it from rising even further in those moments?
UK-based home health company Thriva launched its Stress Test offering in Q1 2019. The saliva-based test measures users' cortisol to help them identify if their stress levels are higher than they should be, and when their cortisol levels spike throughout the day. Users chew on a piece of a material four times within one day and then send the samples back to Thriva for analysis. Thriva's offering, priced at GBP 79, promises results within 48 hours.

Calm — Meditation unicorn releases album and gives free access to teachers and students
2019 has seen meditation app Calm achieve ‘unicorn’ status and push forward with two initiatives. In Q1, electronic artist Moby released an album exclusively on the app. Moby’s Long Ambients 2 consists of six, 37-minute long tracks designed to help listeners relax. Calm also continued to give every K-12 teacher and their students free access to the Premium service. Calm intends to reach 100,000 classrooms by year end.

Samsung — Robotic air purifier senses, then moves to, dirtiest area
Let’s be clear, this is an adorable-looking solution to an ugly problem.
South Korea-based Samsung debuted the Samsung Bot Air, a robotic air purifier, in February 2019 at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas. Using sensors that are located throughout the home, the bot can assess indoor air quality and move directly to the area most in need of purifying. The device uses lighting to show real-time improvement in air quality, red for bad quality and green for fresh air. Pricing and availability have yet to be announced.

IKEA — Air purifying curtain destroys pollutants
Brands like Ikea, with global reach and accessible pricing will rapidly take this trend from premium to mass
February 2019 saw Ikea announce the development of the Gunrid air purifying curtain, designed to reduce indoor air pollutants. Prompted by reports that indoor air pollution accounts for more deaths than outdoor pollution, Ikea created curtains that destroy toxins found primarily inside, such as formaldehyde. The curtains are treated with minerals that break down pollutants when light shines on them, via a process similar to photosynthesis. Ikea’s version of this technology is the first to be activated by indoor light. The Gunrid curtains will go on sale in 2020.

Nasofilters — Startup develops air pollution filters for the nose
This startup shows that we’ve far from seen every approach to tackling this issue. Rather than improving an existing product, could you reimagine the solution entirely?
India-based nanotechnology startup Nanoclean Global raised USD 600,000 in a pre-Series A funding round in February 2019 to develop its Nasofilters, air filters that attach to a person's nostrils. Each respiratory filter is made from nanofibers more than 100 times smaller than regular thread and can be worn for up to 12 hours, protecting the wearer from pollution, bacteria, dust mites and pollen allergens. A pack of six retails for INR 80.36 (USD 1.15).

Absolut — Murals help improve air quality
March 2019 saw the launch of Absolut Street Trees, an eco-oriented mural project in Mexico City backed by France-based alcohol beverage producer Pernod Ricard. Created using Airlite, a type of paint that purportedly purifies polluted air in a process akin to photosynthesis, three brightly colored murals cover nearly 21,000 square feet across the façades of buildings in the Cuauhtémoc, Juárez and Roma neighborhoods. With the aim of reducing pollution in an amount equivalent to that produced by 60,000 cars a year, the murals were produced by renowned artists Boa Mistura, Revost and Seher One.

Hahnwa Galleria — Chameleon-like shopping mall sends a head-turning warning
Starting April 2019, Hanhwa Galleria, a mall in South Korea, now changes the colors on the outside of the building to inform pedestrians of air pollution levels. If the city’s levels of fine dust are high, the exterior’s lighting and video displays are red; if the levels are low, it shows shades of green. When levels are severe, the mall gives free face masks to visitors.