Activists protest greenwashing in Amsterdam on Nov. 25. Photo: ROMY ARROYO FERNANDEZ – NURPHOTO – GETTY IMAGES
By Andrew Martin via Fortune • Reposted: April 9, 2023
The apparel sector is responsible for between 2 and 8% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. As one of the most polluting industries on the planet, it must urgently reduce its environmental impacts.
To date, efforts to transition to a more responsible industry are often self-policed. While real commitments to drive impact have been made, this has historically been more a result of deep commitments from some brands, retailers, and manufacturers to create positive change across the industry.
Voluntary initiatives have helped make real strides towards a more responsible sector. However, they alone cannot drive the necessary scale of change. Our own initiative, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) represents around half of the global apparel and footwear industry. We know there are brands, retailers, and manufacturers who are already going beyond baseline standards to lower their environmental and social impacts–but now we need to see everyone working towards the same ambitious goals.
Regulation is a crucial lever for creating an apparel and footwear industry that protects both people and the planet. Unfortunately, it has lagged far behind what’s required for such a vast global industry. But this is changing, and fast.
Green and social regulation is coming for the apparel sector. In 2023, we expect momentum to build globally for the widespread policing of apparel’s sustainability claims. At the SAC, we believe this is long overdue.
The EU Commission recently proposed the hotly anticipated European Substantiating Green Claims Directive, aimed at fighting misleading advertising and stamping out greenwashing. It will require all environmental claims to be backed up with credible evidence. Legislation is in the pipeline elsewhere too. In the U.S., for example, a federal act to protect garment workers’ rights–the FABRIC Act (Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change Act)–is in the offing. The New York Fashion Act is another proposed bill that would require companies with revenues of over $100 million doing business in the state to disclose their environmental performance and climate targets.
Due to the nature of some of the work we do at the SAC, it may come as a surprise that we don’t think voluntary action alone can solve apparel’s sustainability problems. But the situation is too urgent–and all our futures depend on it. The window in which we can act on the climate crisis is rapidly closing. Consistent, science-backed regulation is needed to help drive the tangible, industry-wide progress we need.
New laws to protect people and the environment will not render voluntary initiatives like ours obsolete, as we believe our role sits comfortably alongside legislation. Through developing tools and frameworks, and sharing knowledge, experience, and best practice, not only can we support apparel and footwear businesses to deliver against legal requirements, but also be an accelerator for positive change on a global scale with the help of smart regulation. This should be the approach for all consumer goods industries.
However, we want to highlight the need for such legislation to be harmonized and mandatory. The proposal for the EU Substantiating Green Claims Directive does not mandate a single, clearly defined framework based on scientific foundations, such as the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), which opens the door to a range of alternative methodologies and could undermine rather than advance progress in the sector. We are concerned that the directive will create confusion for brands and retailers looking to advance their sustainability credentials, in turn leading to an increase in miscommunication to consumers.
In addition, the directive opens to door to different interpretations by member states, which risks leading to greater fragmentation when it comes to how we articulate and communicate environmental impacts in EU countries. In a climate emergency, this is not how to create the clarity we need to drive mass consumer change. As the move towards proper policing accelerates, we need to ensure a consistent approach is taken worldwide.
In the meantime, organizations must have a clear and consistent method for calculating a product’s environmental footprint. To date, the PEF still represents the most holistic, scientifically grounded method for assessing the environmental impact of a product, reducing inconsistencies in how life cycle assessments (LCAs) can be interpreted. We firmly believe action needs to start today, not further down the line while further revisions are developed, consulted on, and piloted. We need clear legislation that removes confusion and supports positive business action.
No industry can police itself. It’s time to regulate apparel and footwear’s environmental and social impacts. Strong legislation will drive everyone in our sector–as well as the wider consumer goods industry–to step up and take responsibility. At the SAC, we recognize that regulation will bring us closer to our shared goal of an industry that leaves the world in a better place. We’re calling on other voluntary organizations to do the same.
Andrew Martin is the executive vice president at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
An integrated approach to quality and sustainability leads to increased efficiency and cost savings. By Bob Ferrone via The Quality Digest • Reposted: April 8, 2023
Quality and sustainability are two critical aspects of modern business operations that are closely intertwined. While quality refers to the level of excellence or standard achieved in a product or service, sustainability relates to the ability to maintain or improve that quality over time while minimizing negative impacts on the environment, society, and the economy.
These two concepts are not mutually exclusive and can, in fact, complement each other when integrated into an organization’s operations. Bringing quality and sustainability together in an organization can create synergies that drive innovation, reduce costs, and enhance reputation, among other benefits.
One of the most significant advantages of integrating quality and sustainability is the ability to identify and address environmental and social risks early in the product design process. By leveraging quality management systems, such as ISO 9001, organizations can establish procedures for identifying, assessing, and managing risks that could affect the quality of their products or services.
Similarly, sustainability standards, such as ISO 14001, can help organizations identify and manage environmental risks that could affect their operations, supply chain, or stakeholders. By combining these two systems, organizations can develop a more comprehensive risk management approach that considers both quality and sustainability effects, thereby reducing the likelihood of costly product recalls, repetitional damage, or legal liabilities.
Holistic manufacturing
When quality and sustainability meet, the result is a harmonious combination of two important principles that drive businesses and consumers toward a better future. Quality is the measurement of excellence in products and services, while sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Quality products are designed to last longer, perform better, and provide greater value to the consumer. On the other hand, sustainable products are produced in a manner that minimizes harm to the environment and conserves natural resources. The combination of these two principles creates products that are not only of high quality but also environmentally responsible.
To achieve this balance, companies must take a holistic approach to product development and manufacturing. They must consider the entire life cycle of a product, from the sourcing of raw materials to the disposal of the end product (cradle to cradle). By using environmentally friendly materials, reducing waste, and implementing energy-efficient processes, companies can create products that not only perform well but also have a minimal impact on the environment.
Consumers also play a critical role in promoting sustainability and quality. By choosing to purchase products that are of high quality as well as sustainable, they are sending a message to the market that these principles are important to them. This demand for quality and sustainability drives companies to invest in these areas and encourages them to continue to innovate and improve their practices.
Two departments with shared goals
Quality and sustainability managers must collaborate and work together to achieve the best possible outcomes for their organization. While their areas of focus may be different, there is significant overlap in their goals, including reducing waste, improving efficiency, and enhancing customer satisfaction.
By working together, quality and sustainability managers can identify opportunities to streamline processes, reduce environmental impacts, and increase profitability. Today, with advances in technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), it is now also possible to collect and analyze large amounts of data to identify trends and patterns that can help organizations improve their processes, products, and environmental effects in real time.
When quality and sustainability meet, everyone benefits. Companies are able to produce products that are both environmentally responsible and of high quality, while consumers are able to enjoy products that not only perform well but also contribute to a better future. This harmonious combination is crucial in shaping a more sustainable future for all.
A framework for sustainable development
As the world becomes more aware of the effect of human activity on the planet, consumers and businesses alike are taking steps to mitigate its impact and ensure a sustainable future. Sustainable development strategy for all organizations has become an important issue around the globe. (Evidence for climate change abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depth of the oceans.) It has required organizations to review their current systems to improve the overall triple bottom-line performance (i.e., economic, environmental, and social). Rising to these challenges requires transforming management systems and incorporating sustainable management systems throughout the organization.
Synergies between total quality management (TQM) and sustainable development have been discussed, but further important synergies between quality management and environmental management have not yet been fully explored. Process focus and process management are believed to be important for realizing these synergies. Assuming TQM effects on organizations will continue, what types of TQM improvement initiatives will develop in the future to meet the anticipated organizational changes?
Sustainable development frameworks encourage businesses to ask better questions about effects on stakeholders, society, and the environment, and they seek to develop the tools and measures needed to demonstrate improvements. The sustainability of the organization relies on its ability to monitor the external environment for opportunities, trends, and risks, and also its ability to learn, change, and innovate in response to the results of monitoring. To achieve environmental sustainability, organizations should focus on results as well as process.
An industrial revolution in quality
The quality revolution that took place in manufacturing companies during the late 1970s offers a number of parallels that can help city government and corporate decision-makers understand and address sustainability challenges. At the onset, quality initiatives were viewed by most companies as nothing more than an added cost—something to be tacked onto the end of existing manufacturing systems to prevent low-quality products from reaching customers.
The evolution from quality inspection at the end of a line to total quality management in the United States was in direct response to a quality revolution in Japan following World War II. Japan had a widely held reputation for shoddy, poor-quality exports, and their goods were shunned by international markets. This led Japanese organizations to explore new ways of thinking about quality. The Japanese welcomed input from foreign companies and lecturers, including two American quality experts who changed the world’s leaders’ thinking about TQM. More than a half-century ago, quality pioneers W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran encouraged organizations to ask better questions about corporate challenges, enabling companies to redesign systems for improvement.
It started with a systems approach, and then incorporated quality by means of practical analytical tools to foster product, service, and organizational improvements. In the process of bringing quality improvement, they also elevated quality management’s value to the corporation. Their work inspired corporations to move quality management from a noncritical process to the mainstream.
Quality management has evolved significantly over the years, from a technical and inspection-oriented approach to a more holistic and customer-focused approach. Today, quality management is an integral part of organizational performance, with an emphasis on continuous improvement, risk-based thinking, and data-driven decision making.
Environmental awareness
Two other prominent figures who had a significant effect on the environment were John Kenneth Galbraith and Rachel Louise Carson. Both individuals were influential in their respective fields, and their contributions helped shape the way we view and understand the natural world. Galbraith’s work (The New Industrial State; Princeton University Press, revised edition 2007) helped bring attention to the issue of environmental degradation and its relationship to the economy. His ideas influenced the development of environmental policy and helped shape the modern environmental movement.
Carson’s work (Silent Spring; Houghton Mifflin, 1962) also helped inspire a shift in public opinion regarding the natural world. Her vivid descriptions of the beauty and fragility of nature helped create a new appreciation of the natural world and its importance to human well-being.
Both individuals were instrumental in the development of the modern environmental movement, and their work continues to inspire and influence environmental policy and conservation efforts that are underway worldwide today.
These four individuals had a major influence on business and the private sector. Juran and Deming opened the eyes of industry to the importance of quality management. Galbraith, who was known for his critical analysis of modern capitalism, opened the eyes of the business community to how the economy affects environment issues. Carson’s book inspired the general public toward innovative thinking.
Innovative thinking
There a number of forward-looking organizations that view quality and sustainability as a competitive advantage. Take the case of Toyota: It viewed quality as an opportunity rather than a cost, and its investment in total quality management paid off handsomely. Rather than simply posting inspectors at the end of the assembly line, Toyota integrated quality considerations earlier in its assembly lines and the processes that preceded manufacturing, such as product design, and research and development (R&D). Next, Toyota pushed quality considerations even further upstream by working with suppliers to develop quality standards for the materials flowing into the assembly lines.
Eventually Toyota expanded quality management beyond products into behaviors, asking how its people could collaborate more effectively to ensure higher-quality processes. This deeper, more integrated approach to TQM paid off in the form of competitive advantage, as the success of Toyota in the 1990s and beyond demonstrates. The quality effort took Toyota from the back of the pack to the industry leader in automobile quality, reliability, and sales. In setting the standard for others to meet, Toyota is integrating quality and environmental cultures to gain a true understanding of total waste. In the future, it may set the standard in the auto industry on sustainability management as well.
Sustainability as a business function
Sustainability has not left its infancy, but there are strong signs that select companies are positioning themselves to benefit from sustainability opportunities. Walmart, General Electric, FedEx, Toyota, Hilton, and Budweiser are among those managing environmental risks, just as others used the quality revolution to succeed in their markets.
Rather than treating sustainability as a risk and cost to be managed, leaders are starting to integrate sustainability into their processes and cultures, in some cases collaborating with a broad range of partners, including governmental and nongovernmental organizations and initiatives. A prime example of this collaboration is the Energy Star program, which was developed by industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The powerful external forces of competition, government, and consumers are driving sustainability and may soon nudge its evolution into a full-blown revolution. As the development of sustainability programs continues, companies with the structure and talent necessary to integrate sustainability capabilities deeper in their organizations and cultures will have a competitive advantage. As we struggle with approaches to reduce our effects on our climate, the answers may be in the quality tools that all sectors understand.
Sustainability does, however, mean that TQM should not be left as an “act of fate.” It needs to be managed through a strategic perspective, emphasizing measurement and action. It should also focus not only on meeting the end-customer’s requirements but also on all those who interact through their products or processes. Companies should look at how TQM could contribute to sustainability by reinforcing the economic dimension.
This could be seen as making sustainability more business-focused. The opposite would be to see how sustainability could contribute to TQM by broadening the focus to all the dimensions of the total business, widening the focus from the supply chain to customers to stakeholders.
New opportunities
The question is whether we can effect a cross-organizational collaboration to build a new approach to sustainability in government, industry, and the private sector. An important issue is whether organizations can build the bridges to bring the culture of quality management and environmental management together. Both have much to offer on the battlefield of efficiency.
I believe there’s definitely a disconnection there. But there are opportunities through collaboration and education, with the same vision and goals in becoming efficient in all areas and cutting waste. I strongly believe in the use of technologies, design, processes, and cultural change as keys to solving global issues and climate change.
By integrating quality management and sustainability management, organizations can ensure that they are producing high-quality products and services while minimizing their environmental impact, promoting social equity, and preserving natural resources for future generations. This can include implementing sustainable production processes, reducing waste and emissions, ensuring ethical sourcing of raw materials, and promoting the use of renewable energy sources.
Moreover, an integrated approach to quality and sustainability management can also lead to increased efficiency and cost savings, as well as improved reputation and brand value. It can help organizations to meet the expectations of increasingly socially and environmentally conscious consumers and stakeholders, and to stay competitive in a rapidly changing business environment. It can be a challenging process, but it can also lead to significant benefits for the organization and society as a whole.
Ron Jarvis, Home Depot chief sustainability officer, gives a lecture in Jessica Thomas’ MBA 582: Sustainability and Business course Oct. 30, 2019 at Nelson Hall. Photo: NC University
From The Home Depot • Reposted: April 8, 2023
ReducingThe Home Depot’s environmental impact is essential to our efforts to build a better business, workplace and world. Home Depot’s chief sustainability officer Ron Jarvis has spent more than two decades driving sustainability improvements at The Home Depot. Here he offers insights into our progress.
Who drives ESG at The Home Depot?
Many associates and business leaders throughout our enterprise! They take pride in improving their departments and businesses in multiple ESG aspects. Our leadership understands that an effective environmental, social and governance strategy cannot happen in isolation. It is not the sole responsibility of a corporate ESG team. Rather, our ESG strategy must reflect The Home Depot’s core values, and it must be embedded in all aspects of how we run our business. Everybody owns it.
How have associates helped drive ESG progress at The Home Depot?
One of our eight core values is Do The Right Thing, which drives our associates to find new ways that our organization can reduce its environmental impact. This can be seen through our packaging team who looks for ways to reduce the package footprints and ways to use more sustainable materials for our private-label products. Another example are our associates who work to find ways to upcycle the packaging waste in our stores and supply chain into new products like Trex composite decking.
How is The Home Depot helping customers increase the sustainability of their homes and businesses?
Our Eco Actions program, which builds on our original Eco Options program that we launched in 2007, helps our customers take on more sustainable DIY projects and choose greener products that can save water, conserve energy or are formulated to reduce certain chemicals. Products can only qualify for this distinction if manufacturers provide third-party verification of environmental claims that meet our program’s requirements. This program also offers customers green project ideas and tips, for example, how to grow an organic garden.
In addition, we encourage our customers to drop off used compact fluorescent light bulbs and rechargeable batteries for recycling. In 2021, we collected 1,162,800 pounds of recycled batteries, a 24% increase since 2014.
We also help our customers go greener in ways that may be less apparent to them. For example, we offer circularity-centered products like our Home Depot-branded moving boxes, made from 100% post- consumer recycled paper fiber, as well as composite deck boards made from recycled plastic waste from our stores. We continue to make progress on our goal to exclude expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film from our private-brand product packaging by the end of 2023.
When customers rent tools from us, they help avoid the environmental impact of new product manufacturing. Another example: Our stores have cut electricity consumption 50% since 2010, providing our customers a lower energy intensive shopping environment.
Is sustainability a competitive advantage for The Home Depot?
Overall, we believe good business decisions drive sustainability.
Examples of this can be seen through the investments we’ve made to create the most efficient supply chain in home improvement. These investments have helped us reduce the number of trucks needed and distance traveled to get our products from our supplier to our customers, while also reducing fuel emissions. Another example of this is our store investments, part of which included transitioning stores to LED lighting, which helped us reduce operating costs and electricity consumption.
We also believe that by working with our suppliers to bring innovative and sustainable products to market, we help our customers create more sustainable homes and workplaces. Our efforts to drive innovation can be seen in every aisle of the store, and we believe this is a key differentiator in the market.
We also want to see sustainability be the norm for our entire industry. We are encouraged when we see other retailers take big swings and do innovative things that push all of us to do a better job of protecting the planet, and we hope the innovation that we bring through our operations and products motivates others to do the same.
By Chris Hagler from Triplepundit.com • Reposted • April 7, 2023
In many ways, private equity is made to be invested in environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. But it takes thoughtful strategies to ensure those investments generate maximum value for both business and society.
Record levels of cash reserves — including $1.1 trillion in the U.S. and another $6.3 trillion in assets under management — combined with increased investor focus on ESG could make private equity an attractive vehicle for creating real impact.
Why private equity is well-suited to ESG investment
ESG topics are important to limited partners and their stakeholders, especially those dealing in pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Ninety-three percent of limited partners said they would walk away from an investment opportunity if it posed an ESG concern, according to a 2022 survey from Bain and the Institutional Limited Partners Association.
Private equity operates with the long term in mind. Whereas executives of publicly-traded companies must manage their businesses to meet quarterly guidance, portfolio companies operate on a longer time horizon due to their average holding period being five to six years.
Likewise, ESG investment is also a longer-term play. Greenhouse gas emissions reductions could take years to realize, for instance. A focus on creating long-term value for businesses and for society is the key to ESG investing. This is fundamentally different from the quick turnarounds and rapid returns that have characterized decision-making in the past.
Private equity investors, as owners, have the authority to move nimbly on business strategy. Unlike public investors, who must engage with company management and often rely on shareholder resolutions and proxy voting to change strategies, private equity firms sit on the board and either control or heavily influence operations and strategy. As a result, private equity investors typically have much simpler engagement and faster decision-making.
ESG is increasingly recognized as a value-lever, helping investors command a premium price at exit. Strong ESG management can bolster performance and attract future investors. It can also create higher values for limited partners when they eventually sell their assets.
Given a hypothetical opportunity to acquire a new business, executives and investment professionals say they would be willing to pay roughly 10 percent more for a company with an overall positive record on ESG issues versus a company with an overall negative record, according to a research from McKinsey.
Private equity firms aren’t compromising financial returns for a societal return
Strong ESG performance, backed up by credible data and communicated well, can help deliver a premium price at exit. Private equity firms should ask the following questions to be sure they aren’t leaving value on the table.
Have you identified ESG or climate risks that could materialize over your hold period and impact your exit strategy? EQT Infrastructure, a large, natural gas company in the U.S., turned climate risk into an investment opportunity last year when it acquired two North American subsidiaries of the U.K.-based transportation service providers First Student and First Transit. Increasing energy prices, and potential future regulations associated with the use of traditional fuel sources, are climate risks that could materially impact such transportation businesses. EQT’s investment thesis is centered around electrifying the First Student and First Transit fleets, thus accelerating its transition to renewable fuel sources.
Are there opportunities to shift business models to be more sustainable or solve your customers’ sustainability challenges? A tool manufacturer may shift to a rental model for equipment that is not frequently used, for example. This business model can open up new markets of users for their products, as well as reduce the environmental impact of creating new tools.
Or a financial services company may build a new product to educate consumers on the benefits of solar installations and then finance the installation.This would drive additional revenue and reduce global emissions.
Do your portfolio companies understand the business value of their ESG efforts? Partners Group, a Swiss private equity firm with $135 billion in assets, worked with a global provider of outsourced pharmaceutical supply chain solutions, PCI Pharma, to reduce waste and energy and improve worker safety. The ESG initiative reduced costs with improved recycling, reduced energy usage, and better worker compensation insurance rates — ultimately improving the bottom line.
Can you leverage efforts across your portfolio companies?L Catterton, a consumer-focused private equity firm managing $33 billion in assets, utilized the scale of its portfolio to develop an emissions offset program for small parcel deliveries whereby FedEx will measure emissions of select deliveries, allowing companies that opt-in to track their emissions and purchase offsets via Bluesource.
Are there companies in your portfolio that could command an “ESG premium” at exit with appropriate measurement and communication? For example, a chemical manufacturer that provides greener and safer chemicals to various end markets may be able to attract impact investors and command a premium at exit if it’s able to articulate its products’ specific environmental impact compared to the alternatives.
Similarly, a staffing business with a small but growing diverse recruiting offering can demonstrate its social impact and attract strategic buyers who already have diversity commitments.
The bottom line
Focused ESG actions by private equity drive efficiency, profitability and resiliency. Successful firms right-size their ESG actions and combine careful due diligence with strategic initiatives for value creation well before exit in order to drive both business and societal growth. Is your firm leaving value on the table?
The Uphams Corner Food Forest in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood was built on a vacant lot. Photo: Boston Food Forest Coalition, CC BY-ND
By Karen A. Spiller, Thomas W. Haas Professor in Sustainable Food Systems, University of New Hampshire and Prakash Kashwan, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Brandeis University via The Conversation • Reposted: April 4, 2023
More than half of all people on Earth live in cities, and that share could reach 70% by 2050. But except for public parks, there aren’t many models for nature conservation that focus on caring for nature in urban areas.
One new idea that’s gaining attention is the concept of food forests – essentially, edible parks. These projects, often sited on vacant lots, grow large and small trees, vines, shrubs and plants that produce fruits, nuts and other edible products.
Unlike community gardens or urban farms, food forests are designed to mimic ecosystems found in nature, with many vertical layers. They shade and cool the land, protecting soil from erosion and providing habitat for insects, animals, birds and bees. Many community gardens and urban farms have limited membership, but most food forests are open to the community from sunup to sundown.
As scholars who focus on conservation, social justice and sustainable food systems, we see food forests as an exciting new way to protect nature without displacing people. Food forests don’t just conserve biodiversity – they also promote community well-being and offer deep insights about fostering urban nature in the Anthropocene, as environmentally destructive forms of economic development and consumption alter Earth’s climate and ecosystems.
Community stewards planting a tree at Boston’s Edgewater Food Forest at River Street, July 2021. Photo: Boston Food Forest Coalition/Hope Kelley, CC BY-ND
Protecting nature without pushing people away
Many scientists and world leaders agree that to slow climate change and reduce losses of wild species, it’s critical to protect a large share of Earth’s lands and waters for nature. Under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, 188 nations have agreed on a target of conserving at least 30% of land and sea areas globally by 2030 – an agenda known popularly as 30×30.
But there’s fierce debate over how to achieve that goal. In many cases, creating protected areas has displaced Indigenous peoples from their homelands. What’s more, protected areas are disproportionately located in countries with high levels of economic inequality and poorly functioning political institutions that don’t effectively protect the rights of poor and marginalized citizens in most cases.
In contrast, food forests promote civic engagement. At Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, volunteers worked with professional landscape architects and organized public meetings to seek community input on the project’s design and development. The city of Atlanta’s Urban Agriculture Team partners with neighborhood residents, volunteers, community groups and nonprofit partners to manage the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill.
And those gaps still exist. In 2021, the city reported that communities of color that had been subjected to redlining in the past had 16% less parkland and 7% less tree cover than the citywide median. These neighborhoods were 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 degrees Celsius) hotter during the day and 1.9 F (1 C) hotter at night, making residents more vulnerable to urban heat waves that are becoming increasingly common with climate change.
Encouragingly, Boston has been at the forefront of the national expansion of food forests. The unique approach here places ownership of these parcels in a community trust. Neighborhood stewards manage the sites’ routine care and maintenance.
The nonprofit Boston Food Forest Coalition, which launched in 2015, is working to develop 30 community-driven food forests by 2030. The existing nine projectsare helping to conserve over 60,000 square feet (5,600 square meters) of formerly vacant urban land – an area slightly larger than a football field.
Neighborhood volunteers choose what to grow, plan events and share harvested crops with food banks, nonprofit and faith-based meal programs and neighbors. Local collective action is central to repurposing open spaces, including lawns, yards and vacant lots, into food forests that are linked together into a citywide network. The coalition, a community land trust that partners with the city government, holds Boston food forests as permanently protected lands.
Aerial view of the Ellington Community Food Forest in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Photo: Boston Food Forest Coalition, CC BY-ND
Boston’s food forests are small in size: They average 7,000 square feet (650 square meters) of reclaimed land, about 50% larger than an NBA basketball court. But they produce a wide range of vegetables, fruit and herbs, including Roxbury Russet apples, native blueberries and pawpaws, a nutritious fruit native to North America. The forests also serve as gathering spaces, contribute to rainwater harvesting and help beautify neighborhoods.
The Boston Food Forest Coalition provides technical assistance and fundraising support. It also hires experts for tasks such as soil remediation, removing invasive plants and installing accessible pathways, benches and fences.
Hundreds of volunteers take part in community work days and educational workshops on topics such as pruning fruit trees in winter. Gardening classes and cultural events connect neighbors across urban divides of class, race, language and culture. Boston residents explain what the city’s food forests mean to them.
A growing movement
According to a crowd-sourced repository, the U.S. has more than 85 community food forests in public spaces from the Pacific Northwest to the Deep South. Currently, most of these sites are in larger cities. In a 2021 survey, mayors from 176 small cities (with populations under 25,000) reported that long-term maintenance was the biggest challenge of sustaining food forests in their communities.
From our experience observing Boston’s approach close up, we believe its model of community-driven food forests is promising. The city sold land to the Boston Food Forest Coalition’s community land trust for $100 per parcel in 2015 and also funded initial construction and planting operations. Since then, the city has made food forests an important part of the city’s open spaces program as it continues to sell parcels to the community land trust at the same price.
Smaller cities with much lower tax bases may not be able to make the same sort of investments. But Boston’s community-driven model offers a viable approach for maintaining these projects without burdening city governments. The city has adopted innovative zoning and permitting ordinances to support small-scale urban agriculture.
Building a food forest brings together neighbors, neighborhood associations, community-based organizations and city agencies. It represents a grassroots response to the interconnected crises of climate change, environmental degradation and social and racial inequity. We believe food forests show how to build a just and sustainable future, one person, seedling and neighborhood at a time.
Orion Kriegman, the founding executive director of the Boston Food Forest Coalition, contributed to this article.
USAID distributes food assistance in East Africa, where an unprecedented drought is pushing millions to the brink of starvation. Image credit: USAID U.S. Agency for International Development/Flickr
By Eric Bebernitz, Director of External Relations, Action Against Hunger via Triplepundit.com • Reposted: April 3, 2023
Companies are working to meet rising stakeholder expectations on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in ways that can differentiate, build brand reputation, and engage employees. Yet the predominant approach misses a critical opportunity since it doesn’t focus on a critical issue that few want to face: global hunger.
Hear me out. Just as the climate crisis is a universal challenge, global hunger is a fundamental issue that ultimately impacts business success — and humanity as a whole. In 2021, an Action Against Hunger survey with The Harris Poll found that nearly half of all Americans worry about increases to the price of food as a result of climate change. The most recent Trust Barometer found that 67 percent of people globally are worried about food shortages leading to hoarding, riots and hunger, which Edelman characterizes as an existential societal fear. As a priority, the issue ranked behind climate change and just ahead of energy shortages. It’s not hard to see why.
After decades of progress showed that it is possible to dramatically slash rates of malnutrition, global hunger is once again on the rise. Approximately 828 million people — 1 in 10 worldwide — are undernourished, and as many as 50 million people in 45 countries are on the verge of famine. The costs of inaction are high.
Yet global hunger is a predictable and preventable problem that we can solve in our lifetimes. Doing so can provide a strong return on investment. As a 2022 study showed, every $1 invested in preventing chronic malnutrition in children can result in gains from $2 to $81 annually. Among the range of ESG issues, addressing malnutrition stands out for its ability to advance other corporate priorities, such as the following.
Long-term workforce development
Hungry children struggle to learn, and hungry workers are less productive. Hunger robs the U.S. economy of at least $167.5 billion annually, and research published in The Lancet found that, across 95 low- and middle-income countries, childhood stunting costs the private sector at least $135.4 billion in sales annually, amounting to around 1.2 percent of national GDP.
Socio-economic growth
The U.S. Secretary of Commerce believes an aging population will hit the country “like a ton of bricks,” with migration as a potential solution. Africa is the only region projected to enjoy strong population growth long-term, which can provide a global demographic dividend — but only if we invest in the potential. Africa has the world’s youngest population as well as the highest hunger rates, with 9 out of 10 children not receiving even the minimum acceptable diet, according to the World Health Organization. One in 3 African children are permanently stunted by hunger, reducing the region’s present GDP per capita by 10 percent. Hunger is growing in other regions, as well.
Political stability
Conflict and global hunger are deeply linked. As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres noted in a 2020 report, income inequality is creating a vicious cycle of discontent, leading to mass protests in both developed and developing countries. Roughly 70 percent of the world’s most malnourished people live in countries with an active conflict, which disrupts harvests, hampers aid delivery, and creates a burgeoning population of displaced people. This can contribute to even greater instability, often in already fragile regions.
Permission to operate
The epochal shift from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism comes as a growing number of millennial and Gen Z adults — now a majority of the U.S. workforce and a growing share of the electorate — hold a negative view of capitalism itself. Public willingness to subsidize, tax and regulate business can, quite literally, hinge on bread-and-butter issues.
The bottom line: The untapped potential of investing to fight global hunger
Although addressing global hunger is a wise investment, it’s one that isn’t being made. Countries with “crisis” levels of hunger face a 53 percent gap in hunger funding. Corporate giving to health and social services dropped 5 percent in 2022, and median international community investments decreased by 15 percent, according to CECP. Among the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, companies consistently report providing the least support for the objective to eradicate global hunger.
Inaction is particularly unwise in an era when economic anxieties and the mass-class divide are eroding trust. The effect is sharply pronounced among those with lower incomes: In the U.S., for example, there is a 23-point gap in the levels of institutional trust among lower-income and higher-income groups. Lack of trust has a corrosive effect on society, dimming long-term economic prospects.
In other words, chronic inequality — a major driver of global hunger — is bad for business. Ending hunger is no longer about charity or even being “woke.” It is now essential to foster the kind of operating environment that is essential to business value and long-term success.
James Tucker got an efficient heat pump for his home near Oakland, Calif., last year. Now homeowners can get new credits for heat pumps from federal climate legislation. Photo: Julia Simon/NPR
By Julia Simon from National Public Radio • Reposted: April 3, 2023
Sales of super-efficient electric heat pumps are rising, now overtaking sales of gas furnaces in the U.S. But what are heat pumps? And why do some call them a key climate solution? Here are the answers to your most burning heat pump questions.
“A lot of people dislike the name ‘heat pump’, right? ‘Cause it doesn’t really convey, you know, the full range of what the machine can do,” he says.
Heat pumps can work for both heating and cooling. Kircher says you can think of a heat pump as an air conditioner that can also work backwards. The highly efficient machines use electricity and refrigerants to cool air on hot days.
In the winter, even if the outdoor air is cold, it’s still normally warmer than the refrigerant inside the heat pump, Kircher says. So the refrigerant can absorb bits of heat from the outdoor air and bring it inside to warm your home.
What are the climate benefits of heat pumps?
The fact that heat pumps use electricity is a big reason why governments around the world see them as a key climate solution, says Yannick Monschauer, energy analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris. That’s because heat pumps can replace gas furnaces, and the electricity they run on is increasingly powered by renewables, Monschauer says. Reducing gas usage in homes also reduces leaks of methane, a potent planet-heating gas.
Fossil fuel-based heating still accounted for 45% of global heating equipment sales in 2021. But if governments like the US and the European Union meet the targets laid out in climate legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and REPowerEU, heat pumps could significantly slash planet-heating fossil fuel use in buildings, Monschauer says.
“We see that heat pumps could bring down global CO2 emissions by half a gigaton by the end of this decade,” he says. “So that is comparable to the annual emissions of Canada.”
James Tucker with his heat pump that replaced his old gas furnace. Photo: Julia Simon/NPR
Will the government help me pay for it?
Last year’s federal climate legislation offers new economic incentives for homeowners to install heat pumps, says Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a research organization working on saving energy. An IRS spokesperson tells NPR that the new credits can translate to up to $2000 for efficient heat pumps bought after January 1, 2023. If you buy a new heat pump, Nadel says to keep your receipts for reference for next year’s tax season. If you bought a heat pump in 2022 you can get credit for this upcoming tax season, but the previous incentive was smaller, up to $500, the IRS says.
Some states and some utilities also give rebates for efficient heat pumps. Nadel says you should check with your utility to see if there are programs available in your area.
As for renters, it’s also possible to get credits for appliances like efficient heat pumps according to the IRS.
Do heat pumps actually work in cold temperatures?
Earlier generations of heat pumps didn’t work as efficiently in freezing temperatures, but Monschauer says there’s been great improvements in technology.
“In the coldest parts of Europe we also have the highest shares of heat pumps. So in Norway, for example, 60 percent of the households are equipped with heat pumps. And in Sweden and Finland it is also 40 percent. So it’s definitely proven that it’s possible.”
The heat pump systems commonly found in Scandinavian homes do not need to run on backup fossil fuels, Monschauer says.
Not all heat pumps sold in the U.S. work well in the coldest weather. It’s important that you consult with an installer who is familiar with heat pumps, and make sure to find a machine that’s most efficient for your weather, Nadel says.
“In a cold climate that gets below 20 degrees Fahrenheit fairly often, you should look into getting into an Energy Star cold climate certified heat pump,” Nadel says, referring to a U.S. government program that makes markers for efficiency.
Heat pumps can work for both heating and cooling. You can think of a heat pump as an air conditioner that can also work backwards. Photo: Julia Simon/NPR
Can heat pumps save money?
Because heat pumps move heat around instead of burning fossil fuels for heat, they are more efficient than gas furnaces. And while heat pumps are typically more expensive on the front end, the savings come over time when you end up spending less on gas, says Brian Rees, a heat pump installer at Bryant Air Conditioning & Heating Company in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Rees says the cost savings are what attract his customers to heat pumps, “It’s more about hitting their pocketbook,” he says. “It’s more about what’s going to save them money in the long run, and heat pumps will do that.”
Kircher says you can also save money if you can buy a heat pump for both your heating and cooling needs. “It’s typically cheaper than buying a gas furnace plus an air conditioner,” he says.
Are there downsides to heat pumps?
Like refrigerators or air conditioners, heat pumps use refrigerants. The primary refrigerants commonly used in heat pumps are called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, says Duncan Callaway, associate professor of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley. These HFCs have high global warming potential if they’re released into the atmosphere, Callaway says.
That’s why it’s critical that heat pump installers make sure that those refrigerants don’t leak and are disposed of properly, he says.
“We need well-trained technicians that sort of understand the importance of collecting that refrigerant and not letting it emit into the atmosphere,” Callaway says.
Kircher also notes that researchers are currently working on developing refrigerant substitutes for HFCs that can drastically reduce climate impacts.
According to recent research conducted by 3BL Media and TriplePundit in partnership with Glow, interest in sustainability and social impact issues is on the rise in the United States. The survey, which polled 3,648 U.S. adults from December 13-15, 2022, found that 67% of respondents regularly read news about sustainability, the environment, or social well-being.
The survey revealed that this interest is not limited to specific demographics. Respondents from all generations, genders, geographies, and income levels expressed a desire to learn more about sustainability and social impact. Despite inflation and recession concerns, climate change was ranked among the most pressing issues facing society today, with respondents across all age groups, income brackets, and geographic regions agreeing.
However, the research found that consumers are not satisfied with the level of commitment from businesses when it comes to tackling environmental and social challenges, saying companies should be doing more.
But they aren’t solely pointing the finger at business, as the data shows that consumers are willing to make changes in their own lives to reduce their impact on the planet, such as shopping secondhand, using reusable or refillable products, and buying less overall.
The results of the survey present a unique opportunity for businesses. Consumers are ready for change and eager to learn about new ideas and innovations that can make a measurable difference. Companies that step up and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and social impact issues can earn consumers’ trust, build brand reputation and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Ajay Banga is a former Mastercard CEO, past chair of the International Chamber of Commerce and an American. The U.S. is the largest World Bank shareholder, and the institution’s president has historically been American. Photo:Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images
By Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University via The Conversation • Reposted: April 2, 2023
Many low- and middle-income countries – the population the World Bank is tasked with helping – are falling deeper into debt and facing growing costs as the impacts of climate change increase in severity. A chorus of critics accuse the World Bank of failing to evolve to meet the crises.
The job of leading that reform is now almost certain to fall to Ajay Banga, an Indian American businessman and former CEO of Mastercard who was nominated by President Joe Biden to replace resigning World Bank President David Malpass. Nominations closed on March 29, 2023, with Banga the only candidate.
There is no shortage of advice for what Banga and the World Bank need to do.
The G-20 recently issued a report urging the World Bank and the other multilateral development banks to loosen their lending restrictions to get more money flowing to countries in need. A commission led by economists Nicholas Stern and Vera Songwe called for a rapid, sustained investment push that prioritizes transitioning to cleaner energy, achieving the U.N. sustainable development goals and meeting the needs of increasingly vulnerable countries.
African ministers of finance will soon come out with their own “to do” list for the World Bank, and India’s minister of finance just pulled together an expert group to consider World Bank reform.
Banga will walk into the job with these and many other to-do lists. Yet he will inherit a corporate culture that makes the World Bank Group too inwardly focused and too slow to respond.
I have worked for the World Bank Group and with it from the outside. I see four key roles – four “C’s” – that Banga will need to master from the outset. From his track record and his reputation for deep thoughtfulness, I am confident that he can.
1) Act as a CEO and get the entire World Bank Group house in order.
The World Bank Group is a conglomerate with four balance sheets, three cultures and four executive boards, plus a dispute resolution arm.
Lending to low- and middle-income countries is just part of its role. The World Bank Group also provides technical assistance across all areas of economic development and invests in and provides risk insurance to encourage companies to invest in projects and places they might otherwise consider too risky. Its ability to mobilize private-sector finance and stretch every dollar is crucial for meeting the world’s development and climate adaptation and mitigation needs.How the World Bank operates.
Banga will need to set clear goals for each part of the World Bank Group and get them working more effectively to help the world achieve its goals.
2) Assume the mantle of collaborator in chief to take on the debt and climate crises.
Many of the World Bank Group’s client countries are facing both mounting debt and rising costs from climate change.
The high cost of borrowing can hamper developing countries’ ability to invest in needed infrastructure to grow and protect their economies, and they fear being locked out of global trade as the United States’ green subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act and Europe’s border carbon tax may make it more difficult for them to compete.
The solutions to cascading problems like these cannot be managed by one institution. However, the current multilateral development bank system – the World Bank Group and the regional development banks – is disjointed at best and competitive at worst./
In the past, the leaders of the development banks, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have cooperated, more or less, depending on crises and personalities, and can move fast when they need to.
During the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, for example, the then-heads of the World Bank and the WTO hurried to develop trade finance facilities to support banks in developing countries as capital fled to the U.S. and Europe. It took intense diplomacy to push wealthy countries and institutions to get money out the door to shore up businesses and trade. Success was measured not in months but in days.
The new president of the World Bank will need to support more radical collaboration among development financial institutions, including pooling capital and talent, to help respond quickly to countries’ needs.
It won’t be easy. Institutional rivalries run deep. But with budgets tight, there is growing clarity that there is no choice – the capital that is already in the system is the closest at hand and can be deployed to better effect if the institutions are willing to adapt.
3) Be a convener.
Overhauling how international finance works will require everyone to be on board – development banks, central banks, regulators, investment banks, pension funds, insurance companies and private equity.
On other issues, such as nature-based solutions to climate change, building resilience and economic inclusion, the World Bank Group can bring its significant resources and skills, including data analysis, to global conversations that it has been painfully absent from for the past four years.
4) Be a champion for the most vulnerable.
The world’s most vulnerable people are the World Bank Group’s ultimate beneficiaries. For those living on the front line of biodiversity loss and climate impacts, such as extreme heat, drought and flooding, the current international financial system is proving inadequate.
The World Bank Group’s management incentives are still too oriented to lending approved by the board, not the outcomes of that lending, advice and assistance.
Throughout its history, World Bank leaders have been able to make rapid changesto better help vulnerable countries when they stay close to the needs of their ultimate beneficiaries and the goals that the world has set.
The next president faces turbulent times. Banga’s careful listening on his campaign tour signals that he understands the complexity. It’s an extraordinary moment in the history of the institution, with sky-high expectations of what one leader needs to do.
Outside the Department of Labour in Dhaka last month workers demanded that their shuttered garment factory be reopened Photo: Mamunur Rashid / shutterstock.com
When industrial agriculture and salmon production came to Chile, they brought new jobs to rural and indigenous women. But the work came with a hefty price tag.
It wiped out ancestral practices and shattered solidarity-based communities. Those working the graveyard shift in salmon-processing plants endured gruelling hours and saw their family bonds deteriorate.
The salaries were low—so low they couldn’t even be considered a living wage. When the pandemic hit and the food industry shuttered, unemployment grew in nearby communities. Going into debt became unavoidable for many, while others hung by a thread.
The situation was doubly difficult for women workers, because of gender norms and intersecting vulnerabilities. Still the main caregivers, their poverty wages and brutal working conditions also affected children and elderly family members dependent on them.
Especially insidious
Gender discrimination and inequality in global value chains have been widely documented but remain largely unaddressed by European companies and regulators. Abuses of women’s rights are especially insidious in the food-services, electronics and garment industries, where women make up most of the workforce.
Women in these export-oriented manufacturing sectors are vulnerable to wage theft, union-busting and other violations of labour rights—especially if they are young, migrant and/or poorly educated. Reckless business activities prey on and exacerbate inequitable gender roles, such that 71 per cent of those trapped in modern slavery are women.
All of this is hidden in plain sight. The long and winding value chains that stretch across the globe reinforce power imbalances and the maldistribution of costs and benefits. For instance, most brands don’t seem to care that it takes justfour days for a chief executive from one of the top fashion labels to make what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime.
Similarly, fossil-fuel companies have made record profits from the energy crisis while fuelling climate collapse and pushing millions into starvation. Yet TotalEnergies is rewarding its chief executive with a scandalous bonus of nearly €6 million, despite standing accused of causing massive forced displacements in Uganda and Tanzania. What is often overlooked is how land-grabbing affects women, who comprise only 15 per cent of landholders globally but depend on the land to grow food and secure water.
Sexual violence is another endemic issue, festering in the deep underbelly of multinationals’ value chains. Recent investigations have uncovered abuses in tea plantations and wind parks. These will only be eradicated if we ensure corporate accountability.
Stumbling at the first hurdle
As the largest trading bloc in the world, the European Union must lead on this front. Civil society and trade unions have hailed the forthcoming corporate-sustainability directive as a huge opportunity to advance women’s rights and gender equality globally, while uprooting abuses of human and environmental rights along companies’ value chains and holding them liable for harm.
Yet despite the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, declaring that ‘gender equality is a core principle of the European Union’, thecommission stumbled at the first hurdle in making this a reality for the women making our food, clothes and electronics. The draft directive completely ignored the enhanced risks of business for women, girls and other marginalised groups.
Then in December, the Council of the EU, representing the member states, scrapped the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women from the draft directive’s list of human-rights standards corporations must respect. This is a huge setback in the fight for women’s rights.
Do European citizens know how little their governments care about women? This gender-blind approach will simply fortify toxic gender dynamics and leave women further behind. It certainly will not protect women environmental and human-rights defenders from the misogynistic violence disproportionately used to silence and control them.
Changing course
The European Parliament and the council can still change course. Co-legislators must ensure rules extend across the entire value chain, because it is in the lower tiers where women are over-represented and invisible to corporates in head offices.
For women and those in situations of vulnerability, access to justice must also urgently be improved. Removing legal barriers to bringing transnational court cases against companies is essential. That includes reversing the disproportionate burden of proof borne by claimants, who usually have limited access to evidence such as internal documents.
European lawmakers must also oblige companies to carry out impact assessments that identify how corporate activities affect women specifically—and include provisions on gender equality and the protection of human-rights defenders erased from earlier drafts. To guarantee that women’s exploitation is no longer a source of profit, major brands must map their international value chains and collect gender-disaggregated data, to give women the information they need to alert companies about risks and ways to remedy abuses.
World of difference
For women working in salmon-processing plants in Chile, it would make a world of difference to be heard and taken into account. By carrying out due diligence and consulting women in a meaningful way, European buying companies would learn about the problems women face—how supervisors monitor their bathroom breaks or penalise their medical check-ups and maternity leaves. You cannot fix what you do not see.
With key votes in the European Parliament and the ‘trilogue’ negotiations on the directive approaching among commission, council and parliament, EU leaders need to get their act together to guarantee that the products we use are untainted by abuses.
On International Women’s Day, the commission said it stood ‘united with all women to build momentum for their rights across the globe’. The EU must now present a united stand to protect the millions of women who work in the factories, farms and packing houses supplying our essential needs.
By Julia Kuzovkina, Professor of Horticulture, University of Connecticut and John Campanelli, PhD Student in Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Connecticut via The Conversation • Reposted: March 28 2023
Spring is planting time for home gardeners, landscapers and public works agencies across the U.S. And there’s rising demand for native plants – species that are genetically adapted to the specific regions where they are used.
Native plants have evolved with local climates and soil conditions. As a result, they generally require less maintenance, such as watering and fertilizing, after they become established, and they are hardier than non-native species.
But there’s one big problem: There aren’t enough native seeds. This issue is so serious that it was the subject of a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The study found an urgent need to build a native seed supply.
As plant scientists who have worked on ecological restoration projects, we’re familiar with this challenge. Here’s how we are working to promote the use of native plants for roadside restoration in New England, including by building up a seed supply network.Landscapers and land managers explain the benefits of planting native plants.
The need for native plants
Many stressors can damage and degrade land. They include natural disasters, such as wildfires and flooding, and human actions, such as urbanization, energy production, ranching and development.
Ecological restoration aims to bring back degraded lands’ native biological diversity and the ecological functions that these areas provided, such as sheltering wildlife and soaking up floodwater. In 2021, the United Nations launched the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to promote such efforts worldwide.
Native plants have many features that make them an essential part of healthy ecosystems. For example, they provide long-term defense against invasive and noxious weeds; shelter local pollinators and wildlife; and have roots that stabilize soil, which helps reduce erosion.
Restoration projects require vast quantities of native seeds – but commercial supplies fall far short of what’s needed. Developing a batch of seeds for a specific species takes skill and several years of lead time to either collect native seeds in the wild or grow plants to produce them. Suppliers say one of their biggest obstacles is unpredictable demand from large-scale customers, such as government and tribal agencies, that don’t plan far enough ahead for producers to have stocks ready.
Wyoming Big Sage seedlings growing in a greenhouse. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe are working together to produce native seedlings to restore public lands in Idaho that have been damaged by wildfires. Bureau of Land Management Idaho/Flickr, CC BY
Restoring roadsides in New England
Most drivers give little thought to what grows next to highways, but the wrong plants in these areas can cause serious problems. Roadsides that aren’t replanted using ecological restoration methods may erode and be taken over by invasive weeds. Ecological restoration provides effective erosion control and better habitat habitats for wildlife and pollinators. It’s also more attractive.
For decades, state transportation departments across the U.S. used non-native cool-season turfgrasses, such as fescue and ryegrass, to restore roadsides. The main benefits of using these species, which grow well during the cooler months of spring and fall, were that they grew fast and provided a quick cover.
Then in 2013 the New England Transportation Consortium – a research cooperative funded by state transportation agencies – commissioned our research team to help the states transition to native warm-season grasses instead. These grasses grow well in hot, dry weather and need less moisture than cool-season grasses. One of us, John Campanelli, developed the framework for selecting plant species based on conservation practices and identified methods for establishing native plant communities for the region.
We recommended using warm-season grasses that are native to the region, such as little bluestem, purple lovegrass, switchgrass and purpletop. These species required less long-term maintenance and less-frequent mowing than the cool-season species that agencies had previously used.
To ensure sound conservation practices, we wanted to use seeds produced locally. Seeds sourced from other locations would produce grasses that would interbreed with local ecotypes – grasses adapted to New England – and disrupt the local grasses’ gene complexes.
At that time, however, there was no reliable seed supply for local ecotypes in New England. Only a few sources offered an incomplete selection of small quantities of local seeds, at prices that were too expensive for large-scale restoration projects. Most organizations carrying out ecological restoration projects purchased their bulk seeds mainly from large wholesale producers in the Midwest, which introduced non-local genetic material to the restoration sites.
Improving native seed supply chains
Many agencies are concerned that lack of a local seed supply could limit restoration efforts in New England. To tackle this problem, our team launched a project in 2022 with funding from the New England Transportation Consortium. Our goals are to increase native plantings and pollinator habitats with seeds from local ecotypes, and to make our previous recommendations for roadside restoration with native grasses more feasible.
As we were analyzing ways to obtain affordable native seeds for these roadside projects, we learned about work by Eve Allen, a master’s degree student in city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For her thesis, Allen used supply chain management and social network analysis to identify the best methods to strengthen the native seed supply chain network.
Her research showed that developing native seed supplies would require cooperative partnerships that included federal, state and local government agencies and the private and nonprofit sectors. Allen reached out to many of these organizations’ stakeholders and established a broad network. This led to the launch of the regional Northeast Seed Network, which will be hosted by the Massachusetts-based Native Plant Trust, a nonprofit that works to conserve New England’s native plants.
We expect this network will promote all aspects of native seed production in the region, from collecting seeds in the wild to cultivating plants for seed production, developing regional seed markets and carrying out related research. In the meantime, we are developing a road map for new revegetation practices in New England.
We aim to build greater coordination between these agencies and seed producers to promote expanded selections of affordable native seeds and make demand more predictable. Our ultimate goal is to help native plants, bees and butterflies thrive along roads throughout New England.
Among the contributors to the $140 million WaterEquity Global Access Fund IV are Ecolab, Starbucks, Gap, Reckitt and DuPont. The companies have contributed to a $140 million fund run by WaterEquity, whose co-founder is Matt Damon. By Patrick Kennedy from the Star Tribune • Reposted: March 28, 2023
Ecolab is investing $10 million to a new fund that hopes to bring clean drinking water to 5 million people around the world.
Among the other contributors to the $140 million WaterEquity Global Access Fund IV are Starbucks, Gap, Reckitt and DuPont.
The fund is being managed by WaterEquity, an impact investment asset manager whose co-founder is the actor Matt Damon. The announcement came last week as the United Nations Water Conference was set to start.
The companies are all part of the Water Resilience Coalition, a CEO-led initiative to bring attention to and take action against a growing global water crisis. Nearly 2 billion people today live in water stressed areas and, according to the coalition, that number may grow to half the world’s population by 2050.
“As a global water leader who helps customers manage 1.1 trillion gallons around the world, Ecolab believes that water stewardship and sustainable business growth must go hand in hand,” said Emilio Tenuta, Ecolab’s chief sustainability officer.
Starbucks’ contribution is $25 million. The fund also has a $100 million commitment from the U.S. International Development Finance Corp.
Tenuta said Ecolab not only believes the cause is the right thing to do but also boosts “the business case for sustainability by showing a positive return on investment and a positive impact,” he added.
The fund is part of a new investment portfolio by the Water Resilience Coalition. More investment will be needed to fund the nearly $1 billion in collective investment opportunities identified by the portfolio.
The portfolio may eventually include other funding vehicles including private equity investments, microloans and impact bonds.
Non-binding commitments, paucity of scientific data and poor representation of global south left a lot to be desired at summit. By Nina Lakhani and Oliver Milman from the Guardian • Reposted: March 26, 2023
The first global water conference in almost half a century has concluded with the creation of a new UN envoy for water and hundreds of non-binding pledges that if fulfilled would edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation.
The three-day summit in New York spurred almost 700 commitments from local and national governments, non-profits and some businesses to a new Water Action Agenda, and progress on the hotchpotch of voluntary pledges will be monitored at future UN gatherings. A new scientific panel on water will also be created by the UN.
Overall, organizers said they were happy that governments and representatives from academia, industries, and non-profits had come together to discuss the often neglected topic of water and to commit billions of dollars to improving water security.
But they conceded that more was needed than a set of voluntary commitments such as a formal global agreement, like the 2015 Paris climate accords and the 2022 Montreal biodiversity pact, as well as better data and an international finance mechanism to safeguard water supplies.
“This conference did not give us a mandate for this, but we brought the world together to ensure there is a follow-up,” said Henk Ovink, special envoy for water for the Netherlands, which co-hosted the conference along with Tajikistan. “We have fragmented water governance across the world, fragmented finance and not enough science and data in place.”
“We know our job is still not done and in fact we are falling behind in our task,” said Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s senior minister and co-chair of a summit interactive dialogue. “But we know the job can be done. We must now treat water as a global common good to be protected collectively, in the interests of all nations.”
In closing the historic summit, António Guterres, the secretary general of the UN, urged everyone to turn the pledges into action. “All of humanity’s hopes for the future depend, in some way, on charting a new course to sustainably manage and conserve water … it needs to be at the centre of the political agenda.”
Talks ended with a broad agreement that water should be treated as a global common good, and that the world’s approach to water must be less siloed given its nexus with the climate crisis, and food, energy and national security. But with no internationally binding agreement, experts fear that pledges could slide as it will be hard to hold governments, industry and financial institutions to account.
On Friday morning, more than 100 water experts from research institutions and civil society groups across five continents sent a letter to the UN general secretary slamming the lack of “accountability, rigour and ambition” at the conference, arguing that the paucity of scientific rigour and binding agreements will fail to secure the more just, resilient and sustainable water future urgently needed.
“Trying to solve one of the greatest challenges facing humanity with voluntary commitments and solutions based on half-baked evidence is like taking a knife to a gunfight – it simply isn’t good enough, and represents a betrayal of the world’s poor who bear the brunt of the water crisis,” said Nick Hepworth, executive director of Water Witness.
Charles Iceland, global director for water at the World Resources Institute, said only about a third of these announcements were “gamechangers” that would substantially improve the water crisis. “I think the voluntary commitments are a good start … Each voluntary commitment has a place where you talk about how much money is available, most of them left that blank.”
“We need a Paris agreement for water globally, and national water plans for each country, and regional water plans for each shared basin and aquifer,” Iceland added.
About 90% of climate impacts are related to water – too much, too little, or too dirty – yet only 3% of climate finance is currently dedicated to the world’s water systems. Water related conflicts have risen sharply in recent years as sources dwindle, including many internal disputes between urban and rural dwellers, and pastoralists and farmers, according to research by the Pacific Institute.
Almost 7,000 people attended the conference, but the private sector and global north were far better represented than experts and water insecure communities at the frontline of the water crisis from the global south – many of whom were excluded due to visa and financial barriers. Only a dozen or so world leaders attended the conference, and there were no protests and few activists to call out government and business hypocrisies.
Mana Omar, 28, one of few activists from Fridays for Future Africa to get a visa, said: “As a young person without affiliation to a big organisation there was no opportunity to share experiences of my community,” said Omar, who is from Kenya’s arid Kajiado county where girls and women from pastoral Indigenous communities are facing worsening gender-based violence as drought forces them to travel further to find water.
Australian water scarcity activist Mina Guli, center, after completing her 200th marathon outside UN headquarters on 22 March 2023. Photograph: Leonardo Muñoz/AFP/Getty Images
“The water action agenda should include diverse experiences, but too many communities are missing, and there’s nothing legally binding so how can we hold the countries to account?” added Omar.
A UN spokesperson said they were unaware of any access issues.
The conference also failed to address the violence and threats faced by communities trying to protect dwindling water sources from mining, industrial agriculture and other polluting industries. “It is a very bureaucratic event where only large NGOs, governments and private companies could express themselves,” said Juan Gabriel Martinez, 34, a land and water defender from Manizales, Colombia, where the community is under attack by armed militias.
A quarter of the world’s population still does not have access to safe drinking water while half lacks basic sanitation – which is one of the sustainable development goals for 2030. Progress has been slow due to the lack of financial investment from rich countries – which has moved towards loans not grants, insufficient political will and a siloed approach to water. At the current rate, universal access to clean water and sanitation will not be achieved for decades after the 2030 target.
Samuel Godfrey, the UN Development Programme’s principal water resources advisor, said: “What’s come out of this is the need to move toward regional goals after 2030.”
And while the summit may have nudged the world in the right direction, as Musonda Mumba, secretary general for the convention on wetlands, said in her closing statement: “The crisis is everywhere … we have no time.”
At the COP27 climate talks in November, world leaders agreed to establish a loss and damage fund to help developing countries cope with the impacts of climate change. But it will be yearsuntil the fund is up and running — leaving many questions unanswered, chief among them: Who pays for the climate crisis?
While the responses to this question often place the financial onus of climate change on the global superpowers (China, the U.S.) that have contributed the most environmental harm, those powerful nations have consistently failed to accept this charge. Nations in the Global South have, by and large, contributed little to climate change, yet face the most serious consequences — including more frequent and severe natural disasters like drought, intense heat, and extreme storms. As the leading contributors to climate change drag their feet, the window for action continues to shrink, and blameless millions pay the price of the Global North’s pollution.
Climate Neutral, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing this disparity, leverages corporate funding to finance sustainable projects in the world’s least developed countries. In this way, corporations can circumvent the global gridlock preventing true action on climate change. The nonprofit also provides corporations a chance to move beyond empty promises and truly begin to right their own environmental wrongs.
“The pressure that we’re trying to exert is pressure on companies because consumers, at least say, they care about climate change,” said Austin Whitman, CEO of Climate Neutral. “But they have very few ways to engage with companies directly and press companies to do more. So, if we can create the expectation that companies are doing their part to mitigate their emissions, there will be an increase in the flow of capital into projects.”
Climate Neutral challenges corporations to go beyond words and take aggressive action to reduce global emissions by 2030. To earn the nonprofit’s certification, a company must demonstrate that it is taking steps to reduce future emissions, while also paying the full price for current emissions.
The Climate Neutral Certified label on packaging at partner brand Avocado Green Mattress
Rich nations can “export low-carbon technologies” to decarbonize the developing world
Rapid industrialization in an under-developed country can create intense environmental harm. But how can a country that already polluted the world through its own industrialization 200 years ago prohibit another nation from doing the same thing today? When it comes to polluting, rich nations are essentially telling poorer nations, “do as I say, not as I do,” and that isn’t very persuasive.
“There is some transfer of wealth that’s necessary to account for the fact that the economic costs are being borne initially, largely, by countries that have not caused the problem,” Whitman said.
For decades, the Global South has called on the North to pay reparations for the crimes of colonialism, which prevented development and stole the natural resources that would have funded such development. If rich nations don’t want poorer nations to develop in an environmentally harmful way, they ought to invest in sustainable infrastructure and practices in these underdeveloped nations.
“All the major sectors, they can be used just as well in India as they can in the U.S.,” Whitman said as an example. “I think it’s our job to export low-carbon technologies to really allow them to skip past that phase where the carbon intensity of the economy grows significantly before it starts to level off and then decline. We’ve got a pretty impressive system here in the U.S., and that knowledge can be exported, and is being exported.”
Climate Neutral understands that the urgency of the climate crisis demands action, not bureaucracy. Challenging corporations to pay for pollution and invest in the environment may not completely solve the climate crisis, but it is a fantastic way to get powerful players to put their money where their mouth is.
“This is one of the many, many dynamic aspects of the puzzle. We’re not starting necessarily in the perfect spot,” Whitman said, “but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t start.”
By Kate Zerrenner from triple pundit.com • Reposted: March 24, 2023
Every March 22 is World Water Day — an observance designated by the United Nations to bring attention to different issues surrounding water and how it impacts our lives. The 2023 theme is Be the Change, an effort to encourage people to be more active in how they use, consume and manage water.
This feels like both a straightforward task and a daunting one. Most people are unaware of where their water comes from, let alone the volume they use and how. Having that information is the first step toward more effective water management at the individual level, which can help water boards and utilities better manage the larger systems and watersheds.
Can you guess what accounts for most residential water use?
Most people do not have a clear idea of where they are using water — and so do not know where they are wasting water. Inside the home, toilets, showers and faucets are the biggest water hogs. But if you have a yard, your biggest culprit is probably irrigation and lawn care. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about a third of all residential water use in the U.S. is for landscape irrigation — about 9 billion gallons per day.
In the Western U.S., a region prone to both droughts and awash with lush green lawns, the situation is even more dire as the Colorado River runs dry. On background, a meter reader with Austin Water told TriplePundit that maintaining lawns accounted for 50 percent to 75 percent of many homes’ water usage — and many consumers often don’t believe it until they’re shown the meter reading.
Some utilities are now focusing solely getting customers to better manage their outdoor use, cutting back on indoor incentives. For example, San Antonio Water System, the city’s water utility, now only offers outdoor rebates and incentives. Program staff told TriplePundit that focusing on irrigation and pools would lead to greater water savings in the water-stressed city. The utility has also hired landscape experts to help residents replace turf with more native and drought-resistant plants.
Smart metering offers more opportunity for water conservation
Another big water waster is leaks. On the utility side, more utilities are getting better at identifying and fixing leaks, but the state of the country’s water infrastructure is going to require significant investment. On the demand side, however, if customers better understand where they’re using the most water — and how to catch leaks when they first happen — they can be more active conservationists.
Much like electric smart meters, water smart meters can help people better understand their usage. The technology is not as widespread as it is in the electricity space due to a number of factors, such as available resources and challenges in measurement that make it harder to pinpoint water usage versus electric usage (i.e., it’s easier to measure electrons than drops). But as climate change continues to put pressure on watersheds, more companies are bringing technologies onto the market.
For example, in 2022, several California water utilities started rolling out water smart meters to customers. While the utilities have a big lift on the supply side, demand needs to be lowered where it can. Much like with electricity — where energy efficiency is the first and best defense — water conservation is the critical component of ensuring water is available when and where it is needed.
Working along the energy-water nexus
And like energy efficiency, water conservation is a climate strategy. Treating, pumping and distributing water uses copious amounts of energy, and generating fossil fuel- and nuclear-powered energy uses a lot of water. So, by reducing water demand, people are also taking action to lower emissions systemwide, while reducing energy use can also help with water conservation. Most people don’t think about the source of electricity when they flip a light switch or the source of water when they turn on their faucets. But the fact remains that both actions are inextricably linked.
World Water Day 2023 calls for people to be more active in their water conservation. It is a good reminder that understanding where your water comes from and how you use it has ripple effects throughout the community and the system. Utilities can help people be the change. But the real change must come from each consumer.
By Nicole Loher from Meta • Reposted: March 24, 2023
When it comes to water scarcity, the numbers are global, but the impact is hyperlocal.
Community by community, neighbor by neighbor, the issue of water stress impacts humanity’s health and wellness as well as economic development. And yet, more than 1.7 billion people live in water basins that are being depleted by overuse and a 40% shortfall in freshwater resources is predicted by 2030. New water cannot be created, so we must be efficient with the water we use, and return what we take — particularly in highly stressed water basins. Water stewardship means taking care of the communities and ecosystems that share water resources.
In 2021, Meta announced an ambitious goal to be water positive by 2030 and in 2022, joined the Water Resilience Coalition of the UN CEO Water Mandate, a cross-sector initiative to raise the ambition of corporate water stewardship and foster collective impact in priority basins.
“Meta is honored to be a member of the Water Resilience Coalition alongside leading organizations and businesses committed to taking action on water. We’re committed to becoming water positive by 2030 by sourcing water responsibly, driving water efficiency across our facilities and operations, and investing in local water restoration projects where our facilities are located. Through the Water Resilience Coalition, we can work together to collectively protect this shared and precious resource.”
NICK CLEGG PRESIDENT, GLOBAL AFFAIRS, META
Striving for Water Positive and Water Stewardship
For Meta, being water positive is about using water efficiently in our operations and returning more water than we consume in water-stressed basins through projects that address local needs and context. We seek to be good water stewards in water basins where we have operations through water efficiency measures and by taking into account the local context and needs of the shared basin.
Water stewardship aims to make sure local access and use of water is culturally equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial. It requires understanding the ecological and geographical context of local water use — along with issues of governance, balance, quality, sanitation and hygiene — and calls for meaningful individual and collective action.
We are listening to that call. Good water stewardship is intrinsically linked to our other sustainability priorities, which affect how we operate, how we create and how we collaborate. As climate change continues to impact water scarcity on a global scale, good water stewardship will remain a critical collective concern, especially for those living in low-income and disadvantaged communities that face increased climatological risks.
The road to water positive begins, of course, with saving as much water as possible in the first place. From there, Meta prioritizes the basins where we operate that face water stress and collaborates with partners to preserve and restore the health and resilience of local watersheds, based on local need, even as our need for water grows.
Minimizing Water Use in Our Data Centers
Around the world, our 21 data centers power our family of apps and services 24/7. Maybe it’s no surprise then, that they account for most of Meta’s water use as well.
Since 2012, we’ve tracked and reported water usage effectiveness at our data centers as a first step to good water stewardship, but we’re constantly seeking innovative ways to minimize our water use as well — like using direct evaporative cooling, which relies on outside air rather than chilled water and cooling towers, to keep internal temperatures down.
Additionally, we’re proactively choosing plant species, efficient irrigation, alternative water sources, Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified new wood products and smart scheduling technologies that together save more than 80,000 kilogallons of water per year at our data centers.
Restoring Local Watersheds
Our restoration efforts not only play a critical role in advancing our water stewardship goals, but promote biodiversity in neighboring communities too. Working with local organizations and utilities, we are investing in restoration projects in water-stressed regions that support the local water supply and help restore local habitats and wildlife.
Since 2017, we have invested in 25 water restoration projects in seven watersheds where we operate data centers. One of the most impactful has been in the Rio Grande basin in New Mexico, which faces water stress and drought. In partnership with the Middle Rio Grande Flow Restoration Project, the 2020 program leased 450 acre-feet of water from the City of Bernalillo, NM, to support wetland and channel areas in the Isleta Reach of the Rio Grande. The water was commingled with volumes acquired through other leases to help keep 35 river miles flowing to support the wetlands and water channels on which the area’s birds, fish and wildlife depend.
Water restoration will remain a high priority for us going forward. As of August 2021, we have invested in water restoration projects that will replenish more than 850 million gallons of water per year in water-stressed basins. You can read more about our ongoing efforts in our Volumetric Water Benefits report.
Increasing Water Efficiency in our Workplaces
With nearly 72,000 employees in our offices across 80 cities, our facilities teams work hard to track our water withdrawal. Many offices, including our headquarters in Menlo Park, CA, utilize on-site recycled water systems to reclaim water from a variety of sources. And across all facilities, we’ve reduced our water needs by installing efficient plumbing fixtures and planting low-water-use plants.
It’s a lot but we still have a long way to go to meet our goal of water positive by 2030. By combining transparency with collaboration and collective action to address local needs, we aim to be good water stewards for our local communities and our planet, ensuring a sustainable future for all.
By Stacy Morford, Environment + Climate Editor, from The Conversation • Reposted: March 24, 2023
Reading the latest international climate report can feel overwhelming. It describes how rising temperatures caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are having rapid, widespread effects on the weather, climate and ecosystems in every region of the planet, and it says the risks are escalating faster than scientists expected.
Global temperatures are now 1.1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than at the start of the industrial era. Heat waves, storms, fires and floods are harming humans and ecosystems. Hundreds of species have disappeared from regions as temperatures rise, and climate change is causing irreversible changes to sea ice, oceans and glaciers. In some areas, it’s becoming harder to adapt to the changes, the authors write.
Still, there are reasons for optimism – falling renewable energy costs are starting to transform the power sector, for example, and the use of electric vehicles is expanding. But change aren’t happening fast enough, and the window for a smooth transition is closing fast, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereport warns. To keep global warming below 1.5 C (2.7 F), it says global greenhouse gas emissions will have to drop 60% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels.
he extent to which current and future generations will experience a hotter world depends on choices made now and in the coming years. The scenarios show expected differences in temperature depending on how high emissions are going forward.IPCC sixth assessment report
In the new report, released March 20, 2023, the IPCC summarizes findings from a series of assessments written over the past eight years and discusses how to stop the damage. In them, hundreds of scientists reviewed the evidence and research.
Here are four essential reads by co-authors of some of those reports, each providing a different snapshot of the changes underway and discussing solutions.
1. More intense storms and flooding
Many of the most shocking natural disasters of the past few years have involved intense rainfall and flooding.
In Europe, a storm in 2021 set off landslides and sent rivers rushing through villages that had stood for centuries. In 2022, about a third of Pakistan was underwater, and several U.S. communities were hit with extreme flash flooding.
The IPCC warns in the sixth assessment report that the water cycle will continue to intensify as the planet warms. That includes extreme monsoon rainfall, but also increasing drought, greater melting of mountain glaciers, decreasing snow cover and earlier snowmelt, wrote UMass-Lowell climate scientist Mathew Barlow, a co-author of the report examining physical changes.
“An intensifying water cycle means that both wet and dry extremes and the general variability of the water cycle will increase, although not uniformly around the globe,” Barlow wrote.
“Understanding this and other changes in the water cycle is important for more than preparing for disasters. Water is an essential resource for all ecosystems and human societies.”
The IPCC stressed in its reports that human activities are unequivocally warming the planet and causing rapid changes in the world’s atmosphere, oceans and icy regions.
“Countries can either plan their transformations, or they can face the destructive, often chaotic transformations that will be imposed by the changing climate,” wrote Edward Carr, a Clark University scholar and co-author of the IPCC report focused on adaptation.
The longer countries wait to respond, the greater the damage and cost to contain it. One estimate from Columbia University put the cost of adaptation needed just for urban areas at between US$64 billion and $80 billion a year – and the cost of doing nothing at 10 times that level by mid-century.
“The IPCC assessment offers a stark choice,” Carr wrote. “Does humanity accept this disastrous status quo and the uncertain, unpleasant future it is leading toward, or does it grab the reins and choose a better future?”
One crucial sector for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is transportation.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by mid-century, a target considered necessary to keep global warming below 1.5 C, will require “a major, rapid rethinking of how people get around globally,” wrote Alan Jenn, a transportation scholar at the University of California Davis and co-author on the IPCC report on mitigation.
There are positive signs. Battery costs for electric vehicles have fallen, making them increasingly affordable. In the U.S., the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offers tax incentives that lower the costs for EV buyers and encourage companies to ramp up production. And several states are considering following California’s requirement that all new cars and light trucks be zero-emissions by 2035.
“Behavioral and other systemic changes will also be needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically from this sector,” Jenn wrote.
For example, many countries saw their transportation emissions drop during COVID-19 as more people were allowed to work from home. Bike sharing in urban areas, public transit-friendly cities and avoiding urban sprawl can help cut emissions even further. Aviation and shipping are more challenging to decarbonize, but efforts are underway.
He adds, however, that it’s important to remember that the effectiveness of electrifying transportation ultimately depends on cleaning up the electricity grid.
The IPCC reports discuss several other important steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including shifting energy from fossil fuels to renewable sources, making buildings more energy efficient and improving food production, as well as ways to adapt to changes that can no longer be avoided.
“For example, renewable energy is now generally less expensive than fossil fuels, so a shift to clean energy can often save money,” they wrote. Electric vehicle costs are falling. Communities and infrastructure can be redesigned to better manage natural hazards such as wildfires and storms. Corporate climate risk disclosures can help investors better recognize the hazards and push those companies to build resilience and reduce their climate impact.
“The problem is that these solutions aren’t being deployed fast enough,” Lempert and Gilmore wrote. “In addition to pushback from industries, people’s fear of change has helped maintain the status quo.” Meeting the challenge, they said, starts with embracing innovation and change.
Bottled water corporations exploit surface water and aquifers, buy water at a very low cost and sell it for 150 to 1,000 times more than the same unit of municipal tap water. Photo: Shutterstock
By Zeineb Bouhlel, Research Associate, Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations University and Vladimir Smakhtin, Former Director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations University via The conversation • Reposted: March 23, 2023
In our recently published study, which studied 109 countries, it was concluded that the highly profitable and fast-growing bottled water industry is masking the failure of public systems to supply reliable drinking water for all.
The industry can undermine progress of safe-water projects, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, by distracting development efforts and redirecting attention to a less reliable, less affordable option.
The rising sales of global bottled water is contributing to plastic pollution on land and in the oceans. Photo: Shutterstock
The latest UN University report revealed that the annual sales of the global bottled water market is expected to double to US$500 billion worldwide this decade. This can increase stress in water-depleted areas while contributing to plastic pollution on land and in the oceans.
Growing faster than any other in the food category worldwide, the bottled water market is biggest in the Global South, with the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin American and Caribbean regions accounting for 60 per cent of all sales.
But no region is on track to achieve universal access to safe water services, which is one of he SDG 2030 targets. In fact, the industry’s greatest impact seems to be its potential to stunt the progress of nations’ goals to provide its residents with equitable access to affordable drinking water.
Impact on vulnerable nations
In the Global North, bottled water is often perceived to be healthier and tastier than tap water. It is, therefore, more a luxury good than a necessity. Meanwhile, in the Global South, it is the lack or absence of reliable public water supply and water management infrastructure that drives bottled water markets.
Therefore, in many low- and middle-income countries, particularly in the Asia Pacific, rising consumption of bottled water can be seen as a proxy indicator of decades of governments’ failure to deliver on commitments to safe public water systems.
The rising consumption of bottled water in some countries can be seen as a proxy indicator of decades of governments’ failure to deliver on commitments to safe public water systems. Photo: Shutterstock
This further widens the global disparity between the billions of people who lack access to reliable water services and the others that enjoy water as a luxury.
As the bottled water market grows, it is more important than ever to strengthen legislation that regulates the industry and its water quality standards. Such legislation can impact bottled water quality control, groundwater exploitation, land use, plastic waste management, carbon emissions, finance and transparency obligations, to mention a few.
Our report argues that, with global progress toward this target so far off-track, expansion of the bottled water market essentially works against making headway, or at least slows it down, adversely affecting investments and long-term public water infrastructure.
Such initiatives offer the bottled water sector an opportunity to become an active player in this process and help accelerate progress toward reliable water supply, particularly in the Global South.
By Mary Riddle from triple pundit.com • Reposted: March 22, 2023
A majority of consumers say they’re ready to change their lifestyles to help combat climate change, and more people than ever are seeking out information about sustainability on social media. A new study commissioned by Unilever shows that influencers have the biggest impact on consumers’ sustainability-related choices, ahead of documentaries, news articles and governmental campaigns. In fact, 83 percent of all consumers believe that TikTok and Instagram are helpful places to seek out information about sustainability, and 75 percent are more likely to add sustainable behaviors to their lifestyles after viewing social media content about sustainability.
Unilever also specifically examined the efficacy of different content styles in inspiring consumer behavior change around plastic use and food waste, comparing pragmatic and explanatory content with more optimistic and humorous posts.
While the study found that both styles were effective in spurring consumer behavior change, 69 percent of people who viewed the more pragmatic content went on to make lifestyle changes, versus 61 percent of those who watched the more optimistic, humorous content. Branded content was seen as equally engaging and authentic as unbranded content.
“People are finding it hard to make sustainable choices due to a lack of simple, immediate and trustworthy information. Our ambition is to continue to collaborate with our partners to improve the sustainability content produced by our brands and support the creators we work with” said Conny Braams, Unilever’s chief digital and commercial officer, in a statement.
Leveraging social media to drive consumer behavior change
Unilever partnered with Behavioral Insights Team and 10 sustainability influencers to develop content that aimed to persuade consumers to use less plastic and waste less food. Unilever then showed the content to 6,000 social media users in the U.K., U.S., and Canada.
Three out of four respondents said the content made them more likely to engage in the suggested sustainable behaviors, specifically reusing plastic, buying refillable products, and freezing and reusing leftover food. Also, 72 percent of participants supported companies selling them more sustainable products and services.
“This study is a world-first of its kind and the largest online, controlled trial to test the effect of different styles of social media content,” David Halpern, chief executive of the Behavioral Insights Team, said in a statement. “The behavior change potential of social media is clear, and the results show that there’s huge opportunity — providing fertile ground for further exploration in this space.” Over 75 percent of respondents said they support content creators encouraging their audiences to behave in more sustainable ways.
More social change is needed to avert climate catastrophe
Unilever’s study found that social media is an effective tool for sustainable consumer behavior change. However, today’s world of social media is more commonly used to increase spending habits and consumption levels, which are key barriers to fighting climate change.
To effectively use their platforms to drive sustainable behaviors, brands and influencers must encourage individual actions and social change. Unilever is leveraging the results from the new study to bolster its sustainability messaging.
“What we hear from consumers is that living sustainably is a constant, overwhelming effort and many feel ‘my act alone won’t count, anyway,’” Braams noted. However, armed with the results of the new study, Unilever is aiming to support content creators and improve their sustainability content to help drive better individual actions across their consumer base.
“Together, we are learning what is all likes and no action versus content that makes sustainable choices simple and preferred,” she said. Instead of contracting with influencers to encourage their viewers to buy and consume, companies can accelerate rates of individual change by communicating with their audiences simple ways to make better choices for the environment.
By Jim Andrew, Executive Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer for PepsiCo via Yahoo Finance • Reposted: March 22, 2023
Water is a fundamental human right. It is indispensable to every community, ecosystem, and economy around the world. Yet water insecurity has become one of the world’s greatest crises–and one that is overlooked, or even worse, ignored entirely.
Globally, more than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity at least one month a year–and many far more frequently than that.
Climate change and other factors are harming water supply and quality, and ecosystems are being degraded as a result. It’s projected that at current rates of consumption, there will be a 56% gap between global water supply and demand by 2030.
And while the private sector and other stakeholders have made progress in addressing the causes of this water stress, the truth is it’s not nearly enough.
We are at an inflection point, which makes the upcoming UN Water Conference–being held for the first time in nearly five decades–a critical moment to drive action. It represents a transformative opportunity to ignite unprecedented collaboration among governments, NGOs, and the private sector to address this growing global crisis.
At PepsiCo, as the second-largest food and beverage company in the world, we know the critical role that water plays in the food system. When it comes to addressing water issues, we use a watershed management approach that encompasses our entire value chain, including on farms, in manufacturing facilities, along our value chain and in local communities. Through PepsiCo Positive–a strategic, end-to-end transformation of our business–we have developed robust goals to support our ambition of being “net water positive” by 2030. The aim is that our presence and action should improve the local water resources where we operate.
For example, we have implemented new technologies and processes in three of our largest food plants in Latin America that have taken us off the water grid, enabling us to make popular snacks like Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos without drawing anyfreshwater from local watersheds.
At our Vallejo facility in Mexico City, we source water from our manufacturing processes and other food companies in the area, purify it in house, and reuse the water in our operations. In Funza, Colombia, we treat and reuse our own processed water and capture rainwater for use in our facility. Both sites have operated using zero freshwater, with no burden on local municipalities, for approximately 250 days and counting since 2022, while our plant in Itu, Brazil, has yielded more than 100 days of using zero freshwater through similar approaches.
While operational efficiency is important for our business and water stewardship, it alone does not solve the larger problem. It’s critical that companies like PepsiCo continue to expand efforts beyond the walls of our facilities to protect and restore watersheds, while also ensuring that communities around the world have reliable access to safe, clean water.
In 2021 alone, our projects helped restore 6.1 billion liters of water back into local watersheds through replenishment partnerships with conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. And, over the last 15 years, PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation have helped more than 80 million people access safe water. We’re aiming to reach 100 million people by 2030.
Fortunately, many companies have set ambitious water goals and are taking action. There are thousands of individual projects around the globe working to tackle water stress, but presently there are few opportunities for the private sector, NGOs, and governments to work together and pool the necessary resources to address this crisis at scale. We’re proud to be part of the CEO Water Mandate, for example, but such coalitions are few and far between.
We believe the only way to address the global water crisis is to get all stakeholders engaged and, through collective action, work towards a common goal of dramatically and urgently improving water conservation and governance, while ensuring that all people have access to safe, clean water. We need more open-source sharing of ideas and best practices. We need technological innovations and to rethink how we approach partnerships. We need collaboration among all stakeholders in impacted watersheds, advocating for solutions that drive fairness and address the specific needs of that locality. Only then will we drive the investment and scale that results in the level of change we need.
We are actively participating in the UN Water Conference and related events to share what we’ve learned and to learn from others, and to help inspire bolder collective action.
Half of the global population could face water scarcity challenges by 2025, according to UNICEF. We don’t have the luxury of time.
Jim Andrew is Executive Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer for PepsiCo.
Canada’s Haudenosaunee say inconsistent weather is proving to be a sticky situation for maple syrup season. By Candace Maracle from CBC News • Reposted: March 231, 2023
The ideal temperature for maple sap to run is when temperatures fall below 0 C at night and rise above zero during the day.
It’s something Tehahenteh Miller grew up knowing about collecting sap to make maple syrup. Miller, who is Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and lives in Six Nations, Ont., has been tapping his trees for over a decade.
“If the sun shines, it increases the volume considerably and it’s usually the sunny side that we tap,” said Miller.
Maple trees tapped on Six Nations. Photo: Candace Maracle/CBC
Miller said he has seen changes in the last four or five years. Warmer winter weather followed by cold snaps impedes the maples’ sap flow.
“You look around and you can see a lot of the tops of the trees are dying,” he said.
Miller said that Haudenosaunee teachings predict that once the maple tree starts dying from the top, any conservation effort may be too late to turn things around. He hasn’t tapped his trees for the past three years “to give his trees a rest” from the stress climate change has put on them.
A full bucket of maple sap. Photo: Candace Maracle/CBCSap is used in Haundenosaunee ceremony to honour the maple trees. Photo: Candace Maracle/CBCTim Johnson collects sap from buckets twice a day during the season when sap is running. Photo: Candace Maracle/CBC
Dawn Martin-Hill, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University, has researched how climate change is affecting Six Nations. She’s one of the co-authors of a 2021 report in Climate Services on observed and projected trends of climate change in Six Nations.
“What the climate change study showed here was that Six Nations was going to experience drought, flood, cycles of instability and that will impact the ability for the trees to run sap for the length that they used to,” she said.
Martin-Hill said Haudenosaunee have always understood the inter-connectedness of life.
“Our people don’t have to change a single story that we have in order to adjust to what modern science is beginning to find out and understand,” she said.
Sap drips from a newly drilled tap. Photo: Candace Maracle/CBC)
The sap that is collected from the maple tree is used in ceremony to honour the opening of the maple trees – the time of year when sap runs and can be collected to make syrup.
Origin of maple syrup
Miller said, according to Haudenosaunee teachings, after a harsh winter a Haudenosaunee village was on the verge of starvation when a young man went into the forest and sat by a tree, thinking of a solution. He noticed a squirrel climb a maple tree and lick the water droplets from a broken branch.He fashioned a small bowl from bark to collect sap where it was leaking from the broken branch. After being left out in the sun, the sap began to evaporate, making it extra sweet.
The young man drank the water and determining it was safe to consume, he told the others in the village. The maple sap nourished them and got them through winter without starving.After that, it was decided the maple tree would be honoured every year for this gift.
The Mohawk Longhouse in Six Nations held a ceremony to open the maple trees last week.
Family tradition
Maple sap must be boiled for hours to make syrup.
Mel Squire and her husband, Angus Goodleaf, collect sap on their property in Six Nations.
This is her second year tapping trees after learning from her family who have been doing it for generations.
“I think just getting older and reflecting back on my childhood and watching my grandfather do it … inspired me to get into doing it myself,” she said.
Angus Goodleaf boils sap for maple syrup. Photo: Mel Squire
They check their 20 taps daily to see how much sap has accumulated in buckets. The sap can only be stored for a few days before it must be boiled for hours.
“Forty gallons of sap gave us one gallon [of syrup],” said Squire.
“We can’t sell it. I don’t even know what I’d price it at. It’s more precious than gold at this point. So, it’s quite priceless.”
Of the Haudenosaunee tradition of tapping maple trees each spring, Miller said, “We owe [the trees] a responsibility to not just acknowledge them, but to be participatory. We’re actually practising our culture, reinforcing our culture by doing that. That’s part of our culture and it needs to be kept alive.”
By Robert Lempert, Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School and Elisabeth Gilmore, Associate Professor of Climate Change, Technology and Policy, Carleton University via The Conversation * Reposted: March 21, 2023
The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including the synthesis report released March 20, 2023, discuss changes ahead, but they also describe how existing solutions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help people adjust to impacts of climate change that can’t be avoided.
The problem is that these solutions aren’t being deployed fast enough. In addition to pushback from industries, people’s fear of change has helped maintain the status quo.
To slow climate change and adapt to the damage already underway, the world will have to shift how it generates and uses energy, transports people and goods, designs buildings and grows food. That starts with embracing innovation and change.
Fear of change can lead to worsening change
From the industrial revolution to the rise of social media, societies have undergone fundamental changes in how people live and understand their place in the world.
Some transformations are widely regarded as bad, including many of those connected to climate change. For example, about half the world’s coral reef ecosystems have died because of increasing heat and acidity in the oceans. Island nations like Kiribati and coastal communities, including in Louisiana and Alaska, are losing land into rising seas.Residents of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati describe the changes they’re experiencing as sea level rises.
Other transformations have had both good and bad effects. The industrial revolution vastly raised standards of living for many people, but it spawned inequality, social disruption and environmental destruction.
People often resist transformation because their fear of losing what they have is more powerful than knowing they might gain something better. Wanting to retain things as they are – known as status quo bias – explains all sorts of individual decisions, from sticking with incumbent politicians to not enrolling in retirement or health plans even when the alternatives may be rationally better.
This effect may be even more pronounced for larger changes. In the past, delaying inevitable change has led to transformations that are unnecessarily harsh, such as the collapse of some 13th-century civilizations in what is now the U.S. Southwest. As more people experience the harms of climate change firsthand, they may begin to realize that transformation is inevitable and embrace new solutions.
A mix of good and bad
The IPCC reports make clear that the future inevitably involves more and larger climate-related transformations. The question is what the mix of good and bad will be in those transformations.
If countries allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue at a high rate and communities adapt only incrementally to the resulting climate change, the transformations will be mostly forced and mostly bad.
For example, a riverside town might raise its levees as spring flooding worsens. At some point, as the scale of flooding increases, such adaptation hits its limits. The levees necessary to hold back the water may become too expensive or so intrusive that they undermine any benefit of living near the river. The community may wither away.
Riverside communities often scramble to raise levees during floods, like this one in Louisiana. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
The riverside community could also take a more deliberate and anticipatory approach to transformation. It might shift to higher ground, turn its riverfront into parkland while developing affordable housing for people who are displaced by the project, and collaborate with upstream communities to expand landscapes that capture floodwaters. Simultaneously, the community can shift to renewable energy and electrified transportation to help slow global warming.
Optimism resides in deliberate action
The IPCC reports include numerous examples that can help steer such positive transformation.
For example, renewable energy is now generally less expensive than fossil fuels, so a shift to clean energy can often save money. Communities can also be redesigned to better survive natural hazards through steps such as maintaining natural wildfire breaks and building homes to be less susceptible to burning.
Costs are falling for key forms of renewable energy and electric vehicle batteries. IPCC sixth assessment report
No one group can enact these changes alone. Everyone must be involved, including governments that can mandate and incentivize changes, businesses that often control decisions about greenhouse gas emissions, and citizens who can turn up the pressure on both.
By Caitlin Looby from the Akron Beacon Journal • Reposted: March 19, 2023
It’s the middle of March and the Great Lakes are virtually ice-free.
Ice has been far below average this year, with only 7% of the lakes covered as of last Monday — and no ice at all on Lake Erie. Lake Erie’s average ice coverage for this time of year is 40%, based on measurements over the past half-century. The lake typically freezes over the quickest and has the most ice cover because it’s the shallowest of the five Great Lakes.
But communities along Ohio’s north coast, including Cleveland, Sandusky and Port Clinton, have seen considerably less ice forming on Lake Erie in recent years.
No ice isn’t a good thing for the lakes’ ecosystem. It can even stir up dangerous waves and lake-effect snowstorms. So, what happens when the lakes are ice-free? What does it mean for the lakes’ food web? Is climate change to blame?
Little ice cover can be disastrous
This winter has already proved how dangerous lake-effect snow can be.
At the end of November, more than 6 feet of snow fell on Buffalo, New York, which sits on the shores of Lake Erie. A few weeks later on Dec. 23, more than 4 feet of snow covered the city and surrounding areas once again. The storm resulted in 44 deaths in Erie and Niagara counties, which sit on Lakes Erie and Ontario, respectively.
Cleveland and Sandusky reside on the shores of Lake Erie as well. The 2022 storm that swept the region on Dec. 23 dropped relatively little snow, only about 2-4 inches, but created dangerous conditions nonetheless.
In some places in Northeast Ohio, temperatures dropped from nearly 40 degrees to zero and below. Wind chills fueled by hurricane-force winds dragged the temperature even lower to minus 30 or even 35 below zero. This storm was the first time in almost a decade that the Cleveland Weather Forecast Office issued a blizzard warning. A 46-vehicle pileup on the Ohio Turnpike near Sandusky claimed four lives.
During stormy winter months, ice cover tempers waves. When there is low ice cover, waves can be much larger, leading to lakeshore flooding and erosion. That happened in January 2020 along Lake Michigan’s southwestern shoreline. Record high lake levels mixed with winds whipped up 15-foot waves that flooded shorelines, leading Gov. Tony Evers to declare a state of emergency for Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties.
And while less ice may seem like a good thing for the lakes’ shipping industry, those waves can create dangerous conditions.
The Great Lakes are losing ice with climate change
The Great Lakes have been losing ice for the past five decades, a trend that scientists say will likely continue.
Of the last 25 years, 64% had below-average ice, said Michael Notaro, the director of the Center on Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The steepest declines have been in the north, including Lake Superior, northern Lake Michigan and Huron, and in nearshore areas.
But this also comes with a lot of ups and downs, largely because warming is causing the jet stream to “meander,” said Ayumi Fujisaki Manome, a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan who models ice cover and hazardous weather across the lakes.
There is a lot of year-to-year variability with ice cover spiking in years like 2014, 2015 and 2019 where the lakes were almost completely iced over.
No ice makes waves in the lakes’ ecosystems
A downturn in ice coverage due to climate change will likely have cascading effects on the lakes’ ecosystems.
Lake whitefish, a mainstay in the lakes’ fishing industry and an important food source for other fish like walleye, are one of the many Great Lakes fish that will be affected, said Ed Rutherford, a fishery biologist who also works at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.
Lake whitefish spawn in the fall in nearshore areas, leaving the eggs to incubate over the winter months. When ice isn’t there, strong winds and waves can stir up the sediment, reducing the number of fish that are hatched in the spring, Rutherford said.
Walleye and yellow perch also need extended winters, he said. If they don’t get enough time to overwinter in cold water, their eggs will be a lot smaller, making it harder for them to survive.
Declining ice cover on the lakes is also delaying the southward migration of dabbling ducks, a group of ducks that include mallards, out of the Great Lakes in the fall and winter, Notaro said. And if the ducks spend more time in the region it will increase the foraging pressure on inland wetlands.
Warming lakes and a loss of ice cover over time also will be coupled with more extreme rainfall, likely inciting more harmful algae blooms, said Notaro. These blooms largely form from agricultural runoff, creating thick, green mats on the lake surface that can be toxic to humans and pets.
Lakes Erie and Michigan are plagued with these blooms every summer. And now, blooms cropping up in Lake Superior for the first time are raising alarm.
“Even deep, cold Lake Superior has been experiencing significant algae blooms since 2018, which is quite atypical,” Notaro said.
There is still a big question mark on the extent of the changes that will happen to the lakes’ ecosystem and food web as ice cover continues to decline. That’s because scientists can’t get out and sample the lakes in the harsh winter months.
“Unless we can keep climate change in check … it will have changes that we anticipate and others that we don’t know about yet,” Rutherford said.
Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @caitlooby. Beacon Journal reporter Derek Kreider contributed to this article.
Joe Charbonnet is an environmental engineer at Iowa State University who develops techniques to remove contaminants like PFAS from water. He explains what the proposed guidelines would require, how water utilities could meet these requirements and how much it might cost to get these so-called forever chemicals out of U.S. drinking water.
1. What do the new guidelines say?
PFAS are associated with a variety of health issues and have been a focus of environmental and public health researchers. There are thousands of members of this class of chemicals, and this proposed regulation would set the allowable limits in drinking water for six of them.
Two of the six chemicals – PFOA and PFOS – are no longer produced in large quantities, but they remain common in the environment because they were so widely used and break down extremely slowly. The new guidelines would allow for no more than four parts per trillion of PFOA or PFOS in drinking water.
Four other PFAS – GenX, PFBS, PFNA and PFHxS – would be regulated as well, although with higher limits. These chemicals are common replacements for PFOA and PFOS and are their close chemical cousins. Because of their similarity, they cause harm to human and environmental health in much the same way as legacy PFAS.
A few states have already established their own limits on levels of PFAS in drinking water, but these new guidelines, if enacted, would be the first legally enforceable federal limits and would affect the entire U.S.
Chemicals used to create water-repellent fabrics and nonstick pans often contain PFAS and leak those chemicals into the environment. Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
2. How many utilities will need to make changes?
PFAS are harmful even at extremely low levels, and the proposed limits reflect that fact. The allowable concentrations would be comparable to a few grains of salt in an Olympic-size swimming pool. Hundreds of utilities all across the U.S. have levels of PFAS above the proposed limits in their water supplies and would need to make changes to meet these standards.
While many areas have been tested for PFAS in the past, many systems have not, so health officials don’t know precisely how many water systems would be affected. A recent study used existing data to estimate that about 40% of municipal drinking water supplies may exceed the proposed concentration limits.
Activated carbon is a charcoal-like substance that PFAS stick to quite well and can be used to remove PFAS from water. In 2006, the town of Oakdale, Minnesota, added an activated carbon treatment step to its water system. Not only did this additional water treatment bring PFAS levels down substantially, there were significant improvements in birth weight and the number of full-term pregnancies in that community after the change.
Ion exchange systems work by flowing water over charged particles that can remove PFAS. Ion exchange systems are typically even better at lowering PFAS concentrations than activated carbon systems, but they are also more expensive.
Another option available to some cities is simply finding alternative water sources that are less contaminated. While this is a wonderful, low-cost means of lowering contamination, it points to a major disparity in environmental justice; more rural and less well-resourced utilities are unlikely to have this option.
4. Is such a major transition feasible?
By law, the EPA must consider not just human health but also the feasibility of treatment and the potential financial cost when setting maximum contaminant levels in drinking water. While the proposed limits are certainly attainable for many water utilities, the costs will be high.
The federal government has made available billions of dollars in funding for treating water. But some estimates put the total cost of meeting the proposed regulations for the entire country at around US$400 billion – much more than the available funding. Some municipalities may seek financial help for treatment from nearby polluters, while others may raise water rates to cover the costs.
5. What happens next?
The EPA has set a 60-day period for public comment on the proposed regulations, after which it can finalize the guidelines. But many experts expect the EPA to face a number of legal challenges. Time will tell what the final version of the regulations may look like.
This regulation is intended to keep the U.S. in the enviable position of having some of the highest-quality drinking water in the world. As researchers and health officials learn more about new chemical threats, it is important to ensure that every resident has access to clean and affordable tap water.
While these six PFAS certainly pose threats to health that merit regulation, there are thousands of PFAS that likely have very similar impacts on human health. Rather than playing chemical whack-a-mole by regulating one PFAS at a time, there is a growing consensus among researchers and public health officials that PFAS should be regulated as a class of chemicals.
By Jerry Anderson, Dean and Professor of Law, Drake University via The Conversation • Reposted: March 16, 2023
It’s expensive to pollute the water in Colorado. The state’s median fine for companies caught violating the federal Clean Water Act is over US$30,000, and violators can be charged much more. In Montana, however, most violators get barely a slap on the wrist – the median fine there is $300.
Similarly, in Virginia, the typical Clean Water Act violation issued by the state is $9,000, while across the border in North Carolina, the median is around $600.
Even federal penalties vary significantly among regions. In the South (EPA Region 6) the median Clean Water Act penalty issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional office is $10,000, while in EPA Region 9 (including California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii), the median is over six times as high.
We discovered just how startling the differences are in a new study, published in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. My colleague Amy Vaughan and I reviewed 10 years of EPA data on penalties issued under the Clean Water Act.
The degree of disparity we found in environmental enforcement is disturbing for many reasons. Persistent lenient penalties can lead to lower compliance rates and, therefore, more pollution. At the extreme, a lax enforcement regime can lead to environmental disasters. Disparate enforcement is also unfair, leaving some companies paying far more than others for the same behavior. Without a level playing field, competitive pressure may lead companies to locate in areas with more lenient enforcement.
There is a relatively simple solution, and another good reason to implement it: These disparities may violate the U.S. Constitution.
Why such big differences?
We think the main reason for the differences is that the EPA has not fulfilled its duty to require robust state enforcement.
Many federal environmental statutes – including the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and toxic substances laws – enable the EPA to delegate enforcement to state agencies. In fact, state agencies undertake the vast majority of enforcement actions of these federal laws.
However, the EPA is supposed to delegate enforcement only to states that are deemed capable of taking on this responsibility, including having the ability to issue permits and conduct inspections. Importantly, the states must have laws authorizing an agency or the courts to impose sufficient penalties on violators.
Federal laws like the Clean Water Act helped end corporate practices of pouring toxic wastewater into rivers, as this paper plant was doing near International Falls, Minn., in 1937. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Most state delegations occurred long ago, in the 1970s and ‘80s, shortly after Congress passed these major environmental statutes. In 1978, EPA decided that it would require states to have a minimum of $5,000-per-day penalty authority before they would be delegated enforcement power for the Clean Water Act. Forty-five years later, that required minimum is still the same.
In contrast, the Clean Water Act gives the EPA and federal courts much higher penalty authority – it started at $25,000 per day and, because of congressionally mandated annual inflation adjustments, had risen to $56,540 by the end of 2022.
That difference shows up in the fines: We found the average penalty issued by states is about $35,000, while the average penalty issued by the federal EPA is over five times as high at $186,000. The median state penalty is $4,000, while the median federal penalty is almost $30,000. While the EPA tends to be involved in the most serious cases, we believe low state penalties can also be traced to more lenient state penalty provisions.
There is also a wide disparity among state penalty statutes. At one end, Idaho law limits civil penalties to $5,000 per day, while Colorado’s law allows for penalties of up to $54,833 per day.
In some cases, penalty differences might have a legitimate explanation. However, the degree of disparity among statutes and penalties that we found with the Clean Water Act suggests the U.S. doesn’t have uniform federal environmental law. And that can run afoul of the Constitution.
A question of unconstitutional unfairness
The EPA has the power to require states to have more robust penalty provisions, more in line with federal penalties. The EPA also can provide better guidance to the states about how those penalties should be calculated. Without guidance, virtually any penalty could be justified.
As an environmental law expert, I believe the U.S. Constitution requires EPA to take these steps.
A basic tenet of fairness holds that like cases should be treated alike. In federal criminal law, for example, sentencing guidelines help limit the disparity that can result from unlimited judicial discretion.
Unfortunately, environmental law doesn’t have a similar system to provide uniform treatment of pollution violations by government agencies. Extreme penalties, at both the high and low ends, may result.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that disparate fines can reach a degree of randomness that violates the fairness norms embodied in the due process clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
In a case in the 1990s, the Supreme Court determined that a $4 million punitive damage award in a complaint involving only $4,000 in actual damages violated the due process clause. The court held that the amount of punitive damages imposed must bear some relationship to the actual harm caused by the conduct. Moreover, the court noted that punitive damages must be reasonable when compared to penalties imposed on others for comparable misconduct.
I believe the same test should apply to environmental penalties.
Unless we have some uniform system of calculating penalty amounts, the discretion allowed results in vastly different penalties for similar conduct. Our study focused on the Clean Water Act, but the results should trigger more research to determine whether these issues arise in other environmental areas, such as the Clean Air Act or hazardous waste laws.
The comparatively lenient enforcement we discovered in some states is not only unfair, it’s ultimately bad for the environment.
SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 19: Smoke rises above young giant sequoia trees during prescribed pile burning on February 19, 2023 in Sequoia National Forest, California. According to the Forest Service, wildfires have destroyed nearly 20 percent of all giant sequoias in the past three years amid hazardous fuel (vegetation) buildup. The Forest Service began emergency action last year to reduce the fuels in 12 giant sequoia groves in the Sequoia National Forest, including prescribed pile burning to reduce wildfire risk. The massive trees can live for over 3,000 years and average between 180 to 250 feet in height. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Some of the tall, stately trees that have grown up in California’s Sierra Nevada are no longer compatible with the climate they live in, new research has shown.
Hotter, drier conditions driven by climate changein the mountain range have made certain regions once hospitable to conifers — such as sequoia, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir — an environmental mismatch for the cone-bearing trees.
“They were exactly where we expected them to be, kind of along the lower-elevation, warmer and drier edges of the conifer forests in the Sierras,” Avery Hill, who worked on the study as a graduate student at Stanford University, told NPR.
Although there are conifers in those areas now, Hill and other researchers suggested that as the trees die out, they’ll be replaced with other types of vegetation better suited to the environmental conditions.
The team estimated that about 20% of all Sierra Nevada conifer trees in California are no longer compatible with the climate around themand are in
The team scrutinized vegetation data dating back to the 1930s, when all Sierra Nevada conifers were growing in appropriate climate conditions. Now, four out of five do.
That change is largely due to higher temperatures and less rainfall in these lower-elevation areas, as well as human activities, such as logging, and an uptick in wildfires.
The Sierra Nevada conifers aren’t standing still. The average elevation of the trees has increased over the past 90 years, moving 112 feet upslope. According to Hill, that’s because lower-elevation conifers have died while conifers at higher elevations where the air is cooler have been able to grow.
But the conifers’ uphill trek hasn’t been able to keep pace with the dramatic increase in temperatures.
The researchers said the number of Sierra Nevada conifers incompatible with their environments could double in the next 77 years.
The new maps can inform forest conservation and management plans
But Hill, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, hopes that the maps he and his colleagues developed showing the state’s “zombie forests” will help shape people’s understanding of the effects of climate change.
“Conservationists know, scientists know, so many people know that ecosystems are changing and expect them to change more, and people are grappling with this,” he said.
“These maps are unique, in that you can put your finger on a point and say, ‘This area right here is expected to transition due to climate change in the near future,’ and this forces some really difficult questions about what we want this land managed for and do we try to resist these impending changes,” Hill added.
By Austin Simms, Dayrize from retailtouchpoints.com • Reposted; March 9, 2023
Concerns over climate change continue to mount, and there is an increasing demand for companies to decrease their environmental impact through whatever means possible. Take CO2 emissions for example. In 2020, 140 of the largest companies stated their intentions to completely eliminate emissions within the next few decades. Since then, many of their initiatives have focused on transportation. It makes the most sense on the surface, as cars and trucks are responsible for almost 20% of emissions in the U.S. alone. CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) brands that have chosen to focus on the optimization of supply chains or reducing emissions within the “last-mile” of delivery may seem like the most logical, efficient step — but is it?
Many environmental champions also see sustainable packaging as a concrete measure to reduce CO2 or tackle environmental concerns, such as water depletion, due to the large consumption of water by various industries. Brands will often highlight their transition toward more eco-friendly packaging as one of their major initiatives to become more green, with hundreds of major corporations joining the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Unfortunately, there is reliable evidence that these are not the right targets.
Surprisingly — and according to aggregate, anonymized data derived from over 10,000 products from a number of CPG brands and companies tracked via Dayrize’s environmental impact assessment technology — transportation and packaging are responsible for a relatively negligible amount of CO2 emissions by makers of CPGs and apparel. In fact, creating more sustainable methods for consumer products to be packaged and transported addresses a mere 2% of CO2 emissions. Another surprise revealed by the same data: when it comes to apparel, packaging is far less of a factor in water depletion than the actual product inside the packaging.
Dayrize environmental impact assessment technology makes these calculations by combining the latest technology with the most recent developments in sustainability science. At the core of the software solution are 31 databases — including 14 that are proprietary — that provide rapid, accurate and actionable impact results. The technology was created by a team of 80+ industrial ecologists and sustainability experts over a period of two years to provide the fastest and most accurate impact results available.
The results are generated using five key factors that produce a simple-to-understand Dayrize Score, which is out of 100. The factors include:
Circularity: How well an individual product minimizes waste by reusing and recycling resources to create a closed loop system;
Climate Impact: How greenhouse gas-intensive the production of the product is;
Ecosystem Impact: What the impact of the product is on biodiversity and water depletion;
Livelihoods and Well-being: How each product impacts the health and well-being of the people involved in creating it;
Purpose: How meaningful a product’s purpose is by looking at the value that it provides, and the potential it has to be an accelerator for good.
The environmental impact score helps companies and consumers gain insights into the environmental impact of virtually all products, including consumer packaged goods and apparel.
The necessity for environmental impact research is demonstrated in part by our look at the sources of CO2 emissions from consumer products and water depletion in the apparel industry. Even incredibly popular and “common knowledge” solutions about how to address environmental harm meaningfully can often be incorrect in very significant — and possibly damaging — ways.
When it comes to CPGs, it’s crucial that companies keep the following facts in mind:
On average, only 1% of emitted carbon is due to packaging, while 1% comes from transportation and 2% can be traced to manufacturing for a typical consumer product.
The lion’s share of CO2 emissions come from the materials that are used in products. Up to 96% of the emissions that CPGs are responsible for are from a product’s materials.
CPG companies that want to be truly eco-friendly need to ensure their products are eco-friendly. To reduce carbon emissions, CPGs need to reassess the design of their products and the materials they’re using.
Packaging has a more consequential impact on water depletion when it comes to apparel, but nowhere near the impact of the apparel itself. For every 3.2 gallons of water that packaging depletes, the average garment depletes ten times that: 32 gallons. More eco-conscious packaging can increase an apparel company’s sustainability, but shifting attention to producing more sustainable garments can help reduce the 90% of water that is being used to create the garment.
There is an enormous opportunity to make garments more sustainable. After scoring tens of thousands of pieces of clothing, we found that only 1% of garments utilize materials that are reused. Additionally, only 5% of garments use recycled materials. This is paltry compared to the number of clothes disposed of each year: “The EPA reports that Americans generate 16M tons of textile waste a year, equaling just over 6% of total municipal waste…2.5M tons of clothing are recycled. But over three million tons are incinerated, and a staggering 10M tons get sent to landfills.”
Clearly, there are more than enough materials to re-integrate into apparel, which would help companies mitigate water depletion and other harmful environmental effects of their products.
Many companies may have good intentions, but they need to research how to achieve their goals of creating sustainable products. There are myriad ways to make it seem to the public that sustainability is a priority, but making it a reality requires both the willingness to make some tough choices and a clear understanding of what steps will truly make a difference.
Austin Simms co-founded Dayrize in 2019 and serves as its CEO. After 20+ years spent working in senior commercial positions at major corporations around the world, Simms had a desire to use his skills to address climate change. With a strong commercial background, he believed that empowering corporations was key to make real change. He recognized that the first thing that companies needed to change was access to information to make better decisions, which is why he developed the Dayrize Score tool. Simms believes commerce and sustainability are linked, and business needs to be a major catalyst for addressing climate change.
Concerns about smog from vehicles that choked cities like Los Angeles helped lead to environmental laws in the 1970s. Image: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
By Susan Kaplan, Research Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago via The Conversation • Reposted: March 9, 2023
Our child could go to gym class on Monday morning and play soccer on a field that was sprayed over the weekend with 2,4-D, a toxic weedkiller that has been investigated as possibly causing cancer. Alternatively, the school grounds may have been treated with a lower-toxicity weedkiller. Or maybe the grounds were managed with safe, nontoxic products and techniques.
Which of these scenarios applies depends in large part on your state’s laws and regulations today – more so than federal regulations.
For example, Texas requires all school districts to adopt an integrated pest management program for school buildings; IPM prioritizes nonchemical pest control methods and includes some protections regarding spraying of grounds. Massachusetts also restricts pesticide use on school grounds. Illinois requires IPM for school buildings only if economically feasible. States also vary greatly in the education and technical assistance they provide to implement these practices.
EPA registers products for use based on a finding that they do not cause an “unreasonable” risk but considers economic costs and benefits, an approach that can result in decisions that pose health risks. And required labels may omit ingredients considered trade secrets.
As an environmental health lawyer and professor, I teach, write and think about the pros and cons of one level of government or the other overseeing environmental health – the impact of the natural and human-made environment on human health. Pesticides on school grounds are just one example of the problem of uneven protection from one state to the next.
Congress eased off, states stepped in
State policy choices have become more important for limiting people’s exposure to pollution and toxins as the federal government has increasingly retreated from major environmental health lawmaking.
Many of the country’s major environmental health laws were passed in the 1970s on the momentum of the environmental movement and with bipartisan support that is rarely seen today.
For example, the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970 required U.S. EPA to regulatea wide range of air pollutants, in some cases based explicitly on protecting human health. They were approved 374-1 in the House and 73-0 by the Senate and signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon. Nixon signed the law that created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1971.
One analyst has written that groups that pressed legislators for environmental protection later splintered into groups advocating for and against environmental laws, reflecting an emerging debate over the appropriate extent of regulation.
At the same time, after the success of many federal environmental health laws, attention turned to problems that are harder for Washington to solve. With state environmental programs growing, some suggested that the U.S. EPA’s role should shift from compelling to catalyzing – from requiring specific pollution-reducing actions to helping states act by providing increased information and help with compliance. Yet this view acknowledged that under this scenario, residents of some states would enjoy stronger environmental health protections than others.
Reflecting this dynamic and the extent of political division in the U.S., even when the federal government does create tougher environmental regulations, they are often reversed by the succeeding administration or challenged in court.
Sometimes, states should make the decisions
In some cases, it makes sense to leave decisions to states. A health department in a western state may focus on protecting vulnerable groups from wildfire smoke, given the growth of blazes in that part of the country. Some states may welcome fracking operations while others prefer to keep them out.
States can also serve as laboratories of innovation, and the experiences of state programs and policies can inform federal actions.
But this regulatory patchwork creates inequities. If you live in one of the dozen-and-a-half states that follow California’s tailpipe emissions standards rather than the less stringent federal standards, you probably benefit from reduced air pollution.
The same holds for East Coast residents within the confederation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which limits greenhouse gas emissions – and other air pollutants in the process. A recent study that compared RGGI states with neighboring non-RGGI states concluded that data “indicate that RGGI has provided substantial child health benefits,” including a reduction in childhood asthma cases.
Drinking water limits or labeling requirements for PFAS – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – also vary by state. PFAS are found in products from nonstick cookware to some personal care products, and they have been linked with a range of troubling health effects. Because of their toxicity, broad scope of contamination and longevity in the environment, 18 states’ attorneys general are asking for a federal law.
How you can hold lawmakers to account
Environmental health often suffers from a cycle of panic and neglect. People worry about a concern like the chemical alar used on apples, until the next issue erupts. The public can keep up pressure on state and federal decision-makers to consider how the environment affects health in an array of ways:
One person can be dismissed as an outlier, so start a group or join other groups that have similar interests.
Research the problem and best practices and possible solutions, like program or policy development, education or stepped-up enforcement. Then call, email and send letters to elected representatives and request a meeting to clearly and concisely explain your concerns and ideas.
Identify a “champion” – someone in a position to spearhead a change, like a school nurse or facilities manager – and reach out to them.
Get the issue into the local news media by writing op-eds and social media posts. Be sure to communicate benefits of the action you’re advocating, like improved school attendance or financial return on investment.
Attend public meetings and speak on the issue during the public comment period. Successes at the local level can provide examples for state officials.
By Mary Mazzoni from Triple pundit • Reposted: February 17, 2023
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund forward and making good on its recently renewed commitments to environmental and climate justice.
Created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Fund aims to mobilize public and private capital to reduce emissions and combat air pollution across the U.S., with a focus on low-income and historically marginalized communities.
As a first step, the Fund will host two grant competitions worth $27 billion, the EPA announced in its initial guidance last week. A $7 billion competition will award grants to 60 organizations providing clean technologies like community solar and energy storage within U.S. communities. A second will disburse $20 billion to anywhere from two to 15 nonprofit lenders, including community-based lenders and green banks that provide financial assistance for low- and zero-emission technologies in low-income communities.
“The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will unlock historic investments to combat the climate crisis and deliver results for the American people, especially those who have too often been left behind,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, the first Black man to head the agency, in a statement. “With $27 billion from President Biden’s investments in America, this program will mobilize billions more in private capital to reduce pollution and improve public health, all while lowering energy costs, increasing energy security, creating good-paying jobs and boosting economic prosperity in communities across the country.”
Those are pretty big words, but a host of environmental and climate justice advocates agree about the Fund’s promise. “This is a huge step,” Adam Kent, Sarah Dougherty and Douglass Sims of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s People and Communities Program, wrote of the Fund in a blog. “It has the potential to not only improve lives, but ultimately transform ‘green’ investments into ‘mainstream’ investments by catalyzing far, far more than $27 billion of investments and building a more equitable clean energy future.”
$27 billion and beyond: Mobilizing funds for climate justice in U.S. communities
An estimated 1 out of every 25 premature deaths in the U.S. can be linked to air pollution — more than traffic accidents and shootings combined. People of color and low-income people are more likely to be exposed to high levels of air pollution and as such are at greater risk of premature death. These communities also face outsized impacts from climate change.
Addressing environmental and climate justice issues like these is a key focus in President Joe Biden’s plan to leverage federal funds to advance racial equity. Launched during Biden’s first week in office, the Justice40 Initiative looks to direct 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities that are underserved and overburdened by pollution.
The Fund will align with Justice40 and take things a step further. “Although the law requires that just over half of Fund investments target low-income and disadvantaged communities, EPA will aim to prioritize investments in these communities throughout the entire $27 billion program,” report Kent, Dougherty and Sims of the NRDC. “This decision could transform how funding flows to underserved communities, and Fund investments can support critical, life-improving projects that otherwise would not have moved forward.”
The $7 billion in grants for clean technologies has the potential to scale transformative solutions like community solar and energy storage that can decarbonize underserved communities while reducing the burden of air pollution. The idea is that a cash infusion from the EPA can help recipient organizations grow and deploy even more community-based projects in pursuit of climate justice, similarly to how a $456 million federal loan helped Tesla become the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.
“These projects have the potential to create local benefits including savings on energy costs, reliability improvements, and improved air quality, as well as reducing climate pollution,” said Heather McTeer Toney, vice president of community engagement for the Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.
Further, the EPA’s decision to diversify its portfolio of nonprofit lenders — rather than investing in a single entity — will allow funds to reach more communities through institutions with proven track records of community-based and green lending. “This is a sound decision, as NRDC and many of our environmental justice and community-based partners have pushed EPA to select multiple recipients as a critical feature of Fund implementation,” Kent, Dougherty and Sims wrote.
The next step
Both grant competitions are expected to launch in early summer. Organizations will have two to three months to submit their applications, and the EPA plans to make awards by late September of next year.
The architecture of the Fund is based on input from state, local and Tribal governments, community financing institutions, environmental justice organizations, industry groups, and labor and environmental finance experts, the EPA said — and advocates are calling on the agency to keep the engagement up as it moves to start disbursing grants.
“This is a positive step toward making the just transition affordable and accessible to those most in need,” Jessica Garcia, climate finance policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said in a statement. “The EPA should continue collecting feedback from the directly impacted communities that this fund aims to serve and developing robust criteria for its applicants to achieve its dual directive of protecting communities from climate impacts and providing them financial tools to safeguard their future. ”
By Jane Marsh from The Environmental Magazine • Reposted: February 22, 2023
Throughout the decades, the global economy has shown little regard for its environmental impact. However, businesses across all industries are now facing a reckoning. Amid increasing climate change, the calls for greater economic sustainability are coming in loud and clear — about 85% of consumers have modified their buying habits, opting for greener purchases. Another 34% are willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly goods and services.
To meet demand, brands have had to modify their operations and manufacturing processes to protect the planet. For some, the transition has been a struggle. Nevertheless, ignoring consumer pressures is a terrible business practice — adhering to eco-friendliness is essential if they hope to survive.
Of course, whether companies will ever do enough to protect the planet is the question. Here’s a closer look at how our economy has wasted our most precious resources and what companies can do to improve their sustainability.
How Companies Impact the Environment
Researchers have theorized and observed that when people gain access to a public resource — such as water, air and habitable land — they consume it based on personal needs, regardless of how its depletion hurts the planet.
This short-term overconsumption of resources can have dire impacts on the public and the environment. Here are four examples.
1. Aquifer Depletion From Agriculture
Humans require clean groundwater for safe drinking to survive. However, human activities have contaminated and depleted groundwater resources at a rapid pace. In 2015, over half of the 30% of groundwater withdrawals were used and overconsumed for irrigation in the agricultural sector.
2. Food Insecurity From Environmental Degradation
Over 1.7 million acres of arable land were used for crops in 2016. However, poor farming operations — such as overuse of chemical fertilizers and monocropping — amid a steady rise in food demand have rendered fields unusable for future yields. This places our food system and the ability to feed the world at risk. Not even the 15,000 food pantries across the country will be able to resolve the food crisis if we can no longer grow food.
3. Endangered Wildlife From Coffee Consumption
Is it impossible to get through the day without three cups of coffee in the morning? Our overconsumption of goods has degraded habitats for much of the planet’s wildlife. For example, the international trade of coffee, tea and tobacco accounts for 70% of the extinction risk for endangered species.
4. Reduced Air Quality From Traffic
Commerce, traffic congestion and human activities have also affected air quality — one of the common natural resources shared by everyone. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 7 million people die prematurely from air pollution annually.
Since then, many companies have begun analyzing their environmental degradation in the name of manufacturing and revenue, from making net-zero pledges to transitioning toward recyclable packaging alternatives to reduce waste.
However, 58% of companies admit they’ve overstated their progress. Despite their pledges, a recent NewClimate Institute report found that 25 major corporations were meeting only 40% of net-zero emissions — only three companies were genuinely committed to reducing 90% of their emissions by the target year.
Are companies doing enough to protect the planet? Not quite, but there is room for improvement. For instance, companies can implement the following measures:
Create a carbon footprint assessment to understand where they generate the most emissions.
Reduce waste by creating an end-use protocol and ramping up recycling.
Improve energy efficiency throughout operations and within office buildings.
Encourage employees and supply chain vendors to adopt eco-friendly behaviors.
Invest in carbon offsetting programs that address degraded land, water contamination and air pollution.
These measurable initiatives enable a clearer picture of a business’s sustainability. Of course, transparency is critical and companies should avoid greenwashing their efforts at all costs.
Corporate Responsibility the Key to Protecting the Planet
Businesses have come to understand the value of sustainability for their bottom line. In addition to consumer demand, companies more frequently face mandatory emissions disclosures, subsequent fees and arrests for pollution. At the end of the day, protecting the planet and our common goods are in companies’ best interest.
A group of major corporations led by Etsy and eBay is praising the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for committing to exclusively purchase electric vehicles starting in 2026, in a letter coordinated by Drawdown Labs, Project Drawdown’s private-sector testing ground for accelerating the adoption of climate solutions quickly, safely and equitably.
Etsy and eBay are among the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the country. The USPS is central to their business and to millions of small sellers who run their shops on these platforms.
The USPS is currently transitioning to an all-new fleet of 106,000 delivery vehicles. It announced in December that 62 percent of those purchases over the next five years will have all-electric powertrains and by 2026, 100 percent of newly purchased vehicles will be electric.
The letter(link is external) from Etsy and eBay also includes signatories Askov Finlayson, Avocado Green, Ben & Jerry’s, Clif Bar, Dr. Bronner’s, A Good Company, Grove Collaborative, Patagonia, Peak Design, Seventh Generation, Stonyfield and Warby Parker.
“This decision sends a message to every business in the United States: it is possible, achievable and necessary to adopt all-electric fleets for corporate transportation and shipping needs,” said Jamie Alexander, director of Drawdown Labs at Project Drawdown. “These companies are working hard to reduce their climate impact, and this move by the USPS enables them to address the difficult-to-abate supply chain emissions. This is good news for all involved.”
With a shift to electric vehicles, the group of companies believe it will not just be good for the environment but good for business as consumers reap the benefits of lower costs and other innovations made possible by electric vehicles.
The nation and the world are quickly transitioning to electric vehicles, led by consumer demand for the many benefits of EVs, including better efficiency, easier maintenance, zero emissions and better performance. That means cleaner air, reduced climate risk and improved health across the globe. Electrifying vehicles is a key climate solution, with the potential to reduce up to 9.8 gigatons of CO2-e by 2050.
“For millions of small sellers and entrepreneurs on Etsy, a modern USPS committed to innovation and sustainability is crucial for the vibrancy of their small and micro businesses,” said Chelsea Mozen, senior director of impact & sustainability at Etsy. “The USPS’s commitment to a robust electric delivery fleet is good for the postal service, good for small businesses and good for America.”
“USPS’s commitment to electric vehicles is great news for small businesses like the many on our platform who rely on USPS to keep their business moving. eBay is proud to support this move toward greater sustainability and a cleaner world,” said eBay chief sustainability officer Renée Morin.
A neon blue algae bloom is seen on Burnt Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on Sept. 28. Photo: Courtesy of Lienne Sethna
By Dan Kraker from Minnesota Public Radio News • Reposted: February 17, 2023
Harmful algae blooms, those thick, blue-green, oily layers of scum that have become more common on Minnesota lakes in recent years, are typically seen when water temperatures warm.
But a new paper challenges assumptions of what causes these sometimes toxic blooms. It documents more than three dozen cases of harmful algae in relatively cold water, including when there’s snow on the ground, and even, under ice.
“It’s really counterintuitive to what we’ve understood about blooms in the past,” said Kaitlin Reinl, Research Coordinator at the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve in Superior, Wis. She collaborated with 27 other scientists through the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network to author the paper published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters.
New discoveries
In recent years, cyanobacteria, the stuff that forms harmful algae blooms, has been blamed for the deaths of several dogs in Minnesota. In 2014 it temporarily forced the shutdown of the public water supply in Toledo, Ohio.
The algae is most commonly seen on lakes surrounded by homes and agricultural land, because the blooms are fueled by nutrients that run off into the lakes from lawns and farm fields. They often occur in calm conditions in mid-to-late summer when water temperatures spike.
This new paper, called “Blooms also like it cold,” collected reports of 37 blooms in scientific journals, media articles, and personal accounts that occurred when water temperatures were below 15 degrees Celsius, which is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few of the blooms were in the Upper Midwest, including one in Minnesota, in Lake Itasca. Others were documented across North America and Europe.
Likely undercount
Reinl said researchers didn’t try to count every single instance of a reported cold-water bloom. And she said there’s definitely an “observer bias” in where the blooms were recorded, based on where researchers are located.
Scientists, for the most part, also aren’t actively looking for algae blooms in cold-water conditions. Most monitoring programs occur when it’s warmer and easier to gather data. So there’s likely a significant undercount of cold water cyanobacteria.
The point of the article, Reinl said, isn’t to challenge the fact that algae blooms “like it hot,” which is the name of an oft-cited study published over a decade ago.
Rather, it’s to challenge researchers to consider that some blooms also don’t seem to mind it when it’s cold.
“We don’t want to create a blind spot with bloom ecology and our ability to manage blooms and steward our lakes, just because we have these preset assumptions that blooms only happen when you have high temperatures,” Reinl said.
Adaptations
In the paper, researchers propose several ways in which algae blooms can form even when the water is relatively frigid.
For example, cyanobacteria has developed adaptations in which they can form even in conditions with very low light, temperatures and nutrient levels. This is helpful in the winter, when there’s not a consistent influx of nutrients, the water is colder and ice cover can block sunlight.
Blooms can also form when nutrients deep in lakes are brought to the surface when the water is mixed by big storms or underwater currents such as upwelling.
And some algae may form when the water is warm, and then persist in the lake after the water cools.
“Those are the things we hypothesize,” said Reinl. “And so some of the next steps are to test those hypotheses in the lab and by collecting monitoring data.”
Bob Sterner, director of the Large Lakes Observatory at the University of Minnesota Duluth, says recent blooms in Lake Superior have been clearly linked to warmer temperatures.
“When it’s a warmer year we’re much more likely to see a bloom happen in Lake Superior,” Sterner said. “We tend to think that it’s a climate change driven problem that we’re just beginning to experience.”
Still, Sterner said the more scientists learn about cyanobacteria, it’s clear there are many different conditions in which harmful algae blooms can thrive, including when lakes are cool.
“So it’s really good to have this paper come out and help us appreciate the diversity of organisms out there.”
One in three consumers prefer shopping with the planet in mind, even if it means paying a little more. By Alyssa Khan, Editorial Intern • Inc.com – Posted: February 16, 2023
Knowing your customer is one of the first rules for running a successful business, and customers today care about sustainability.
One in three consumers prefer shopping with the planet in mind, even if it means paying a little more, according to a SurveyMonkey study. Sales of products marketed as sustainable also grew 2.7x faster than those that didn’t, according to a study from New York University’s Stern Center for Sustainable Business. While making your company more environmentally friendly will likely require an upfront investment, it could pay dividends in the long term, and you don’t have to reinvent your entire business plan.
Here are three sustainability tips for every business owner in 2023.
Ericka Rodriguez founded her vegan lipstick brand, Axiology, in 2014 in New York City. Though her lipsticks were originally packaged in recyclable aluminum, Rodriguez learned that their plastic components meant they often couldn’t be recycled. So she and her team of four employees began testing ways to make their packaging more environmentally friendly. They settled on a compostable, food-grade paper free of animal-sourced waxes and glue that wraps around the lipstick like paper on a crayon. While it took a year and a half and thousands of dollars to make the switch, the final production cost is now less than that of the aluminum packaging, enabling Rodriguez to lower the retail price of her flagship lipstick from $28 to $24. The new packaging also helps differentiate her brand from the competition.
1. Rethink your packaging.
Ericka Rodriguez founded her vegan lipstick brand, Axiology, in 2014 in New York City. Though her lipsticks were originally packaged in recyclable aluminum, Rodriguez learned that their plastic components meant they often couldn’t be recycled. So she and her team of four employees began testing ways to make their packaging more environmentally friendly. They settled on a compostable, food-grade paper free of animal-sourced waxes and glue that wraps around the lipstick like paper on a crayon. While it took a year and a half and thousands of dollars to make the switch, the final production cost is now less than that of the aluminum packaging, enabling Rodriguez to lower the retail price of her flagship lipstick from $28 to $24. The new packaging also helps differentiate her brand from the competition.
“I don’t think the world needs another plastic packaging lipstick brand,” Rodriguez says. “There are already so many.”
2. Consider responsible sourcing.
Nadya Okamoto and Nick Jain founded the direct-to-consumer period care brand August in 2021. The main material for their products, cotton, is the most profitable nonfood crop in the world, but farming with pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals can contaminate waterways and soil, creating havoc in ecosystems. So, August’s founders were committed from the start to use only sustainably farmed, organic cotton versus the popular industry alternative viscose, a type of rayon that is less sustainable and the subject of various health concerns. That means the cotton crops used for their products create fewer greenhouse gas emissions and don’t contaminate surrounding ecosystems. The average price of a 28-pack of regular tampons retails for between $10 and $11, while a 24-pack of August’s tampons is priced between $14 and $15. For Okamoto, the difference in price is worth it for her customers and her business.
“Supply chains are being challenged to be as ethical as possible,” says Okamoto. “Our deepened commitment to making sure that we stand by those values has helped us cultivate a beautiful community.”
3. Beware of greenwashing.
It’s no secret that companies overstate how environmentally friendly their products are. “For me, greenwashing is overclaiming in a significant way or lying about what you’re doing,” says Tensie Whelan, director of the Center for Sustainable Business at New York University. “Some of it is a lack of competence. This is a whole new area. We’re all learning all the time.”
While misleading claims about products being environmentally friendly are common, companies that exaggerate details about sustainability risk significant reputational damage. Greenwashing has been at the center of controversy over the past five years as companies like Tide, Coca-Cola, and Banana Boat sunscreens have faced inquiries and even lawsuits challenging various claims related to sustainability.
Our overheating planet needs social change more than it needs to avoid the physical tipping points we’ve come to associate with climate disaster, according to a new study from the University of Hamburg. The researchers note that while progress has been made in numerous arenas — such as citizen action, fossil fuel divestment, and implementation of U.N. and legislative policies to curb emissions — consumption patterns and corporate behavior remain prime barriers in the fight against climate change.
Ultimately, one is likely the product of the other, with consumers reacting to the constant onslaught of advertising and social media influence designed to keep them buying with little regard for the real consequences for the climate.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with the push to replace internal combustion engines (ICE) with electric vehicles (EVs) instead of building a nationwide infrastructure of public transportation — as Curbed’s Alissa Walker detailed in her extensive report last month, “An EV In Every Driveway Is an Environmental Disaster”.
“A green future, the story goes, looks a lot like today — it’s just that the cars on the road make pit stops at charging stations instead of gas stations,” Walker wrote. “But a one-for-one swap like that — an EV to take the place of your gas guzzler — is a disaster of its own making: a resource-intensive, slow crawl toward a future of sustained high traffic deaths, fractured neighborhoods, and infrastructural choices that prioritize roads over virtually everything else.”
Truly, a low-carbon future requires systemic change, with society organized not around the personal passenger vehicle but around community and getting the most out of transportation resources through integrated public transit. Swapping out ICE vehicles for EVs does nothing to curb the overconsumption problem. If anything, it intensifies it — with many consumers under the mistaken impression that prematurely replacing their gas-powered car or truck somehow helps the environment.
If anything, staying the course on cars represents a refusal to allow social change, with governments and automakers working together to keep the industry going strong in spite of the environmental and social costs.
And while consumers are consistently blamed for their desires, there is no denying that many of those wants and needs are manufactured by corporate interests and used to sell everything from shiny new vehicles to fast fashion. Would Americans really be so eager to shell out an average of almost $6,000 annually per household on loan payments and car insurance alone if not for the incessant advertising campaigns convincing us that we’ll find freedom, or love, or whatever else we desire in our next brand new car?
Would young people really care about being seen in the same outfit twice if the fashion world didn’t shove the message down their throats that it’s a bad thing? Would fast fashion — with garments that notoriously fall apart after just a few washes — have much of a market if clothing companies didn’t pay influencers to a model a one and done lifestyle?
Putting the onus of change on consumers, even as corporate interests invest in convincing them to do more of the same, is precisely why social change is not forthcoming at the rate that is needed. Indeed, while Americans say they are willing to alter their lifestyles to curb climate change, those who rely on their overconsumption aren’t going to give up trying to sell them more than they need any time soon.
The study, titled Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, concurs with the U.N.’s determination that humanity will not be able to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius as set out in the Paris Agreement on climate change. The researchers emphasize the need for social change now versus the current focus on individual physical tipping points like melting ice sheets that won’t have much effect on temperatures until 2050.
“The question of what is not just theoretically possible, but also plausible — that is, can realistically be expected — offers us new points of departure,” researcher Anita Engels of the University of Hamberg said in a statement. “If we fail to meet the climate goals, adapting to the impacts will become all the more important.”
Unfortunately, corporate and billionaire interests appear more than willing to force humanity to adapt as they sacrifice the habitability of much of the planet in order to continue business- and consumption-patterns-as-usual.
For companies aiming to become part of the solution on climate change, the Outlook recommends moving beyond the facility level (Scope 1 emissions) to address emissions across the value chain (Scope 3) — particularly how companies influence and interact with their stakeholders. If governments can come together transnationally, and non-government actors like companies take action against climate change within their entire scope of influence, these crucial social tipping points could come closer into reach.
The dairy alternative brand Oatly is using its newly reformulated oat milk yogurt line to introduce U.S. consumers to its climate footprint label — which the company has featured on products in European markets since 2021. Seeing more carbon footprint labels on food products could signal an important shift toward more informed and responsible consumption, as Americans report a willingness to make changes for the sake of the planet.
Such labeling could be a boon for producers with small carbon footprints while perhaps encouraging carbon-heavy producers in sectors like such as beef to find ways to lighten the load. But widespread use and standardization across the food industry will be necessary for it to be effective.
“Transforming the food industry is necessary to meet the current climate challenge, and we believe providing consumers with information to understand the impact of their food choices is one way we as a company can contribute to that effort,” Julie Kunen, director of sustainability for Oatly North America, said in a statement.
There’s good reason to believe that a significant number of consumers will adjust their choices accordingly. A joint study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Michigan and Harvard University found that climate impact labels on food menus did influence respondents to choose a chicken, fish or vegetarian meal over a beef one. Warning labels were more effective in deterring people from choosing beef than low-impact labels were at encouraging people to eat an alternative. While it was a small study with a limited scope, the research does point to the potential for carbon footprint labels to inform people’s diets.
The global food system accounts for between a quarter and a third of annual greenhouse gas emissions, depending on methodology, leaving plenty of room for improvement — and impact.
For its part, Oatly compares its climate footprint labeling — which will list the product’s climate impact from “grower to grocer” in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) — to the nutritional information that is already required on packaging. The CO2e measurements include not just carbon emissions, but also other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane which have been converted into interchangeable units in order to incorporate them in the total footprint.
However, the brand is clear that carbon footprint labels are neither required nor standardized, and they’re of little recourse to consumers until they become so. Thus the brand is hoping to inspire other producers in the industry to follow suit while encouraging consumers to eat more plant-based and low-carbon alternatives.
“The products we make at Oatly aim to make it easy for people to make the switch to non-dairy alternatives, and great taste is one of the most essential components of driving that conversion,” Leah Hoxie, the brand’s senior vice president of innovation in North America, explained further in a statement.
Taste has been a barrier for the plant-based movement, with major strides made in the latest generation of plant-based meats and dairy products that have hit the market. Indeed, more people are willing to make the leap to eating lower on the food chain as the taste, texture and price of alternatives become more palatable.
Fostering a sense of responsibility for the climate in their business practices and labeling should work in Oatly’s favor, especially among Gen Z.
Consumers have long been burdened with a status quo that makes doing the right thing more difficult, so it’s no wonder we have fallen into a food system that pollutes and destroys ecosystems at a rate far higher than it should. But by providing climate impact information on product packaging, brands can gain consumer trust and demonstrate that they also trust the consumer to make the right choice.
As the balance of information shifts and becomes more equitable, consumers could be empowered not just to lower their own gastronomic impact on the climate, but to expect better from the food industry as well. Naturally this would require a more intricate labeling system — perhaps including warnings on high-impact items — but Oatly is off to a promising start.
Fellow plant-based brand Quorn also includes carbon footprint labels on product packaging, and CPG giant Unilever has committed to roll such labeling out to its entire product portfolio. Other sectors, from beauty to tech, are also looking toward climate labels in a trend that seems to be just heating up.
A flare burns off methane and other hydrocarbons as oil pumpjacks operate in the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021. Massive amounts of methane are venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian Basin, new aerial surveys show. The emission endanger U.S. targets for curbing climate change. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
By Rebecca Hersher from National Public Radio News • Posted: February 8, 2023
The most powerful climate policy tool available to the federal government is a single number. It’s called the social cost of carbon, and it represents the cost to humanity of emitting greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere.
The social cost of carbon adds up all the damage from carbon emissions – the lost crops, flooded homes and lost wages when people can’t safely work outside, plus the cost of climate-related deaths. The answer is expressed in dollars.
The current social cost of carbon is $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted.
Most climate experts agree that number is too low. That’s a problem because it can make it seem like the costs of climate solutions – such as the immediate price tag for building more public transit or expanding wind energy – outweigh the benefits, when in fact many of the benefits to humanity are simply being underestimated.
“That is an absolutely enormous improvement,” says Tamma Carleton, a climate economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara who is an expert on the social cost of carbon. “We don’t have other avenues for large-scale climate policy at the federal level. This is our main tool.”
But the new number is also controversial, because of the way that the EPA assesses the value of human lives lost due to climate change.
If you make more money, your life is worth more
A major reason the EPA’s new social cost of carbon is higher is because this is the first time the federal government has added to its calculations the cost of climate-related deaths outside America, including in developing and low-lying countries that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
But the EPA didn’t assign the same dollar value to every life. Instead, a life lost in a lower-income country due to climate change is worth less than a life lost in a higher-income country.
The upshot is that the value of a climate-related death in the United States is equal to about 9 deaths in India, or 5 deaths in Ukraine or 55 deaths in Somalia. It also suggests that the life of a person in Qatar is worth almost twice as much as the life of an American.
“It’s inherently inequitable to use this kind of approach,” says Vaibhav Chaturvedi, a fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in New Delhi, India and a leading expert on global climate economics. “All lives are equally valuable.”
Chaturvedi argues that the EPA’s approach is both philosophically and logically wrong, because America’s greenhouse gas emissions endanger people everywhere. In fact, the people who live in low-lying and low-income countries are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising seas and extreme weather.
That’s true in India, he says, where climate-driven disasters killed an estimated 2,200 people last year, according to the Indian Meteorological Department. “What makes India very vulnerable [to climate change] is that it’s still a very low-income economy,” says Chaturvedi. For the EPA to assign less value to the lives of the people most affected by greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t make sense, he argues.
The EPA does not apply the same method to lives within the U.S. – the agency applies one value to all American lives, regardless of income.
The EPA declined to answer NPR’s questions about its method because the proposed social cost of carbon is currently accepting comments from the public. But an FAQ on the EPA’s website explains how the EPA conducts what it calls “mortality risk valuation.”
“The EPA does not place a dollar value on individual lives,” the FAQ explains. “Rather, when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution.”
Daniel Hemel, a law professor who studies how policymakers assign value to lives saved for the purpose of regulations, says the EPA’s social cost of carbon does put a dollar amount on human lives. “You’ll hear agencies say ‘We’re not valuing lives.’ I don’t know, they kind of are. They’re deciding how much it’s worth it to spend to save a life,” he says.
Residents of southwest Pakistan move through floodwaters in September 2022. People with less wealth are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including more severe rainstorms. Photo: Fareed Khan/AP
Getting this number right is important for the future of global warming
If you assigned the same value to lives around the world, the social cost of carbon would be much higher – almost double the number the EPA is currently proposing, says Tamma Carleton, who examined this question for a study published last year.
An even higher social cost of carbon would theoretically push the U.S. government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more quickly and dramatically. “We’d end up being more concerned about climate change,” explains Hemel.
It’s unclear why EPA economists didn’t choose this route. Hemel speculates that some policymakers might be concerned about proposing a social cost of carbon that is so high, it appears to require the U.S. to take drastic, and politically unpopular, steps to slash greenhouse gas emissions. For example, banning gas-powered vehicles or eliminating domestic fossil fuel extraction.
Chaturvedi argues that the U.S. is missing an opportunity by not embracing the full value of the lives saved around the world if emissions fall. He says an even higher social cost of carbon could spur the development of new renewable energy technology or even methods to remove carbon from the air, which the U.S. could then export to the rest of the world.
Getting this number right is ethically important
The moral implications of the EPA’s approach loom at least as large as the practical and political ones.
“To systematically discount the value of deaths outside the United States is a grave moral mistake,” says bioethicist Paul Kelleher of the University of Wisconsin. “It’s important to get it right because these are life and death decisions.”
An estimated 74 million lives could be saved this century if greenhouse gas emissions are eliminated by 2050, a study published last year suggested.
“Every molecule of carbon dioxide matters.” The social cost of carbon, Kelleher says, “will make a difference to who lives, who dies, how good their lives are [and] how bad their deaths are,” for decades to come.
Hemel worries about the message that the EPA’s approach sends at home.
“I think we send a problematic message to Americans when we use a method for assigning values to lives outside the United States that ends up valuing light-skinned people from the global North more than dark skinned people from the global South,” he says.
By Navin Singh Khadka, Environment correspondent • BBC World Service • Reposted: February 6, 2023
We are losing wetlands three times faster than forests, according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. When it comes to restoring them to their natural state there is one hero with remarkable powers – the beaver.
Wetlands store water, act as a carbon sink, and are a source of food. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands says they do more for humanity than all other terrestrial ecosystems – and yet they are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The main problems are agricultural and urban expansion, as well as droughts and higher temperatures brought about by climate change.
But if you have a river and a beaver it may be possible to halt this process.
These furry sharp-toothed rodents build dams on waterways to create a pond, inside which they build a “lodge” where they can protect themselves from predators.
Their technique is to chew tree trunks until they fall, and to use the trunk and branches as building materials, along with stones at the base, and mud and plants to seal the dam’s upstream wall.
The dam causes flooding, slows down the flow of water and keeps it on the landscape longer.
“This transforms simple streams into thriving wetland ecosystems,” says Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at California State University.
“The amount of food and water available in their wetlands makes them ideal habitat for many different species. That’s part of why beavers are what’s known as a keystone species.”
Image caption, Beavers chew the base of selected trees until they fall
Over the past 50 years, Canada and several states across the US have reintroduced beavers. Initially this was done to restore beaver numbers, after they were hunted nearly to extinction for their fur and meat in the 19th Century.
But the restoration of wetland ecosystems has also brought huge biodiversity benefits, including the return of many species of frogs, fish and invertebrates.
A study by Finnish researchers in 2018 found that ponds engineered by beavers contained nearly twice as many mammal species than other ponds. Weasels, otters and even moose were all more prevalent.
“Beaver wetlands are pretty unique,” says Nigel Willby, professor of freshwater science at University of Stirling.
“Anyone can make a pond, but beavers make amazingly good ponds for biodiversity, partly because they are shallow, littered with dead wood and generally messed about with by beavers feeding on plants, digging canals, repairing dams, building lodges etc.
“Basically, beavers excel at creating complex wetland habitats that we’d never match.”
Eager beavers
Dams built by beavers can be up to 5m high, and the largest one so far recorded – in Alberta, Canada – is 850m long
While beavers chop down trees, the tree stumps often sprout new shoots instead of dying – effectively the beavers carry out coppicing
The North American beaver and the Eurasian beaver were confirmed to be separate species in the 1970s
A healthy wetland ecosystem also sequesters large amounts of carbon, and by acting as a sponge and soaking up floodwaters it can soften the impacts of climate change, scientists say.
Wetlands store water during wet seasons and release it slowly during drought episodes.
“When you enter a period of drought, all the plants living in a floodplain rely on stored water in the soil to keep green and stay healthy. If they don’t have much water to access they will start to wilt and wither and dry out,” says Dr Fairfax.
Image caption, A beaver dam in Wyoming, USA
She and her team studied 10 different wildfires in five US states between 2000 and 2021 and found in each one beavers and their ecosystem engineering reliably created and preserved wetland habitat, even during megafire events.
“Beaver wetlands have a lot of stored water, so plants in them don’t really feel droughts, they stay green and lush. And when wildfire came through, they were not burnt and we found that they stayed well-watered.”
But experts say beavers are only part of the solution to restore wetlands. Other necessary measures include planting woodland along the banks of lakes and rivers, and restoration of peatland and saltmarsh, says Prof Willby.
And crucially, beavers are only found naturally in North America and Eurasia.
Introducing them to inappropriate places can be counter-productive. This was demonstrated in Argentina and Chile, where beavers introduced from North America in the 1940s multiplied exponentially in the absence of predators, resulting in severe forest loss.
The Global Wetlands Outlook published in 2021 by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands found the most widespread wetland deterioration in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Image caption, Lake Chad is a shadow of its former self
The drastic shrinking of Lake Chad, closer to the border of Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria in West Africa is one of the most striking examples.
It has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s mainly due to a steep rise in water demand from a rapidly growing population, unplanned irrigation and now climate-change-induced drought.
“Conflicts, mainly between farmers and cattle-rearers, over the limited remaining water of the lake was already there and now drought is further drying it up and fighting over the water has gone worse” says Adenike Oladosu, a wetland conservation activist in Nigeria.
Image caption, The Rio Negro is the largest wetland protected under the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
Barron Joseph Orr, lead scientist with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, says wetlands are often resilient ecosystems, but prolonged droughts now pose a growing threat.
“Climate change projections show increased drought severity in drylands that could compromise wetland resilience and reduce important habitat services,” he says.
In other areas too, drought can damage wetlands, but the beaver can help protect them. There have already been more than 100 successful reintroduction projects in North America and northern Europe.
In Europe the population is believed to have tripled in the last 20 years, according to Prof Willby, with beavers now re-established in most European countries. Sweden, Germany and Austria led the way, according to the Natural History Museum, but the UK followed in the early 2000s.
“The early motivation for bringing beavers back to the UK was mostly about playing a part in restoring a declining species to its native range,” Prof Willby says.
“But the value it could have as a keystone species for other biodiversity and in natural flood management was gaining a lot more traction, and these are the arguments usually put forward now to support the local releases of translocated animals or fenced trials happening in many places.”
A fire burned in a national forest in southern New Mexico.Credit…USDA Forest Service, via Associated Press
By Philip Higuera, Professor of Fire Ecology, University of Montana; Jennifer Balch, Associate Professor of Geography and Director, Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder; Maxwell Cook,Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder and Natasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub, University of Colorado Boulder via The Conversation * Reposted: February 5, 2023
It can be tempting to think that the recent wildfire disasters in communities across the West were unlucky, one-off events, but evidence is accumulating that points to a trend.
In a new study, we found a 246% increase in the number of homes and structures destroyed by wildfires in the contiguous Western U.S. between the past two decades, 1999-2009 and 2010-2020.
This trend is strongly influenced by major fires in 2017, 2018 and 2020, including destructive fires in Paradise and Santa Rosa, California, and in Colorado, Oregon and Washington. In fact, in nearly every Western state, more homes and buildings were destroyed by wildfire over the past decade than the decade before, revealing increasing vulnerability to wildfire disasters.
What explains the increasing home and structure loss?
Entire neighborhoods were reduced to ash when a wildfire spread into Santa Rosa, California, in 2017. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
As fire scientists, we have spent decades studying the causes and impacts of wildfires, in both the recent and more distant past. It’s clear that the current wildfire crisis in the Western U.S. has human fingerprints all over it. In our view, now more than ever, humanity needs to understand its role.
Wildfires are becoming more destructive
From 1999 to 2009, an average of 1.3 structures were destroyed for every 4 square miles burned (1,000 hectares, or 10 square kilometers). This average more than doubled to 3.4 during the following decade, 2010-2020.
Nearly every Western state lost more structures for every square mile burned, with the exception of New Mexico and Arizona.
But among wildfires that do burn homes or other structures, humans play a disproportionate role – 76% over the past two decades were started by unplanned human-related ignitions, including backyard burning, downed power lines and campfires. The area burned from human-related ignitions rose 51% between 1999-2009 and 2010-2020.
This is important because wildfires started by human activities or infrastructure have vastly different impacts and characteristics that can make them more destructive.
As a result, of all the wildfires that destroy structures in the West, human-caused events typically destroy over 10 times more structures for every square mile burned, compared to lighting-caused events.
The December 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings in the suburbs near Boulder, Colorado, fit this pattern to a T. Powerful winds sent the fire racing through neighborhoods and vegetation that was unusually dry for late December.
As human-caused climate change leaves vegetation more flammable later into each year, the consequences of accidental ignitions are magnified.
The amount of flammable vegetation has increased in many regions because of an absence of burning due to emphasizing fire suppression, preventing Indigenous fire stewardship and a fear of fire in any context, well exemplified by Smokey Bear. Putting out every fire quickly removes the positive, beneficial effects of fires in Western ecosystems, including clearing away hazardous fuels so future fires burn less intensely.
How to reduce risk of destructive wildfires
The good news is that people have the ability to affect change, now. Preventing wildfire disasters necessarily means minimizing unplanned human-related ignitions. And it requires more than Smokey Bear’s message that “only you can prevent forest fires.” Infrastructure, like downed power lines, has caused some of the deadliest wildfires in recent years.
Actions to reduce risk will vary, since how people live and how wildfires burn vary widely across the West.
States with large tracts of land with little development, like Idaho and Nevada, can accommodate widespread burning, largely from lighting ignition, with little structure loss.
Climate change remains the elephant in the room. Left unaddressed, warmer, drier conditions will exacerbate challenges of living with wildfires. And yet we can’t wait. Addressing climate change can be paired with reducing risks immediately to live more safely in an increasingly flammable West.
Many younger workers in the U.K. are rejecting employers that lag in ESG. Image via Shutterstock/Prostock-studio.
By Stuart Stone from businessgreen.com • Reposted: January 30, 2023
A third of 18- to 24-year-olds have rejected a job offer based on the prospective employers’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in favor of more environmentally friendly roles — fueling a growing trend dubbed “climate quitting” by KPMG.
The consultancy giant published the results of a survey of 6,000 U.K. adult office workers, students, apprentices and those who have left higher education in the past six months, which found that almost half — 46 percent — of those quizzed want the company they work for to demonstrate green credentials.
KMPG found that “climate quitting” is being driven by millennial and Gen Z job seekers who are attaching increased weight to the environmental performance of potential employers when considering new roles.
Overall, one-in five-respondents to the survey revealed they had turned down an offer from a firm whose ESG commitments were not consistent with their values, but the share of those rejecting jobs from companies with weak ESG credentials rose to one-in-three for 18- to 24-year-olds.
However, the survey revealed significant numbers of employees are assessing employers’ ESG performance when considering new roles, regardless of age.
It is the younger generations that will see the greater impacts if we fail to reach [global climate] targets, so it is unsurprising that this, and other interrelated ESG considerations, are front of mind for many.
Over half of 18- to 24-year-olds and 25- to 34-year-olds said they valued ESG commitments from their employer, while 48 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds said the same.
Moreover, 30 percent of respondents said they had researched a company’s ESG credentials when job hunting, rising to 45 percent among 18- to 24-year-olds.
A company’s environmental impact and living wage policies were key areas researched by over 45 percent of job seekers. Younger workers tended to be most interested in fair pay commitments, while those ages 35 to 44 were more likely to be interested in the environmental impact of a potential employer.
John McCalla-Leacy, head of ESG at KPMG, said it was little surprise that younger workers were prioritizing firms’ climate credentials.
“It is the younger generations that will see the greater impacts if we fail to reach [global climate] targets, so it is unsurprising that this, and other interrelated ESG considerations, are front of mind for many when choosing who they will work for,” he said.
“For businesses the direction of travel is clear. By 2025, 75 percent of the working population will be millennials, meaning they will need to have credible plans to address ESG if they want to continue to attract and retain this growing pool of talent.”
The results are likely to be welcomed by green businesses, which are facing significant recruitment challenges as they look to hire more people with sustainability and clean tech skills to support the delivery of their net zero targets.
The recent Salary and Recruiting Trends guide from recruitment consultancy firm Hays found that almost two-thirds of young jobseekers are on the hunt for roles in a sustainability sector that is crying out for new talent.
A maze of pipes at the Highwater Ethanol plant in rural Lamberton, Minn. The plant is one of many which have signed on for a proposed $4.5 billion project collecting carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants in Minnesota and neighboring states, then storing the greenhouse gas deep underground in North Dakota. Photo: Jackson Forderer for MPR News 2022
From the Associated Press • January 28, 2023
North Dakota landowners testified for and against a carbon capture company’s use of eminent domain Friday, as Summit Carbon Solutions moves forward in constructing a massive underground system of carbon dioxide pipelines spanning 2,000 miles across several states and under hundreds of people’s homes and farms in the Midwest.
The proposed $4.5 billion carbon pipeline project would capture carbon dioxide emissions across neighboring states and deposit the emissions deep underground in North Dakota.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted early this month to accepted Summit Carbon Solution’s route permit application. It also ordered an environmental review of the project.
Landowners who opposed the company’s right to eminent domain argued that a private entity should not be able to forcibly buy their land and that the pipeline will potentially endanger people living above it.
Eminent domain refers to the government’s right to forcibly buy private property — like the land under a person’s house or farm — for public use.
Landowners who supported Summit’s right to exercise eminent domain said the company’s timely construction of the carbon pipeline serves an important public interest — it would reduce the state’s carbon footprint and thereby allow North Dakotans to continue working in energy and agriculture — and that people living above the pipeline will be safe.
“The safety of our operations, our employees, and the communities where we operate is the foundation of Summit Carbon Solutions’ business,” Summit said on its website. “As the project is constructed, we will utilize the latest and most reliable technologies and materials.”
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee did not immediately vote on the bills heard Thursday and Friday about carbon pipelines and eminent domain.
Republican Sen. Jeffery Magrum, of Hazelton, said he introduced the bills because he has heard from “many landowners” that carbon pipeline developers are threatening the use of eminent domain as a way to negotiate for property rights and access.
“We need to support property rights and our land owners as we develop our natural resources,” Magrum said.
The bill heard Friday would prohibit carbon pipeline companies from exercising eminent domain, but would allow oil, gas and coal companies to continue using eminent domain.
“The proposed carbon dioxide pipeline would move a dangerous product through our community to a location where it cannot be used for any purpose, but instead must be injected underground and sequestered forever,” said Gaylen Dewing, who has worked as a farmer and rancher near Bismarck for over 50 years.
Dewing added that the state’s energy industry “would not benefit in any way” from this practice of storing carbon dioxide underground, so carbon pipeline companies should not have the right to exercise eminent domain.
Susan Doppler, a landowner in Burleigh County, said her family does not want “our land ripped up — toxic and useless — to give way to a hazardous pipeline. What a worthless and disgusting inheritance to leave a future generation.”
But other North Dakota landowners pushed back.
Keith Kessler, a farmer and rancher in Oliver County who owns land within the boundaries of the pipeline project, said a different pipeline has been transporting carbon for over 20 years between North Dakota and Canada. That pipeline has never had a rupture or leak, and hazardous incidents from carbon pipelines are rare, he said.
And Lori Flemmer, a resident of Mercer County, said her husband and sons work in the energy industry and on their family farm. Working in agriculture and energy is “reality in coal country,” she said, and carbon capture technology is necessary for reducing carbon footprints and keeping coal plants alive.
Summit Carbon Solutions’ Executive Vice President Wade Boeshans said the company must keep its ability to use eminent domain in order to build carbon pipelines in a timely fashion, deliver on the $4.5 billion pipeline project and keep North Dakota’s economy afloat. According to the company’s website, the project would span Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Republican Gov. Doug Burgum lauded North Dakota’s efforts to store carbon dioxide in January.
“We’re on our way toward achieving carbon neutrality as a state by 2030, thanks to our extraordinary capacity to safely store over 252 billion tons of CO2, or 50 years of the nation’s CO2 output,” Burgum said. “And in the process, we can help secure the future of our state’s two largest industries: energy and agriculture.”
The Trump administration in 2018 gave North Dakota the power to regulate underground wells used for long-term storage of waste carbon dioxide. North Dakota was the first state to be given such power, the Environmental Protection Agency said in announcing the move. The state has since invested heavily in carbon capture and sequestration technology.
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Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15
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