Apparel Industry Is Unprepared For New Sustainability Laws. Image: GETTY
By Greg Petro, Contributor to forbes.com • Reposted: February 18, 2023
One of the hot topics among fashion execs these days is what’s shaping up to be the industry’s next crisis — government regulation of sustainability. In the US, Europe, and elsewhere, new laws are in the pipeline or on the books that, for the first time, require leading brands to come clean about pollution and waste.
It’s a crisis because the apparel industry, as we’ve come to expect it, is stubbornly unsustainable. There have been numerous examples in recent years of the cost of speed and convenience, including the decision by marquee fashion labels to burn or otherwise destroy overstock merchandise and the annual tsunami of returns that end up in African landfills.
The cost of trying to make the business less harmful to the environment and less wasteful has been, in the short run, a lose-lose proposition — awkward, expensive, and often dismissed by critics as greenwashing. At the executive level, sustainability has been a blip on the radar screen. As a senior exec at one company told me recently, “Right now, I just need to figure out our pricing strategy given inflation.”
As the ideal of sustainability becomes hard law, kicking the can down the road isn’t work anymore, especially with tough new transparency and reporting requirements like those recently enacted in France. “It’s the first time a regulation has required so much disclosure in the entire industry,” says Baptiste Carriere-Pradal of the Amsterdam-based Sustainable Apparel Coalition. In a recent interview with BusinessofFashion.com, he warned, “The industry is not prepared at all.”
In the US, New York and California now ban certain chemicals used in waterproofed outerwear. But the New York State Legislature is putting the final touches on a major new piece of legislation — the New York Fashion Act — that is even tougher than France’s. If enacted, it would be a back-office headache for any company in any industry, let alone one that lives on such thin margins.
As currently written, the proposed New York law requires fashion retailers with more than $100 million in global revenue to produce maps of their supply chains, “… identifying, preventing, mitigating, accounting for, and taking remedial action to address actual and potential adverse impacts to human rights and the environment in their own operations and in their supply chain.” That’s a tall order, and the final legislation may be less burdensome. Either way, the trend toward regulation is gathering steam.
Addressing apparel sustainability is challenging because most retail executives have missed the boat regarding what consumers care most about. A First Insight survey from last year found that two-thirds of retailers believe consumers are not willing to spend more for sustainable brands, but two-thirds of consumers said they would…the key is that it has to be the right stuff.
The survey found that nearly all retailers — 94 % — believe that brand name is more important to consumers than sustainability, but three-quarters of consumers said the opposite. Retail executives ranked brand-operated resale/recommerce programs lowest when asked what type of sustainable shopping formats consumers would most utilize. But 41 % of consumers reported they already shop at brand resale/recommerce programs, such as those offered by Patagonia, Lululemon, or Levi’s.
It’s easy to understand how — after dealing with the pandemic, supply chain, and inventory glut crises — apparel companies have been busy just trying to keep the lights on. But it’s hard to figure out how they could be so poorly informed about what their customers want.
Show appreciation to those who give so much. By Amy Goyer from AARP – February 17, 2023
Family caregivers spend a great deal of time caring for family, neighbors and friends — an average of 24 hours of care per week, studies show. For some, it’s a full-time job. Although it may truly be a labor of love, the truth is family caregivers often feel invisible, alone and unappreciated. That’s where you come in. You can make a real difference for your family members, friends and coworkers who are caring for others. On National Caregivers Day, Feb. 17 this year, let them know you get it: You see what they are doing, and you honor and value them.
I’ve been a family caregiver my entire adult life for various loved ones, and I can tell you that even the smallest gesture means so very much. Here are some ways you can demonstrate your support and appreciation.
1. Be with them.
Melanie Mitchell, who cared for her mother, expressed it so well: “Sit with me. Don’t just tell me how great I’m doing. Spend some time with me.”
What that looks like:
Ask them how they are doing. Be clear that their physical, mental and emotional health and quality of life are just as important as their loved ones’.
Listen nonjudgmentally. Let them share their feelings, tell stories, laugh, cry, vent and process their caregiving experiences. You don’t need to fix anything; you just need to care and to validate their perspectives. Let them know you see they are having a rough time and you understand. Tell them it’s OK to sometimes feel resentment, anger and frustration, along with joy.
Do things with them on a regular basis. Walk with them once a week, schedule a weekly check-in call, or take them out for a meal or a cup of coffee or tea. Plan ahead so they have something to look forward to. Be flexible if their caregiving duties mean a last-minute change.
Stop by for a visit with them (and their loved ones). Even short visits can change the course of their day. If they are providing hands-on care for loved ones try to avoid their busiest times.
2. Make it possible for them to take a break.
Don’t just encourage them to take a break, plan for it. Help them find the time to exercise, get a haircut, travel, go to the post office, go shopping or keep up with their own health care. Offer and follow up — don’t wait to be asked.
What that looks like:
Pay for some respite care. It can be through an agency or other paid caregivers.
Provide care yourself. Spend some time with their care recipients. Even if they are there, too, it’s a real help for their loved ones to have someone else to interact with. Play games, watch a movie, look at photograph albums and listen to music together.
Arrange for family members to help out. See if an aunt, cousin, nephew or other close relation will step up.
Research other respite care options. Check out state or local respite programs or a short-term respite stay at an assisted living facility or skilled nursing facility. Talk it over with them and do as much as you can to follow up and make it happen.
3. Actively demonstrate your support.
Hands-on help is always needed in so many areas.
What that looks like:
Cook or order a meal for delivery for a caregiver and/or those they care for. Let them know it’s coming so they are aware they don’t have to cook that day. (Be sure to follow special diets.)
Do online research for them. Help find health care providers, gather information about health conditions, locate medical equipment, or find just the right gadget to meet a special need.
Do housework and yard work (or hire someone to do it) at their home or their loved one’s home. Cleaning, mowing the grass, handling holiday decorations and other tasks on top of caregiving can be overwhelming. Fix things or pay for a handyperson to do so.
Help them get organized. Ease their stress by tackling that messy closet or cabinet, organizing medical supplies, cleaning out the refrigerator or clearing clutter in the home. You can even hire a professional organizer to guide and/or do the organizing.
Run errands. Pick up groceries, care supplies, household items or dry cleaning, or arrange and pay for delivery.
4. Tell them how great they are.
Be specific. Point out the many ways in which they are making a real difference in their loved ones’ lives. Celebrate the victories, small and large. Tell them you see their skills and resilience in even the most difficult of circumstances.
What that looks like:
Mail greeting cards. We don’t often get “good mail” these days, so it’s an extra special surprise when we do. Be sure to say thank you for all they do for their loved ones. When I was in the throes of caring for both of my parents and my sister, my best friend sent me a card that said, “She who never gives up!” I posted it in the house, and it frequently gave me a lift and encouraged me to press on (it still does). It gave me confidence.
Send edible treats, such as a fruit bouquet, cookies or wine-of-the-month club. My aunt loves bread pudding, so I found a place that ships it. My sister once surprised me with a package of chocolate-covered strawberries when I was in the thick of caregiving. Her enclosed note said, “Thank you for all you do for Mom and Dad.” It meant the world to me.
Bring them fresh flowers — or have them delivered. Fresh flowers bring joy and beauty to our existence and make us feel special.
Write a letter. Tell them they are incredible and explain how important they are and how much you admire them.
Nominate them for an award. Find out if local, state or national organizations give awards to recognize outstanding caregivers or people who are making a difference in their communities. If you can’t find one — create an award for them yourself, complete with a certificate!
5. Encourage their self-care.
Remind them it’s not selfish to care for themselves; it’s practical. They need to “fill up” so they have the internal fuel to keep on caregiving. And they will be better caregivers.
What that looks like:
Give a gift certificate. Treat them to a massage, facial, manicure/pedicure or another pampering treatment. But don’t stop there. Help schedule the appointment, provide transportation and arrange backup care — or maybe have fun getting treated together.
Sign them up or buy tickets. Go with them to a class, movie, art exhibit, festival, exercise session or another local community event.
Help them schedule their wellness checkups. Offer to drive them there and have lunch or coffee afterward.
I moderate AARP’s Family Caregivers Discussion Group on Facebook and giving and receiving thanks is a frequent topic of discussion. As group member Jaclyn Strauss said in a comment recently: “A simple moment to pause and say thank you can go a really long way!”
So, I urge you to take a moment to thank a caregiver in your life today.
By Andrew Kaminsky from Triple Pundit • February 17, 2023
It’s almost time for the grand reveal. While the final product is still a bit of a mystery, but the anticipation has the business world anxiously awaiting the news.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to make a big announcement in April, and if we’re lucky, it will be the full release of its climate disclosure rules. Either way, publicly-traded companies in the U.S. should be preparing to report on the climate metrics that are soon to become mandatory.
What are the incoming climate disclosure rules?
We are in the midst of a climate crisis, and the rules that dictate how businesses and governments operate are changing. The EU already has a climate disclosure system in place for its largest companies — which is being upgraded next year to include more companies and more thorough reporting. The U.S. is following the EU’s lead with the new SEC climate disclosure rules.
The mandatory disclosures are expected to include a company’s carbon emissions, low-carbon transition plans and climate risks. Climate risk is separated into physical and transition risks: Physical risks are climate hazards like drought, flood and extreme heat, whereas transition risks cover the policy changes with which organizations must comply.
While businesses have yet to be shown the final climate disclosure rules from the SEC, there are measures they can take to hit the ground running when the rules are revealed.
What can companies do to prepare?
“It’s really about being prepared for Scope 3 [GHG emissions] and ensuring that all of the data you are disclosing is traceable and auditable,” says William Theisen, CEO of EcoAct North America.
Scope 3 GHG emissions cover the emissions produced across an organization’s entire value chain, both upstream and downstream. Depending on the size of the business, this can include hundreds or thousands of different companies, from raw material suppliers to distribution partners. It’s an overwhelming task, but it’s much more manageable if taken one step at a time.
“The first step is to do a materiality assessment and get at least an idea of where you should focus first,” Theisen says. “Look at the products and services within your supply chain, and then transform them using an emission factor to equate it to a tonnage of carbon. It won’t be completely accurate, but it will at least give you an idea of areas to dive into and get more granular data.”
Organizations that want to have some idea of what the SEC reporting may look like can explore the current CDP global disclosure system. “As a supplier or publicly- traded company looking to get your bearings on what requirements are probably going to be important, CDP is a good place to start,” Theisen suggests.
Part of the SEC disclosure requirements will include climate risk. While it can be difficult to evaluate how vulnerable business assets are to climate risk — with much of it open to interpretation — honesty and transparency is the best policy, Theisen advises. Trying to downplay climate risk is how a business can get burned.
“It’s the quality of their disclosure. If they understand what the climate risks are and they’re addressing them, that can actually play in a company’s favor,” he explains. “It’s when a company is not disclosing any climate risk that the assumption then is that maybe they don’t know what’s happening — maybe they’re not putting in mitigation measures.”
“Investors and external stakeholders really just want to understand that this is being appropriately managed, that there is a roadmap, and that the roadmap can evolve,” Theisen says. “We’re all adapting to climate change year after year.”
Enlisting climate consultants can help businesses develop strategies for their climate disclosures. This demonstrates to investors that leadership understands the risks associated with climate change and are engaging in methods to mitigate their exposure.
By Ignacio Gavilan Director, Sustainability, The Consumer Goods Forum – From the Consumer Goods Forum • Posted: February 18, 2023
Our relationship with plastic needs to change, and fast. The urgency around the plastics issue has been felt even more keenly since negotiations for a legally binding global plastic treaty began last month. There is no doubt that plastic can have an important role in getting people certain food, drinks and other products in a safe and reliable way. But it is critical that we use less plastic and, wherever possible, better plastic to protect the natural environment while meeting the needs of our growing global population. Ultimately, we need a better system that supports a circular economy for plastics, where it is used again and again in many forms, instead of becoming waste or pollution.
For the consumer goods sector, this means dramatically stepping up our game when it comes to redesigning plastic packaging upstream while increasing collection, sortation and recycling downstream. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of plastic packaging that is designed poorly. For example, a lot of plastic packaging still contains problematic materials like PVC, meaning that most plastic packaging still isn’t recycled and ends up in landfill or incineration.
This is why the 40 retailers, consumer brands and convertors in The Consumer Goods Forum’s (CGF) Plastic Waste Coalition of Action worked with industry experts, recyclers and plastics associations from over 25 countries to develop the Golden Design Rules for plastic packaging. Thirty-three leading multi-national companies have now signed up to implement one or more of these rules across their plastic packaging portfolios by 2025. These rules are a set of voluntary, independent and time-bound commitments that aim to minimise waste, streamline designs and simplify the plastic recycling process – ultimately increasing recycling.
The rules are building momentum to deliver the further design changes necessary to meet the targets laid out in the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. Set up by the United Nations and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Commitment is a global initiative to create an entirely circular plastics economy.
There are nine Golden Design Rules. The first is of particular significance. It focuses on increasing the value of PET recycling. PET is polyethylene terephthalate, one of the most common plastic materials. Typically, it’s used in food containers, drink bottles and the synthetic textiles in our clothing. In fact, PET bottles represent 13% of all plastic packaging on the market. Consequently, improving PET recycling is essential to achieving a circular economy for plastics.
One of the key issues with PET recycling is the use of pigments and dyes in plastic bottles, which can make it difficult and expensive to sort bottles into different colour streams for recycling. However, recycling lots of different coloured PET bottles together means you end up with a murky, low quality recycled plastic that isn’t suitable for use in consumer packaging. Unfortunately, this means that many plastic bottles still aren’t recycled back into plastic bottles.
Golden Design Rule 1 aims to address this. It outlines that all bottles should be clear or translucent blue or green as these are the easiest to sort and have the highest material value once recycled.
There are other factors besides the bottle’s colour that can impact on its recyclability. Therefore, Golden Design Rule 1 also lays out specifications for the size of labels on PET bottles, the materials that can be use and the glue used to attach them, so that these aren’t problematic when it comes to recycling.
The rest of the rules cover topics like removing problematic elements from plastic packaging (e.g. PVC, PS, EPS); eliminating excess headspace in flexible packaging; eliminating unnecessary plastic overwraps; improving the recycling value of PET thermoformed trays; and reducing the use of virgin plastic.
Some of our members have already made fantastic progress when it comes to better plastic packaging design. For example, to celebrate Earth Day this year, soft drinks and food giant PepsiCo launched label-free PET bottles in China on e-commerce channels, following an initial launch in South Korea in October 2021. By removing both the plastic label of a traditional PET bottle and the ink printing on the closure, Pepsi was able to reduce the product’s carbon footprint throughout its life cycle and make these bottles easier to recycle. Additionally, to increase plastic circularity, Pepsi also included 24% recycled PE in the secondary shrink film.
Chemical and consumer goods multinational Henkel is working to transition many of the PET bottles in its portfolio to clear PET. In Italy, for example, Henkel’s brand Nelsen’s, a hand dishwashing soap, is using now transparent PET bottles rather than white. Also, 50% of Henkel’s global shower gel portfolio of its main brands including Fa, Dial and Bernangen are packed in clear PET.
Henkel also champions floatable sleeves on bottles instead of traditional labels, as they can easily be separated during the recycling process. To date, the company has introduced them across its fabric softener portfolio, including the Vernel brand. It will soon roll out floatable sleeves across all its sleeved bottles.
Global packaging company Amcor developed a 100% PCR and label-less PET bottle in Argentina. This launch was in partnership with Danone, global food and beverage company, and Argentinean moulded plastic Moldintec, for the water brand Villavicencio.
This innovation is groundbreaking for two reasons. First, it eliminates unnecessary plastic by removing the plastic label. Secondly, it makes the bottles more recyclable, because there’s less risk that labels or adhesives contaminate the recycling process. It also removes the need for sorting and separating labels and bottles, making it more cost-efficient.
What’s more, the new label-less bottle is made from 100% post-consumer recycled content and has a reduced carbon footprint of 21% compared to its previous incarnation.
These are just a few leading examples of companies implementing the Golden Design Rules and putting good intentions into action. This kind of innovation represents the way forward for designing plastic packaging in the consumer goods sector. Of course, there’s still much work still to be done, not least scaling these trailblazing initiatives across the whole industry. Indeed, the adoption of such practices should be an immediate priority.
The CGF Golden Design Rules provide a playbook for implementing the vital design changes that we know are needed, so that, for the sake of the planet, we can tackle the increasingly urgent problem of plastic waste and accelerate the transition to a circular plastics economy.
If you want to find out more about the Golden Design Rules, or think they could be relevant to your organization, please contact us using this link and we will be able to provide more detail and answer any questions you may have.
When it comes to forest products, Bio Pappel, HP, Melissa & Doug, REI and Amazon are all leaders in responsible sourcing. What does this commitment look like in practice?
From the Forest Stewardship Council • Posted: February 17, 2023
More and more consumers are demanding sustainable attributes in the products they buy — encouraging retailers and consumer packaged goods companies to reap the benefits of this opportunity by providing products with tangible, credible environmental and social benefits.
When it comes to forest products, Bio Pappel, HP, Melissa & Doug, REI and Amazon are all leaders in responsible sourcing — a fact that earned them Forest Stewardship Council Leadership Awards for their deep commitment to responsible forestry and for making thousands of FSC-certified products available to businesses and consumers. What does this commitment look like in practice?
Bio Pappel is one of the largest recycled-paper manufacturers in North and South America, and the first Mexican company that is FSC certified for use of 100 percent recycled raw material in paper production. While Bio Pappel may not be a household name, it supplies some of the biggest brands — including Amazon and Titan packaging, Samsungpackaging, Xerox paper, Scribe and pen+Gear notebooks, LALA Yomi milk and yogurt packaging, and Kirkland Signature food items. Its products can be found in Walmart, Costco and other major retailers.
“At Bio Pappel, we like to say that we are generating shared value,” says Israel Martinez, auditor at Bio Pappel. “In this sense, FSC certification gives us the guarantee of sustainable management of raw material coming from forests or recycled material used to produce paper — which consequently encourages more responsible consumption and allows end consumers to be more aware of their footprint on the planet.”
For more than a decade, HP and World Wildlife Fund have worked together to achieve HP’s responsible sourcing goals— including zero deforestation for its HP-brand paper and paper-based packaging. This collaboration has included the development of HP’s industry-leading responsible fiber-sourcing policy; By 2020, HP met this commitment with FSC-certified or recycled fiber sourced for over 95 percent of HP brand paper and paper-based packaging.
HP continues to expand on its commitment to responsible sourcing with additional efforts rooted in protecting, restoring and improving the management of forests. One example is HP and WWF’s work to increase the area of FSC-certified forest in China to 219,830 acres by 2025. As of July 2022, over 33,000 hectares (81,000 acres) of forest have been FSC certified in China.
Over the next decade, HP and WWF’s efforts will include collaborating with local communities and forest managers to increase FSC-certified forest areas in key landscapes, as well as identifying and addressing obstacles to obtaining FSC certification and improving forest-management practices. Ultimately, HP has committed $80 million to restoring, protecting and improving the management of nearly a million acres of forest — an area approximately five times the size of New York City.
As the #1 preschool brand for wooden toys, Melissa & Doug has a longstanding commitment to “making timeless, sustainable toys for a thriving and inclusive world.” The brand formalized its commitments with an initiative called “Project Restore,” to more deeply integrate sustainability culture and practices across the organization.
After obtaining FSC Chain of Custody certification in 2020, the purpose-driven toy manufacturer became the first major US toy brand to earn FSC certification for its new stationery line, which was independently certified by SCS Global Services. Melissa & Doug is on track to achieve its commitment to ensure 100 percent of paper products and more than half of its wood products sold are FSC certified by 2025.
Healthy forests are essential for people to enjoy the outdoors; they’re also essential to REI’s business. REI uses fiber and the resulting paper products throughout its operations — in the form of flyers, cardboard, shopping bags, hangtags and more. As a co-op that inspires its members to spend more time outside, sustainable forestry is a natural focus.
REI prioritizes paper-based packaging for its own products that are FSC certified or made from certified post-consumer waste, and prioritizes paper products with the same attributes. With the assistance of the Outdoor Industry Association and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, REI published sustainable packaging guidelines to encourage and educate its vendors, including FSC as a preferred attribute. These guidelines support not only REI Co-op and Co-op Cycles, but also the brands they sell within their stores and the greater outdoor and cycling industries.
FSC is one of many third-party certifications in Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly (CPF) program — which currently encompasses over 350,000 products, 20,000+ brands and counting. CPF was created to help customers discover and choose more sustainable products on Amazon.
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.
By Amy Brown from Triple Pundit • February 15, 2023
It’s odd to think that people are nostalgic for the earlier days of COVID-19, but a new Gallup poll shows that workers miss the increased flexibility and empathy employers adopted at the start of the pandemic. Nearly 75 percent of global employees now say they are either not engaged or actively disengaged at work. Why? It seems workers feel they are once again being treated like cogs in the machine, rather than human beings.
“The world is closer to colonizing Mars than it is to fixing the world’s broken workplaces,” Gallup’s annual State of the Global Workplace Report put it bluntly, noting that employee engagement has reached its lowest level since 2015.
In addition, stress levels among professionals worldwide are at “an all-time high.” Gallup found that 59 percent and 56 percent of disengaged employees report experiencing stress and worry frequently at work.
Employers are missing the boat on engagement
What gives? Unfair treatment at work topped the list as the leading cause of employee disengagement, Gallup found, with an unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support, and unreasonable time pressures close behind.
The report found the engagement elements with the most marked declines since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic were:
Clarity of expectations
Connection to the mission or purpose of the company
Opportunities to learn and grow
Opportunities to do what employees do best
Feeling cared about at work
About 32 percent of the 67,000 full- and part-time employees surveyed were engaged in their work in 2022, while 18 percent were actively disengaged. Active disengagement has risen each year since 2020. The remaining respondents — 50 percent — were neither engaged nor actively disengaged. In the U.S. in particular, the latest data shows the lowest ratio of engaged-to-actively disengaged employees since 2013.
This is not just a U.S. phenomenon. Fewer than 2 in 10 European employees feel engaged at work — lower than any part of the world.
Millennials and Gen Z employees are even more disengaged
The trend of disengagement and job-hopping is even more pronounced among Generation Z and young millennials. This reporter did her own survey close to home: My millennial daughter, Marielle Velander, 30, has worked for several years in the tech industry, and she had a definite view on the Gallup findings.
“In today’s fast-paced tech scene, it seems like new titles and functions are being invented all the time, without clear job descriptions,” she said. “This was the case with my role of product operations, a new type of role that had me reshuffled in multiple organizations amid a context of ‘organizational change’ or ‘strategy definition.’ This constant reshuffling has left me and many former colleagues disengaged and unclear about how we provide value to the organization. I kept wondering why executives did not understand the revenue-generating aspects of my role.”
Her advice for business leaders looking to do things differently? “Companies should do a better job of managing change fatigue and providing clear job descriptions. They should also be more open to investing in innovative new roles, like product operations, and give these new roles a chance to show their value before folding [them] into yet another radical strategy change.”
No matter the generation, contented employees find their work rewarding and meaningful — and that happens when leaders prioritize employee well-being and engagement, Gallup found.
“Managers need to be better listeners, coaches and collaborators,” researchers recommended in the Gallup report. “Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive.”
Other recent research indicates the problem doesn’t lie in the trend toward more remote work, either. Some 52 percent of workers recently told the Conference Board that having a caring and empathetic leader is more important now than before the pandemic. Whether they work in an office, at home or a hybrid of both has no impact on that view, or their level of engagement, according to the survey.
There is plenty of evidence that engaged workers are a smart investment for employers. Some studies have found that engaged employees outperform their peers that are not engaged. Overall, companies with high employee engagement are 21 percent more profitable.
The risk of not taking action to engage your employees is losing talent — especially young talent — altogether. Marielle has taken a year-long break from her tech career to travel the world. As she described it: “I’m trying to realign with my purpose after feeling like I lost my agency over my career.” It would seem she is not alone.
By Ted Dhillon, Forbes Councils Member from fore’s.com • February 15, 2023
ESG (environmental, social and governance) is often viewed as a way for the financial markets to measure the social and environmental performance of a business. But it’s a lot more than that. Increasingly, prospective employees are using it as a measuring stick to decide where their next job will be.
ESG represents a set of principles that many prospective employees hold all over the world—the idea that businesses need to operate with sustainability at the forefront, doing as little harm to the environment as possible and promoting social responsibility and community building inside and outside the enterprise.
Generation-Z—the group many companies will draw their fresh talent from in the next two decades—already believes in these principles more than previous generations do.
My company draws talent from all corners, but especially from groups that have either studied or worked in environmental science. That’s because their values already align with our mission. It’s a natural fit for someone who wants to contribute to a climate change solution to gravitate toward companies that empower them to do just that.
But the Great Resignation that started with the pandemic is still taking a toll. Even companies outside the ESG industry that want to recruit and retain top talent don’t have the luxury of ignoring the class of climate change warriors. Enterprise leadership must think carefully about how they can align their values and practices with these prospects. It’s not enough to say you are pro-environment, diverse and inclusive—you have to show it and “pitch it” in the interview process.
Communicate an authentic message.
No one comes through the door supporting an environmental mission for exactly the same reasons, so messaging has to be strategic and, most importantly, can’t be seen as greenwashing. Greenwashing, in this context, means putting forward misleading claims to prospective employees to boost a company’s environmental credentials.
So how do you convince a top recruit that your company takes sustainability seriously? In short, communicate, demonstrate and engage:
1. You can communicate a pledge to sustainability through a clear impact statement on every job posting. It should answer some key questions:
What impact can an individual have at this particular company? How does the individual job role contribute to the positive impact the company wants to have on the environment?
If an employee is choosing between you and another company, the “50-50” decision could come down to how well you answer those questions.
2. You can demonstrate sustainable practices by proactively sharing a fact sheet or webpage with every job candidate, whether they ask for it or not. Using social media channels to amplify those messages especially works well to reach out to ultra-connected Gen-Zers. This signals that ESG concerns are not an afterthought but a priority.
In the interview process, make environmentally friendly benefits—even if they are as small as reimbursements for taking greener modes of transportation to work—a part of the standard benefits run-through.
3. Keep current employees engaged in sustainable practice discussions by initiating employee-led committees that have the power to push new sustainability policies. Mention to prospectives (or better yet, let other employees mention it in conversation) that there are internal structures in place to give them a voice on sustainable practices. Prospects will quickly see that there is no greenwashing going on in that shop.
Consider tracking and reporting.
There’s a panoply of green certifications that companies use for bragging rights (the LEED standard for green buildings might be the best known). But ESG rating systems, those firms that take reported data and create rankings of companies, can be confusing because they all use different methodologies that may not be fully transparent.
There are better ways to demonstrate true ESG impact. Job candidates are looking less for a list of green badges and more for evidence that the company can track its own impacts through clear and transparent ESG reporting. If your company already tracks impacts, which can range from emissions to water usage to social impacts, then package the most recent year (or five years) reporting in an easy-to-understand format for anyone interested in working for the company.
If you are not yet tracking impacts, developing a plan to do so and being transparent about it to prospective employees at least makes a definitive statement about where the company is headed.
Gen-Z Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is famous for calling out older generations who are fumbling the ball on climate change today. “My message is that we’ll be watching you,” she told a U.N. climate summit audience in 2019. She meant that there would be accountability for the world’s most existential problem, and decades from now, business leaders may be judged by what they do today to be part of the solution.
Forward-looking companies will strive to track ESG impacts, form action plans that meet specific emissions (and other) goals and then ask young climate change warriors to jump on board.
Ted Dhillon is the CEO and cofounder of FigBytes, an ESG insight platform.
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.
By Andreas von Buchwaldt, Grant Mitchell, Seth Reynolds, and Steve Varley from Harvard Business Review • Reposted: February 10, 2023
CEOs could once focus almost single-mindedly on their businesses and value chains. Now, along with driving a strategy that generates competitive advantage and enhanced value, they face another core task: satisfying a broad base of stakeholders with diverse interests who all demand sustainability policies and practices in different variations.
Delivering on both (often apparently conflicting) fronts is essential. Investors will only support a firm’s long-term strategic initiatives if they yield an above-market return and address the future needs of investors themselves, customers, regulators, and employees.
Like digital before it, sustainability has become an overarching strategic concern today. Judgments about a company’s sustainability performance affect talent acquisition and retention, access to capital, and consumer choices. And new regulations, such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, are translating sustainability imperatives into economic shocks, notably in the energy sector. CEOs also see competitors growing and increasing customer loyalty through sustainability-linked products and services.
As a result, CEOs have largely accepted the need to embed sustainability in their strategies to create competitive advantage. But while existing frameworks describe the elements of a sustainable business, they rarely show how to get there.
At the intersection of sustainability and strategy, many companies adopt an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy. In doing so, they can be strongly influenced by the external focus on third-party ESG metrics, which are framed as a way of measuring a company’s performance in ESG.
ESG strategies, which often aim to improve key metrics in a way that a firm finds acceptable or manageable, have given many businesses a pragmatic start toward becoming more sustainable. However, as a path to a better strategy, they have drawbacks.
Managing to metrics isn’t the best way to deploy sustainability as a driver of competitive advantage and value, or to hasten meaningful improvements in environmental and social outcomes. Being still immature, metrics are far from comparable, rigorous, or transparent. And the evidence for a link between economic value and ESG ratings is modest. Investors support genuine gains in sustainability, but they won’t tolerate strategies that don’t deliver economic value. While stakeholders closely observe ESG metrics, financial performance remains much more important in corporate valuations.
Rather than focusing on ESG metrics, a more effective path to improving both financial value and sustainability performance is to integrate sustainability into the development and implementation of corporate strategy. In doing so, CEOs can ensure their strategy makes the most of the market, technology, customer, and regulatory trends created by sustainability imperatives.
CEOs can unite strategy with sustainability in three ways:
1. Adapt classic, CEO-level strategy questions by viewing them through a sustainability lens: “Is my purpose the best possible fit with competing stakeholder demands?” “As sustainability plays out in my industry, how should I position my strategy and portfolio for maximum advantage?” The collated responses should be tailored for individual business units or portfolio sectors.
2. Ensure strategic choices include sustainability imperatives by applying top-down and bottom-up analysis.
From the top down, ask, “How will increased sustainability modify or create new strategic drivers?” To test existing strategic themes, use such means as moving from climate scenarios that capture climate risk to embedding climate elements in strategy scenarios and tailoring customer research to test hypotheses about critical sustainability issues. Insights gained can indicate how industry ecosystems will evolve as sustainability grows in influence.
From the bottom up, ask, “Which specific sustainability concerns will our strategy need to accommodate?” To identify such concerns, CEOs could consider which issues are most significant for stakeholders—and so, how likely they are to create competitive advantage. Three interrelated qualifiers can help identify these: the future prominence for stakeholders; uniqueness of contribution; and size of business value, net investment. Careful analysis helps rank these issues.
3. Use common methods to assess investments in sustainability and commercial initiatives. Investments with negative value miss the opportunity to increase meaningful impact. While some investments with unclear links to value may be pragmatic to avoid reputational risk, they should phase out over time. Most organizations can do more to use data such as that on stakeholder attitudes and future economic impacts, and connections to estimate the business consequences of investment.
Organizations need to execute sustainability initiatives with the same rigor as traditional strategic activity. They need to anchor these initiatives in the ambition, resourcing plans, and incentives of all key decision makers—not isolate them within a sustainability team. CEOs will need to identify early the new internal business and impact data they need to measure the progress of key sustainability initiatives, as legacy systems may not capture such data.
EY-Parthenon research shows that taking these steps can give meaningful sustainability actions greater prominence in a CEO’s long-term agenda and may lead to better outcomes—helping a business achieve both the financial means and investor support to create a more sustainable future. Read more about how corporate strategy can deliver both growth and sustainability here.
A new survey asked shoppers why they aren’t buying from socially responsible brands anymore. The biggest problems: They can’t name any and think they’re too expensive. By Heath Shacklford from Fast Company • Reposted: February 9, 2023
The number of Americans who believe it is important to support socially responsible brands has risen in the past decade. The percentage of consumers who plan to increase their spending with such brands in the year ahead has never been higher. Yet, when push comes to shove, fewer and fewer consumers report purchasing products and services from socially responsible companies.
These are some of the key takeaways from the 10th annual Conscious Consumer Spending Index, a benchmarking study my agency runs that gauges momentum for conscious consumerism, charitable giving and earth-friendly practices. The Index score is calculated by evaluating the importance consumers place on purchasing from socially responsible companies, actions taken to support such products and services, and future intent to increase the amount they spend with responsible organizations.
With inflation lingering near 40-year highs and one quarter of Americans reporting a decrease in their household income in the past year, more individuals are finding it challenging to support socially responsible brands, which typically cost more than traditional products and services. In fact, almost half of respondents (46%) said the cost of socially responsible goods and services prevented them from buying more from conscious companies.
This decrease in purchasing power resulted in only 57% of respondents reporting they purchased goods for socially responsible brands in 2022, down from 64% in 2021 and 62% from the inaugural index results in 2013.
While the current economic situation is making it harder for consumers to support socially responsible brands, there are also more systemic challenges to the “do good” movement. Specifically, here are three opportunities for improvement as we consider the path forward for conscious consumerism.
HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO
Way back in 2015, TOMS was in the media spotlight as an icon for what do good business was all about. It was a hero brand, a poster child for the movement. As part of the Index that year, we began asking consumers to name one company or organization that is socially responsible. Based on unaided recall, TOMS topped the list of responses, and repeated that performance the following year.
Fast forward to 2022. For the fourth year in a row, Amazon is the most cited brand when consumers are asked this question. Meanwhile, TOMS no longer makes the list at all. It’s a classic case of out of sight, out of mind. There are only so many experiences the average consumer can have with TOMS as a brand, even if they are rabid fans. Meanwhile, they engage with companies like Amazon and Walmart, number two on this year’s list, on a daily or weekly basis.
The TOMS one-for-one business model is no longer a novelty and no longer the focus of frequent media attention. As a result, we have lost our hero brand for socially-responsible business. We have many strong brands who are well-known for doing good: Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s are among the examples. But no brand has captured our collective attention and imagination like TOMS did during its peak as a media darling.
Ultimately, this movement needs a hero. A brand that emerges as a leader and carries the torch for socially-responsible business practices. A brand that is large enough to demand consistent attention from the news media and the average consumer. A brand who can serve as an example and as a powerful advocate for business as a force for good.
A joint study from McKinsey and NielsenIQ examines sales growth for products that claim to be environmentally and socially responsible. From McKinsey • Reposted: February 9, 2023
Total US consumer spending accounts for over $14 trillion annually and two-thirds of the US GDP. An important subset of this spending goes toward everyday consumer packaged goods (CPG), ranging from foods and beverages to cosmetics and cleaning products. The sheer size of the CPG sector—with millions of employees and trillions of dollars in annual sales—makes it a critical component in efforts to build a more sustainable, inclusive economy.
CPG companies increasingly allocate time, attention, and resources to instill environmental and social responsibility into their business practices. They are also making claims about environmental and social responsibility on their product labels. The results have been evident: walk down the aisle of any grocery or drugstore these days and you’re bound to see products labeled “environmentally sustainable,” “eco-friendly,” “fair trade,” or other designations related to aspects of environmental and social responsibility. Most important is what lies behind these product claims—the actual contribution of such business practices to achieving goals such as reducing carbon emissions across value chains, offering fair wages and working practices to employees, and supporting diversity and inclusion. But understanding how customers respond to social and environmental claims is also important and has not been clear in the past.
When consumers are asked if they care about buying environmentally and ethically sustainable products, they overwhelmingly answer yes: in a 2020 McKinsey US consumer sentiment survey, more than 60 percent of respondents said they’d pay more for a product with sustainable packaging. A recent study by NielsenIQ found that 78 percent of US consumers say that a sustainable lifestyle is important to them. Yet many CPG executives report that one challenge to their companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives is the inability to generate sufficient consumer demand for these products. There are many stories of companies launching new products incorporating ESG-related claims only to find that sales fell short of expectations.
How can both of these things be true? Do consumers really care whether products incorporate ESG-related claims? Do shoppers follow through and buy these products while standing in front of store shelves or browsing online? Do their real-life buying decisions diverge from their stated preferences? The potential costs—particularly in an inflationary context—of manufacturing and certifying products that make good on ESG-related claims are high. Accurately assessing demand for products that make these claims is vital as companies think about where to make ESG-related investments across their businesses. Companies should therefore be eager to better understand whether and how these types of claims influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. Is a shopper more likely to purchase a product if there’s an ESG-related claim printed on its package? What about multiple claims? Are some kinds of claims more resonant than others? Does a claim matter more if it’s appended to a pricier product? Is it less meaningful if it comes from a big, established brand?
Over the past several months, McKinsey and NielsenIQ undertook an extensive study seeking to answer these and other questions. We looked beyond the self-reported intentions of US consumers and examined their actual spending behavior—tracking dollars instead of sentiment. The result, for CPG companies, is a fact-based case for bringing environmentally and socially responsible products to market as part of overall ESG strategies and commitments. Creating such products turns out to be not just a moral imperative but also a solid business decision.
Products making ESG-related claims averaged 28 percent cumulative growth over the past five-year period, versus 20 percent for products that made no such claims.
To be clear, this is only a first step in understanding the complex question of how consumers value brands and products that incorporate ESG-related claims. This work has significant limitations that merit mention at the outset.
Growth was not uniform across categories (Exhibit 2). For instance, products making ESG-related claims generated outsize growth in 11 out of 15 food categories and in three out of four personal-care categories—but only two out of nine beverage categories. Shopping data alone can’t explain the reasons for such variances. In the children’s formula and nutritional-beverage category, for example, it’s possible that buying decisions reflect advice from doctors and that consumers probably won’t let ESG-related claims outweigh clinical recommendations.
Exhibit 2
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The overall trend, however, was clear: in two-thirds of categories, products that made ESG-related claims grew faster than those that didn’t. Evidence from NielsenIQ’s household panel showed that some demographic groups—such as higher-income households, urban and suburban residents, and households with children—were more likely to buy products that made one or more ESG-related claims. Still, the research shows that a wide range of consumers across incomes, life stages, ages, races, and geographies are buying products bearing ESG-related labels—with an average of plus or minus 15 percent deviation across demographic groups for environmentally and socially conscious buyers compared with the total population. This suggests that the appeal of environmentally and socially responsible products isn’t limited to niche audiences and is making genuine headway with broad swaths of America.
2. Brands of different sizes making ESG-related claims achieved differentiated growth
Large and small brands alike saw growth in products making ESG-related claims. In 59 percent of all categories studied, the smallest brands that made such claims achieved disproportionate growth. But in 50 percent of categories, so did the largest brands that made these claims (Exhibit 3). Some examples of category variance: in sports drinks and hair care, smaller brands grew more quickly, while in fruit juice and sweet snacks, the larger brands did. (The data can’t explain the underperformance of medium-size brands, but it’s possible that they lack the marketing and distribution scale of large brands and the aura of credibility that may benefit smaller brands.)
Exhibit 3
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Brands that garner more than half of their sales from products making ESG-related claims enjoy 32 to 34 percent repeat rates (meaning that buyers purchase products from the brand three or more times annually). By contrast, brands that receive less than 50 percent of their sales from products that make ESG-related claims achieve repeat rates of under 30 percent. This difference does not prove that consumers reward brands because of ESG-related claims, but it does suggest that a deeper engagement with ESG-related issues across a brand’s portfolio might enhance consumer loyalty toward the brand as a whole.
4. Combining claims may convey more authenticity
This study also analyzed the effects on growth when a product package displayed multiple types of ESG-related claims. On average, products with multiple claims across our six ESG classification themes grew more quickly than other products: in nearly 80 percent of the categories, the data showed a positive correlation between the growth rate and the number of distinct types of ESG-related claims a product made. Products making multiple types of claims grew about twice as fast as products that made only one (Exhibit 5).Exhibit 5
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We are not suggesting that companies can simply print more claims and certifications on their products and expect to be rewarded. These claims must of course be backed by genuine actions that have a meaningful ESG impact, and companies should heed the serious warning about greenwashing we presented in our introduction. Nonetheless, this finding does suggest that consumers may be more likely to perceive that a multiplicity of claims (rather than only one) made by a product correlates with authentic ESG-related behavior on the part of the brand. It also indicates that brands might be wise to reflect on their commitment to ESG practices and to ensure that they are thinking holistically across the interconnected social and environmental factors that underpin their products.
What does this mean for consumer companies and retailers?
Over the past century, global consumer consumption has been a central driver of economic prosperity and growth. This success, however, also comes with social and planetary impacts that result from producing, transporting, and discarding these consumer products. It should thus carry a moral imperative, for consumers and companies alike, to understand and address these impacts to society and the planet as part of buying decisions and ESG-related actions. Product label claims—if they represent true and meaningful environmental and social action—can be an important part of fulfilling this moral imperative.
For companies at the forefront of manufacturing and selling consumer packaged goods, there is no one formula for investing in environmentally and socially responsible product features and claims. Opportunities exist on multiple fronts. It’s important for consumer companies and retailers, first, to prioritize and invest in ESG-related actions that deliver the greatest advancement of their overall ESG commitments and, second, to inform customers of those actions, including information conveyed through product label claims. Our research points to a few insights that companies might consider as they attempt to advance their ESG commitments while also trying to achieve differentiated growth.
Ensure that ESG product claims support an overall ESG strategy with a meaningful environmental and social impact across the portfolio. This study shows that ESG-related growth can be possible across a broad range of brands—large or small, national or private label, in price tiers both high and low. Companies should define the actions, throughout the enterprise, that have the greatest ESG impact and then publicize those actions, where appropriate, with claims across their product portfolios. Rather than making a single large bet in a particular product or category, companies will probably have a greater ESG impact and a better chance of achieving outsize growth if they incorporate high-impact ESG-related benefits across multiple categories and products.
Develop a product design process that embraces ESG-related claims alongside cost engineering. Investments in product design aim to achieve a growth upside but must also—especially during an inflationary period—consider its cost. To ensure that investments in ESG-related claims have the greatest possible impact, companies can consider building strong product design capabilities that take a holistic look across costs, quality, and ESG-related impact. Using a disciplined design-for-sustainability approach, product designers can maximize the visibility, efficacy, and cost-efficiency of ESG-related product features that will resonate with consumers. Meanwhile, ingredients, materials, and processes that don’t contribute to this goal should be eliminated.
Invest in ESG through both existing brands and innovative new products. A healthy portfolio generally has a balanced mix of new and established products. ESG-related claims can play an important role in both. This study suggests that a flagship, established product fighting for share in a highly competitive environment could potentially create an edge by offering relevant and differentiating ESG-related claims. Given the outsize role of new products in boosting category growth, it’s critical to ensure that environmentally and socially responsible products account for a significant share of a company’s innovation pipeline—both to meet customer demand for such products and to ensure that they help advance the company’s overall ESG strategy.
Understand the ESG-related dynamics specific to each category and brand. Categories differ in significant ways, so it is critically important to study category-specific patterns to learn what has worked best in which contexts. Understanding which high-impact ESG claims are associated with consistently better performance in a given category can help companies focus on the claims that matter most to consumers in those categories. Companies can also benefit from being thoughtful about how specific ESG-related claims might align with the core positioning of each brand or differentiate it from those of competitors.
Embrace the holistic, interconnected nature of ESG by creating products addressing multiple concerns. This study shows that consumers seemingly don’t respond to specific ESG-related claims consistently across all categories. But they do tend to reward products that make multiple ESG-related claims, which may do more to help a product achieve a company’s overall ESG goals while also conveying greater authenticity and commitment to consumers. The incremental growth potential from introducing a second or third ESG-related benefit for a product may be equal to the growth impact of introducing the first one. To achieve stronger growth while delivering enhanced ESG-related benefits, companies could find it helpful to consider undertaking a category- and brand-specific assessment to determine whether and how to implement multifaceted claims.
Companies will probably have a greater ESG impact and a better chance of achieving outsize growth if they incorporate high-impact ESG-related claims across multiple categories and products.
This study does not answer all questions about the impact of investments by consumer companies in environmentally and socially responsible products. It does not assess the veracity of ESG-related claims, the relative environmental or social benefits of different claims, or the incremental cost of producing products that authentically deliver on those claims. It does, however, provide an important fact base revealing consumers’ spending habits with regard to these products, and this may help companies accelerate their ESG journeys. There is strong evidence that consumers’ expressed sentiments about ESG-related product claims translate, on average, into actual spending behavior. And this suggests that companies don’t need to choose between ESG and growth. They can achieve both simultaneously by employing a thoughtful, fact-based, consumer-centric ESG strategy. The overarching result might be not just healthier financial performance but also a healthier planet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Jordan Bar Am is a partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office, Vinit Doshi is a senior expert in the Stamford office, Anandi Malik is a consultant in the New York office, and Steve Noble is a senior partner in the Minneapolis office. Sherry Frey is vice president of total wellness at NielsenIQ.
The authors wish to thank Oskar Bracho, Nina Engels, Gurvinder Kaur, Akshay Khurana, and Caroline Ling for their contributions to this article. They also thank NielsenIQ for its contributions to the collaborative research conducted for this study.
This report draws on joint research carried out between McKinsey & Company and NielsenIQ. The work reflects the views of the authors and has not been influenced by any business, government, or other institution.
From familywealthreport.com • Reposted: February 9, 2023
Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, has recently released its 7th Responsible Investing Survey, tracking US investors’ attitudes and behaviors regarding responsible investing.
A new survey by Nuveen shows that three-quarters of US investors believe that ESG factors should always be part of the investing process.
According to the survey, more than 80 per cent of US investors also think that companies need to be more open in communicating the risks and opportunities that shape their standing as “responsible investments.”
Seventy-three per cent said they are more likely to invest in a company that shares its plans with investors for effectively managing those factors.
Investors’ demand for more ESG-related information from companies is paired with strong agreement that ESG investing now represents a core portfolio approach, the firm continued.
Nearly eight out of 10 respondents see responsible investing as a framework that incorporates material factors not typically accounted for in traditional financial analysis. Four in five agree that investors should view responsible investing as a long-term strategy – and 76 per cent say that factoring in RI risks and opportunities should always be part of the investment process.
Younger investors are particularly in tune with the fundamental value of responsible investing: 92 per cent of Gen Z and Millennial investors agree that related risks and opportunities always belong in the investment process, compared with just 68 per cent of Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers, the firm said.
The survey, which was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Nuveen, covered 1,003 adults aged 21 and over with at least $100,000 in investible assets between July and August 2022. It includes 573 investors who said they currently own funds managed according to principles of responsible investing – also known as ESG investing.
“Although many investors are interested in RI’s positive impact on society, in their minds the process of managing key ESG factors should also focus squarely on mitigating critical impediments to company performance,” said Amy O’Brien, global head of responsible investing.
According to the firm, about seven in 10 investors agree that having RI options in their retirement plan makes them feel good about working for their employer. The sentiment is even stronger among Gen Z and Millennial investors: 95 per cent would feel good, compared with just 56 per cent of Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers.
“Responsible investing options are becoming a ‘must-have’ for corporate retirement plans, driven by strong participant interest in aligning investments with their values while tracking toward long-term financial goals,” said O’Brien.
“Retirement plan sponsors who introduce RI options and offer education about the portfolio advantages clearly have an opportunity to build even greater appreciation and loyalty especially among employees who are early on in their careers,” she continued.
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 Tina Casey from triple pundit.com • Reposted: February 7, 2023
Crusaders against socially responsible investing have been holding forth about the evils of “woke capitalism” in recent years. For all the red-hot rhetoric, though, leading U.S. businesses continue to promote clean power. The latest effort involves GM, Ford, and other leading stakeholders in an effort to grow the market for virtual power plants.
What is a virtual power plant?
Although the idea may seem somewhat exotic, a virtual power plant is simply a networked grid system that enables individual electricity producers to interact with each other and with individual users. The overall aim is to avoid the cost of building new centralized power plants — and especially to avoid building new fossil power plants — while improving reliability and resiliency.
This network-based approach to grid planning is made possible by new smart grid and smart metering technology, along with the proliferation of rooftop solar and other small-scale renewable energy systems. It is a sharp contrast with the traditional strategy of building additional centralized power plants to get communities through periods of peak demand.
In addition, virtual power plants provide electricity users with new opportunities to save or even make money, depending on the incentives offered by their grid operator.
In a blog post last May, the U.S. Department of Energy described how virtual plants have come to include not only individual meters, but also individual appliances that are designed to interact with the grid, as well as electric vehicle charging stations and energy storage facilities.
“Operators gain the flexibility to better reduce peak demand and, as a result, defer investment in additional capacity and infrastructure to serve a peak load that is expected to increase as we electrify the nation’s economy,” explained Jigar Shah, director of the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office.
Why don’t we all have virtual power plants?
For all their potential benefits, virtual power plants are a relatively new phenomenon, and they still account for a vanishingly small percentage of grid activity in the U.S.
In a followup blog post last October, Shah noted that the market for virtual power plants has only been open since 2020, through an order of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “Nearly two years later, VPPs are just beginning to compete in organized capacity, energy, and ancillary services markets at a meaningful scale at the regional level,” Shah wrote.
In particular, Shah focused on the need for virtual power plants to secure revenue contracts. “To unleash the capital that makes ratepayer and wholesale power cost reductions possible, incumbent financiers need to see lower customer acquisition costs and consistent revenues for the critical services provided,” Shah noted.
Heeding the VPP call
GM and Ford have heeded the call for virtual power plants under the banner of the VP3, the new Virtual Power Plant Partnership hosted by the clean energy organization Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). Other VP3 founding stakeholders include Google Nest, OhmConnect, Olivine, SPAN, SunPower, Sunrun, SwitchDin and Virtual Peaker.
GM and Google Nest served as seed funders of VP3. RMI also hopes to build on the success of its Renewable Energy Buyers Association partnership, of which GM is also a founding member.
“VP3 is an initiative based at RMI that works to catalyze industry and transform policy to support scaling VPPs in ways that help advance affordable, reliable electric sector decarbonization by overcoming barriers to VPP market growth,” according to a press announcement from the Rocky Mountain Institute.
“Our analysis shows that VPPs can reduce peak power demand and improve grid resilience in a world of increasingly extreme climate events,” added RMI CEO Hon Creyts, in a statement. “A growing VPP market also means revenue opportunities for hardware, software, and energy-service companies in the buildings and automotive industries.”
As a collaborative effort, VP3 will work to raise awareness about the benefits of virtual power plants, develop best practices and standards across the industry, and promote supportive policies.
The electric vehicle connection
Electric vehicles are in a perfect position to contribute to and benefit from virtual power plants, due to their mobility, flexibility and large energy storage capacity. That explains why Ford and GM jumped at the opportunity to get involved with VP3 as founding members.
Mark Bole, GM’s head of V2X and battery solutions division, noted that the V3 collaboration “underscores GM’s commitment to creating a more resilient grid, with EVs and virtual power plants playing a key role in helping to advance our all-electric future.”
In a separate announcement, Bill Crider, head of global charging and energy services at Ford, explained that electric vehicles are “introducing entirely new opportunities for consumers and businesses alike, creating a greater need for sustainable energy solutions to responsibly power our connected lifestyles.”
“Supporting grid stability through the introduction of technologies like Intelligent Backup Power is central to Ford’s strategy, and collaborating to advance virtual power plants will be another important step to ensure a smooth transition to an EV lifestyle,” Crider added.
Who’s next on the virtual power plant bandwagon?
Among the Big Three legacy U.S. automakers, Stellantis has yet to engage with VP3. That could change as the company that now owns Dodge and Chrysler ramps up its interest in virtual power plants.
In 2020, Stellantis began work on a large-scale virtual power plant in Italy based on electric vehicle-to-grid technology. The company, which also counts Fiat and Peugeot among its subsidiaries, may be waiting on the results of that project before committing itself to a policymaking endeavor in the U.S.
Interest in virtual power plants is also growing at Volkswagen and other overseas automakers that have an eye on the U.S. market. In addition, Tesla has embarked on virtual power plant ventures in California and Texas, deploying both its vehicle batteries and its Powerwall home batteries.
It remains to be seen if Tesla will collaborate with VP3 on industry standards, though. Tesla CEO Elon Musk established a well-known reputation for not collaborating in the early days of electric vehicle commercialization. He held out Tesla’s charging system as unique to Tesla, even as other automakers worked to create the standard CCS charging technology for Europe and North America.
Since its introduction in 2011, CCS has been supported by almost all other auto manufacturers in those two markets. Even Tesla itself leans on CCS to some degree, since it provides Tesla owners with an adapter to use at CCS charging stations. (Note: Japan and China continue to use their own charging systems.)
More recently, Musk further cultivated his outsider status in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown when he criticized the U.S. government’s public safety guidelines and upstaged an inter-industry collaboration to restart U.S. factories. He also spread confusion and misinformation about the virus and the COVID-19 vaccine on social media.
When U.S. President Joe Biden convened a major media event for auto manufacturers in August of 2021, it was no surprise to see Tesla left out in the cold. Last year, the S&P 500 also took Tesla to task for not keeping pace with its peers in the auto industry on corporate ESG (environment, social, governance) issues.
Musks’s use of social media also makes Tesla an outlier among CEOs in the auto industry and elsewhere, in regards to his willingness to amplify and normalize white nationalist rhetoric.
With or without Tesla, though, VP3 is yet another instance in which industry leaders are swatting away the anti-ESG agitators like flies to take advantage of new opportunities to grow their businesses and attract new customers.
By Ashish Prashar from Triplepundit.com • Reposted: February 7, 2023
We in the advertising industry talk a lot about equity and inclusion. We design a lovely showroom that celebrates our apparent commitment to diversity in all its forms. Sadly, this is all superficial. Peel back the curtain and we see … nothing. We continue to ignore blatant racism and injustice and fail to take even the most basic steps that can drive real change.
For all the pledges we saw from agencies in 2020 to finally address systemic racism, over two years later we’ve seen little real action. Even while they complain of a “war for talent,” agencies aren’t doing enough to change how they recruit and promote talent and are struggling to make a meaningful cultural impact.
Racism and exclusion persist in the workplace, with higher turnover rates and lower promotion rates among people of color. For years, we’ve known there’s a clear business case for prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion at work beyond lip service. A McKinsey study found that the most diverse companies were 36 percent more profitable in 2019 than their least diverse counterparts.
While companies may sometimes have good intentions in coming forward with commitments after a big cultural moment, the impact falls short every time. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, company after company promised to recruit and retain more diverse talent and pledged to put cash toward DEI. But there was little accountability. Companies often don’t report their demographics, and it’s even more rare that they disclose information about spending.
A number of agencies are recruiting more diverse talent, and some are willing to share their data, with varying degrees of detail and frequency, but there is a lot more work to be done — particularly when it comes to instigating change at the top. This is where agencies can move beyond anti-bias and anti-racism training to provide things like committed executive sponsorship and mentorship of young diverse talent.
It can be difficult to hold organizations accountable when it comes to all aspects of DEI, particularly when looking beyond financial commitments and assessing what data is important when considering DEI progress.
We need to think bigger If we’re going to make meaningful change. The best DEI strategies target all parts of companies, and that starts by going beyond recruiting. Recruiting a diverse workforce is one part of DEI, but it should be viewed as a first step, not a comprehensive solution. It takes holding leaders accountable for change, something agencies haven’t seemed willing to take on. This may include difficult decisions around current leadership and has to encompass taking the impact on talent and agency culture into account when filling new leadership roles. Managers who create or enable a workplace environment that makes people of color uncomfortable should never be shoo-ins for new leadership roles.
It also means asking questions about who we work with, the kind of work we want to create, and the stories we want to share with the world. Companies often make the biggest difference when they change something within their spheres of influence. In this industry, our sphere of influence is narrative.
The creative industry has served as an arbiter of ideas and a reflection of a society’s failing or burgeoning health. Creatives have had a powerful hand in building either massive propaganda machines or culture-changing art and movements. The question about which side we’ll fall in this dichotomy can be answered by choosing to be conscious of our resources and of our responsibilities.
It is our responsibility in the creative industry to question what ideas and values we are disseminating, what stereotypes or biases we are introducing, and to whom we are giving platforms through our work. But it’s not enough just to avoid making the mistakes of the past. This industry has a responsibility to create new narratives that help tear down the biases and stereotypes it has previously helped perpetuate.
If agencies really want to make a difference in connecting with people of color, they can start by working on the issues and causes that impact and shape our lives. There is no shortage of partners in need of help addressing issues like justice reform, education and healthcare equity. Find out who you can work with to make an impact, and get to work. Talent (and prospective talent) will notice.
Make 2023 the year that your agency was truly an ally in the fight for diversity.
Hotel companies begin to set ESG goals. From CBRE Group • Reposted: February 6, 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the urgency for companies and individuals to act to protect the wellbeing of the planet, their communities, their employees, and in the case of hotels, their guests. As such, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives have accelerated.
The hotel industry’s commitment to ESG initiatives, while somewhat nascent, is increasing. Rising energy costs, which have increased electricity costs by 10% since May 2021, are likely to accelerate the industry’s focus on sustainability, particularly given the shift in traveler preferences toward more sustainable tourism and green accommodations and the growing demand for disclosure around climate risk. Although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has exacerbated energy price hikes, might motivate hotel operators to invest in long-term environmental upgrades, higher interest rates and sharply declining equity prices may offset this positive momentum, at least in the near term.
*COMPANIES HAVE SET A TARGET TO LIMIT GLOBAL WARMING TO 2° OR 1.5° CELSIUS BY A SPECIFIED DATA. SOURCE: COMPANY FILINGS, CARBON DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, SCIENCEBASEDTARGETS.ORG, GLOBALREPORTING.ORG
(E)nvironmental
According to the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (SHA), to keep pace with the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement, the global hotel industry needs to reduce carbon emissions per room per year by 66% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 (SHA, 2017).
Companies like Accor, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG and Host Hotels have aligned themselves with science-based target initiatives (SBTi), which manage emissions reductions and net-zero commitments. Many hotel companies have made commitments to reduce their impact on the environment by setting climate-based targets. In many cases, they have adopted near-term targets on the path to achieving net zero. For example, Hilton pledged to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 61% by 2030. Marriott is committed to setting SBTi targets under the 1.5-degree scenario and targets a 30% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030.
Investors are interested in understanding exposure to these climate risks. In the hotel industry, corporations have started to recognize the importance of reporting and disclosing standards and the need to set targets to mitigate climate risks early. Benchmarking has historically been difficult because of the lack of transparency. Ten years ago, IHG created its own system, called Green Engage, for measuring the environmental friendliness of its hotels. However, the industry has moved to standardized measurement systems such as Energy Star and LEED certification for U.S. buildings including hotels. As regulations, disclosure requirements and policies in the U.S. come into focus, companies that take steps to implement and invest in disclosure and goal setting will be ahead of the game.
SOURCE: AMERICAN HOTEL AND LODGING ASSOCIATION (AHLA)/CASTELL PROJECT.
(S)ocial
Developing a workforce, franchisee base and supplier network representing diverse populations and assuring equity and inclusion of all stakeholders has become a priority for many hotel companies. Social concerns also encompass issues related to guest and employee wellness and labor practices, as well as training programs that prevent human trafficking and human rights violations.
Companies create and support training programs to help at-risk youth and underserved populations by developing hospitality skills and a career path in the hospitality industry. In addition, companies look for ways to give back through monetary donations and volunteer hours.
Organizations like the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers (NABHOOD), Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA)/Castell Project, National Society of Minorities in Hospitality (NSMH), She Has A Deal (SHAD), and Latino Hotel Association (LHA) advocate and support growth in women- and minority-owned, developed and operated hotels within the industry. According to AAHOA, Asian Americans represent more than 20,000 hoteliers owning 60% of hotels in the U.S. Black ownership remains below 2%, but this figure is growing, according to NABHOOD.
SOURCE: AMERICAN HOTEL AND LODGING ASSOCIATION (AHLA)/CASTELL PROJECT.
Operator hiring practices are focused on ensuring diversity among staff and upper management. While the industry has made some progress in increasing the representation of women and Black employees in executive roles, trends among C-suite executives have held steady. According to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA)/Castell Project, 6% of hotel company CEOs are women, while less than 1% are Black. The hotel industry slightly lags the market where 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women and 1% of CEOs are Black. Marriott and Hilton have gender parity targets, and Wyndham aims for 100% gender pay equity by 2025. Host Hotels aims to include at least two women and two people of color in the candidate pool for all externally sourced executive positions.
While representation in high-level management has stayed roughly the same over the past several years, there has been an increase at the senior vice president, vice president and director levels, hopefully leading to a more diverse pool of potential candidates for higher-level positions in the future.
Many companies make supplier choices based on alignment with ESG priorities. For example, one of Hilton’s inclusivity-related goals is to double the spending on sourcing from local, small and medium-sized businesses and minority-owned suppliers. Choice Hotels’ supplier diversity program develops opportunities for diverse suppliers, educates associates and fosters an inclusionary procurement process among suppliers. Several hotel companies, including Choice, Hilton, Marriott and Wyndham, are members of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, whose mission is to serve as a growth engine for minority-owned business enterprises (MBE).
Operators are focused on making hotels a more integral part of the larger community with efforts to increase charitable giving and volunteering. Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Wyndham have set goals for employee volunteer hours and targets for annual corporate giving.
(G)overnance
Governance issues include board diversity, company ethics, transparent reporting on the environmental and social goals, and clear executive compensation guidelines.
Proxy advisory firms create policy guidelines each year to help institutional investors assess how to vote on various proxy items that might arise during the year. The most recent Glass Lewis policy updates for 2022 included voting provisions on board diversity and composition, oversight for ESG risks, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), Say on Climate, and Say on Pay proposals. The last two topics allow shareholders to comment on a company’s climate and compensation strategies.
Best governance practices include having independent directors, separating the role of CEO and Chairman, staggering board terms, and eliminating poison pill provisions. Many public hotel companies and REITs follow some of these best practices already. Most hotel companies allow employees to anonymously report financial and ethical misconduct to promote ethical company culture. Hotel companies have also released statements regarding policies on human rights and condemning human trafficking.
SOURCE: GOOGLE TRENDS KEYWORDS: ECO-HOTEL, ENVIRONMENTAL HOTEL, GREEN HOTEL.
Why is ESG important?
Increasingly, travelers are expressing an interest in patronizing eco-friendly and socially responsible companies. The need to reduce carbon emissions from transportation could necessitate changes in business and leisure travel, a risk that could arise for hotel owners.
According to Google Insights, more than 50% of travelers surveyed say that environmental and sustainable considerations are essential when planning travel. As reported in the New York Times, according to a Booking.com survey, 71% of guests planned to travel “greener” and more than half indicated that they are determined to make more environmentally conscious travel choices in the next year.
Guests can quickly assess the environmental friendliness of a hotel by using rating systems like Tripadvisor’s GreenLeaders, Green Key Global, Green Seal, Green Tourism Active, Audubon Green Lodging Program, Travelife, or Earth Check, and LEED or Energy Star Certification provide information about the sustainability of a property. Since February 2021, the amount of searches on terms such as environmental hotel, green hotel and eco-hotel have remained above 2019.
The search for environmentally friendly accommodations is most common among luxury hotels guests who often seek vacations at resorts in environmentally sensitive areas like beaches and mountains. According to Virtuoso, a network of luxury travel agencies, in April 2021, 82% of travelers said the pandemic has made them want to travel more responsibly in the future. Half said it was important to choose a company that had a strong sustainability policy. While there is some evidence that guests are willing to pay a premium for environmentally sustainable accommodations, because of inflation and uncertainty in the market, the premium they are willing to pay remains unclear.
Hotel operators focus their environmental efforts on four key areas: water conservation, energy efficiency, carbon emissions and waste reduction. Unlike other real estate sectors, hotel buildings operate 24/7 so investment in technology to help manage the systems within the buildings provides savings over more hours of the day.
WATER
Water scarcity is a global problem. Many popular tourist destinations are in water-stressed areas. Hotels use eight times the amount of water the local community uses (SHA, 2017). As a result, how hotels manage water usage and consumption will substantially impact water-stressed communities. Water conservation efforts can include minimizing water use in bathrooms, laundry, landscaping and pools and installing water management systems. Offsite projects aimed at protecting and preserving local watersheds can also be created.
WASTE
Waste reduction efforts focus on cutting food waste and upcycling materials. 18% of food purchased by hospitality and food services goes to waste (SHA, 2017). Many hotel companies have set targets to reduce the amount of food waste generated by their operations by 2030. Further, many have started implementing procedures to reuse and repurpose non-food waste. Several companies have eliminated straws and single-use plastics. Others participate in programs that recycle discarded soaps and amenities.
ENERGY
Most hotel companies are installing energy-efficient lighting and solar panels, sourcing clean electricity and purchasing energy-efficient appliances. Many are using predictive monitoring systems to optimize and manage energy use. New properties are often planned and built with energy efficiency in mind. With margins under pressure because of rising costs, investments in energy efficiency could pay off in the long run. In 2021, utility costs decreased to slightly more than 4% as a percentage of revenue and rose to slightly less than $2,000 per available room, which is still below the high of $2,087 in 2009. However, given increasing occupancies and higher utility costs in the wake of the pandemic and the steep pullback in hotel occupancies but not room rates, we expect utility costs to reach a record $3,214 per available room in 2022, up 67% year-over-year.
CARBON EMISSIONS
1% of global carbon emissions come from the hotel industry (SHA, 2017). Many hotel companies measure and report the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their owned and headquarter properties. In 2021, Hilton achieved a 50% reduction in carbon emission intensity in managed hotels and a 43% reduction for all hotels across their portfolio as measured against a 2008 baseline. Like Hyatt and Wyndham, many have set targets to reduce the GHG emissions generated from activities at these locations. A company’s value chain emits GHG through, for example, the actions of suppliers, business travelers and franchisees. Since most hotel c-corporations do not directly own most of their hotel properties, creating a carbon minimization strategy for their entire portfolio of owned, managed and franchised hotels may be more complicated.
Meeting planners and corporate and government travelers may request environmental impact information before making travel plans. Measurement and tracking are becoming a necessity. Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) and other organizations are preparing to adopt standards and guidelines to help operators track waste, energy and water to make it easier to report on the environmental impacts of operations.
*FOR ACCOR AND IHG, TOTAL OWNED, MANAGED, OR FRANCHISED HOTELS REPRESENT HOTELS IN THE AMERICAS NOT JUST US HOTELS. SOURCE: ENERGY STAR.GOV, US GREEN BUSINESS COUNCIL, COMPANY FILINGS.
What Guests Can Expect
Guests should expect hotels to focus on wellness and placemaking including meals that include sustainably and locally-sourced food. Farm-to-table and farm-to-spa concepts are on the rise.
Companies support employee and guest wellness with added fitness facilities like a Peleton room, additional outdoor space, improved air quality systems and healthier locally inspired food options. In addition, guests may start to see décor that reflects local artisans and relies on upcycled materials. Improved hygiene and safety standards reflect expectations from the pandemic and are likely to remain as the pandemic recedes. Eco-friendly bedding and optional room cleaning for more than one-night stays are available in most hotels. The pandemic led to reduced housekeeping, and labor shortages and cost concerns have pushed chains to offer housekeeping upon request. However, union campaigns to bring back daily housekeeping to preserve jobs could jeopardize these efforts.
Financing Transactions and Development
As interest in environmental sustainability increases, companies turn to green bonds or sustainability bonds to finance many environmental projects.
The global green bond market hit $1 trillion in 2021. In the U.S., sustainable fund assets surpassed $300 billion. In 2020, Park Hotel Group in Singapore issued $176 million in green bonds to refinance the Grand Park City Hotel. In 2021, Host Hotels issued $450 million in green bonds to finance green projects, including increasing the number of LEED-certified buildings in the portfolio. Accor issued €700 million in sustainability bonds in November 2021 to refinance debt. These bonds are tied to the company’s sustainable development goals.
According to the LEED certification website database, there are more than 1,000 hotels associated with the LEED certification process in the U.S., excluding confidentially listed properties. Nearly 30% have achieved Platinum, Gold or Silver certification. An additional 154 hotels are LEED-certified. However, LEED-certified hotel properties represent less than 1% of hotel and motel properties in the U.S. Hotel REITs have a higher percentage of LEED- or Energy Star-certified portfolios among public companies, with Host boasting 23% of their portfolio certified to these standards. Marriott has nearly 9% of its owned, managed and franchised properties LEED- or Energy Star-certified, according to information gathered from LEED and Energy Star. Marriott set a goal to have 100% of their owned, managed and franchised hotels globally certified to a recognized sustainability standard, including, for example, Green Key and Green Globe.
SOURCE: COMPANY FILINGS AND REPORTS.
Conclusion
The hotel industry is in the early stages of achieving meaningful changes to environmental practices. Guest preferences and government mandates that include financial penalties and/or incentives will greatly influence the speed at which companies move toward their stated targets.
As the U.S. works to create a federal environmental policy, state and local governments will continue to set the agenda. Green projects will be facilitated by lowering the costs related to the projects and increasing the incentives to build and develop green projects. While current geopolitical and economic factors may have taken center stage, ESG goals will likely remain prevalent as countries prepare for the UN’s climate change conference, Conference of Parties (COP26), in November 2022.
Heavy traffic seen on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s own 3M is one of the companies pledging millions of dollars to help reduce traffic fatalities as part of a Department of Transportation program. Photo: Kerem Yucel | MPR News 2022
From the Associated Press • Posted: February 4, 2023
Nearly 50 businesses and nonprofits — including rideshare companies Uber and Lyft, industrial giant 3M and automaker Honda — are pledging millions of dollars in initiatives to stem a crisis in road fatalities under a new federal effort announced Friday.
It’s part of the Department of Transportation’s “Call to Action” campaign, which urges commitments from the private sector, trade groups and health and safety organizations to reduce serious traffic injuries and deaths.
Traffic fatalities are near historic highs after a surge of dangerous driving during the coronavirus pandemic.
The public-private effort, unveiled Friday as part of the department’s multiyear strategy started last year to make roads safer, ranges from investments to improve school crosswalks to enhanced seat belt alerts in Uber vehicles and a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to promote proven injury prevention strategies, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Associated Press.
It comes on the heels of the award of 510 transportation grants this week totaling more than $800 million under the bipartisan infrastructure law to states and localities that, for the first time, focus on road safety such as by adding bike lanes, lighting, protected left turns and sidewalks.
After a record spike in 2021, the number of U.S. traffic deaths dipped slightly during the first nine months of 2022, but pedestrian and cyclist deaths continued to rise. More than 40,000 people are killed in road crashes a year.
“It’s still a crisis,” Buttigieg said, stressing a need for a national change in mindset. “We’re looking at road deaths coming in year after year in a similar proportion to gun deaths. The problem is they’re so widespread and so common that I fear as a country we’ve gotten used to it and perhaps fallen into the mistaken sense they’re inevitable.”
“We can’t solve any of this on our own,” he added. “We also know there isn’t one piece that will get this all down. But if we add all this together it can be enormous.”
Road travelers will see an array of safety measures this year. Uber told the AP that it is donating $500,000 — its single biggest investment in its effort to reduce drunken driving — for free and discounted rides in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and Texas as part of the “Decide to Ride” program run in tandem with MADD and Anheuser-Busch.
The world’s largest ride-share company also said it was doubling the availability of its bike lane alerts this month from 71 cities to 144 for passengers exiting vehicles near cycling routes and providing a safety checklist for Uber Eats bicycle couriers. It also pledged to strengthen its seat belt alerts, such as by increasing their frequency or adding an audio message along with pop-up messages urging riders to “buckle up.”
“We were thinking about how we could make an impact more broadly — how we can get people to start making better choices,” said Kristin Smith, head of Uber’s road safety policy. “We know it’s going to take a broad coalition of people to be tackling the crisis on U.S. roadways right now.”
Uber’s investment comes along with separate commitments from Lyft, the second-largest rideshare company, which has partnered with the Governors Highway Safety Association in recent years to award tens of thousands of dollars in state grants to help reduce impaired driving and curtail speeding.
3M, the maker of Post-it Notes, industrial coatings and ceramics, told the AP it was continuing its partnership with state transportation agencies to identify the best technology to make road signs and lane markings more visible and reflective.
It’s already pledged to improve 100 school crossing zones and added to that a commitment of $250,000 this year for a new transportation equity initiative that will fund half a dozen major projects in underserved areas. The company cited as an example its partnership with nonprofit groups to help build out Providence, Rhode Island’s, Hope Street Urban Trail last year, featuring new bike and pedestrian lanes connecting the neighborhood to schools and the commercial district.
Dan Chen, president of 3M’s Transportation Safety Division, praised the federal government’s call for action as the “right approach” that will allow companies like 3M to work in sync with policymakers and other stakeholders “to make roads safer for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.”
Other businesses and groups joining the effort include American Honda Motor Co., which pledged continuing investments totaling $2 million to improve teen driver safety; UPS, which will install automatic emergency braking on its newer big delivery vehicles; and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group, which will step up its push for industry adoption of safety technologies such as auto high beam.
The Transportation Department said it was issuing an open call for pledges, and more companies were expected to join in the coming weeks.
Buttigieg, noting the need for a sustained, multiyear effort to substantially reduce traffic fatalities, emphasized the opportunities as well with President Joe Biden’s five-year $1 trillion infrastructure law and said much more work remained to rebuild public works and improve people’s livelihoods.
“I definitely have four years’ worth of items and then some,” he said, speaking of his job as transportation secretary.
By Edward Palmieri via triple pundit.com Reposted: February 4, 2023
In 2020, Meta achieved net zero greenhouse gas emissions for our global operations and today, we are supported by 100 percent renewable energy. These are good first steps, but we have so, so much work still to do to become a fully sustainable company.
That was my thought as I arrived in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th annual U.N. climate conference, or COP27. Held in November 2022 and dubbed theClimate Implementation Summit, the event gathered leaders from the public, nonprofit and private sectors — the global sustainability community — to debate, celebrate and negotiate global climate action.
Going in, “implement” was the word top of mind as leaders were expected to follow up on ambitious goals set the year before in Glasgow, Scotland. By day eight, however, the word on my mind was “mired.” As in: Are we, collectively, moving fast enough?
This year’s event had its high points —President Joe Biden’s address to world leaders, in which he affirmed the United States’ commitment to a low-carbon future, was certainly one. But COP27 missed the mark in some key ways, such as creating financing for developing countriesstruggling under the financial burden of climate change and creating mechanisms to help more countries reduce emissions. It is also clear we can all do more to measure and report on yearly progress.
Edward Palmieri, director of global sustainability at Meta, speaks on a panel with other business leaders at COP27. Submitted Photo.
At Meta, we believe the private sector has a critical role to play in our global ambitions to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. During a challenging period for the company, focusing on the “true north” of measurable climate action and building climate resilience remains essential to our future and our bottom line.
Year-over-year, our net zero goal remains fixed even as we grow — both in terms of our users today and our plans for the metaverse tomorrow. And along with our net zero ambition, we are progressing related goals, including our aim to restore more water than we consume in our global operations.
Bringing all of this back to COP27, it’s clear that we can’t do it alone. No one can and, in fact, this is one of my favorite things about working in sustainability: collaboration. As we embark on a new year, Meta remains committed to collaborating with those committed to climate change and continues to expand our network of global partners. Most recently, we’ve:
Helped launch theAsian Clean Energy Coalition to advance renewable energy procurement in Asia with the World Resources Institute and other technology companies.
Announced a new partnership with Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify and McKinsey Sustainability to launch Frontier, an advanced market commitment to help scale emerging carbon removal technologies that are crucial to tackling climate change.
Embraced an Emissions First accounting framework that moves beyond the current approach of megawatt-hour matching and focuses on emissions impact.
And during COP27 itself, were honored to supportThe Resilience Hub, an inclusively-built virtual and physical space that served as the home to the Race to Resilience campaign. Representing more than 1,500 non-state actors taking action on resilience around the world, the hub hosted more than 60 sessions each with incredible speakers offering their expertise and perspectives as well as live performances, art and culture.
Importantly, too, Meta is supporting and amplifying changemakers on the front lines of the climate fight. After our largest-ever global survey about climate change this past spring painted a picture of deep concern among respondents, we’re already seeing meaningful change happen when communities come together. More than 40 million people around the world are part of at least one of the 24,000 Facebook Groups dedicated to the discovery, protection, and appreciation of the earth and our environment.
In the meantime, Meta Sustainability continues to report on its work across our enterprise. As theU.N. High-Level Expert Group report clearly states, integrity matters, which is why our net zero commitments are not only public but are relentlesslytracked and reported each year.
But as the U.N. report notes, a net zero pledge “must contain steppingstone targets for every five years” in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or International Energy Agency (IEA) pathways as well as “prioritize urgent and deep reduction of emissions across their value chain.”
We agree. That’s why I look forward to sharing our own specific decarbonization plans in early 2023. And while I look forward to seeing my sustainability peers at COP28 next November as well, I encourage those in the private sector — companies big,small and every size in between— to join us in the climate fight.
Time is literally running out — and we need all of you, and all of your solutions, to make this work.
The Little Sable Lighthouse on Lake Michigan. Many of the legal diversions of water tap Lake Michigan. Photo: MI PR
From Michigan Radio | By Lester Graham • Published February 2, 2023
This week a nationwide Associated Press story looked at the possibility of pumping water from the Mississippi River to the drought-stricken West. That might sound familiar. For years, people in the Great Lakes region have been wary of those dry states looking at diverting water from the Great Lakes.
The cost to pump water that far would be enormous, as Michigan Radio’s Mark Brush reported in 2015. It would require hundreds of miles of large pipes. Since much of the distance would be uphill — across at least one mountain range — many new power plants would be needed to power the pumping stations along the way. In the past, it was believed the cost of that water would astronomical.
With years-long droughts in Western states, some areas are desperate for water. And when you’re desperate you might be tempted to spend astronomical amounts. The thinking is pretty simple: If the Great Lakes have so much water and we have so little, doesn’t it make sense to give us access?
“I think that’s very intuitive to people,” said University of Michigan professor Richard Rood. He studies climate change and its effects.
But the Great Lakes states have an agreement that bans diverting water from the lakes. The Great Lakes Compact was approved partly because they were concerned about diversions closer to home. Towns straddling or just outside the basin wanted access to the water. The Great Lakes Compact bans water diversions in most cases. And even if a diversion is approved, it takes a unanimous vote from all eight Great Lakes states.
Climate change and its effects are challenging all our notions about controlling water. Economic and political pressures are building.
“I believe that once those stresses get high enough, that really all treaties, all things that have been done by humans will be up for negotiation,” Rood said.
Climate change effects are happening sooner and causing challenges that are catching policymakers unprepared.
The water levels of the Great Lakes is a good example. The lakes have always had a cycle of high levels and then low levels. But the much quicker water-level changes, along with higher highs and lower lows, are new.
When water levels get extremely high as they have been in recent years, there aren’t a lot of mechanisms to lower the level. There’s no pressure valve.
“I feel as if one of the most important things to do to anticipate climate change for this region is to start to seriously think about water and water management associated with the Great Lakes,” Rood said.
He did not specifically say that the excess water could or should be pumped elsewhere. But all the tools and all the rules regarding the Great Lakes could be subject to unprecedented economic and political pressure if officials are not prepared.
Rood says they need to start looking at things anew.
“I think all of those compacts, all the agreements, any engineering assets that are currently available were designed for an old climate. And when they were considering the new climate, I don’t think that they actually considered how quickly the climate is changing.”
As soda consumption has dropped in the West, companies are making an effort to woo new customers in other places. This Coke bottle ad is in Mozambique. Photo: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images
That’s a question Coca-Cola and other soda makers are wrestling with as soda drinking has waned in U.S. and European markets.
In the 2010s, Coke made a big push into rural parts of lower income countries to sell more soda. So they made smaller, more durable bottles – a 1-cup serving size that could be sold more cheaply and last longer on the shelves.
They built solar-powered coolers that allowed sellers to keep Coke bottles cold in places off the electrical grid – and offer mobile phone-charging to their customers.
And they launched “splash bars” – small businesses run by women that sold shots of Coke, Fanta and other Coca-Cola products for as low as 7 U.S. cents a serving to make the beverage affordable to everyone.
Eduardo J. Gómez is the author of the new book Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries Are Reshaping Emerging Economies. Photo: Eduardo J. Gómez
The company presented this strategy as a win-win – they benefited because their product was becoming more available in remote areas and female entrepreneurs had a new way to earn a living.
That’s a story that Eduardo J. Gómez tells in his new book. As he points out, Coke’s characterization of a win-win isn’t universally embraced.
Gómez, director of the Institute of Health Policy and Politics at Lehigh University, says Coca-Cola is one of many junk food companies – fast-food giants like McDonald’s and KFC – who are targeting “emerging economies” – countries where income is on the rise along with trade with wealthier nations.
In these countries, many people see the ability to buy so-called junk food – not just soda but packaged chips and candies and fast food from chains – as a sign they’re made it. And the junk food manufacturers try to put a positive face on their campaignsto expand their audience. They forge partnerships with local governments to fight hunger and poverty – even as the rising consumption of junk food leads to soaring rates of obesity and diabetes.
In his new book, Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries Are Reshaping Emerging Economies, Gómez describes a two-way street, where industry and political leaders work together to launch well-meaning social programs – but also skirt regulations that would harm industry’s profits. The result, Gómez says, is that junk food industries thrive in low resource countries at the expense of children and the poor, who develop long-term health problems from consuming sugar-laden, ultra-processed foods.
NPR spoke with Gómez about junk food barges, soda taxes and why healthy eating campaigns aren’t cutting it against ads for candy and fried chicken. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Let’s start with an easy question. What is junk food?
Johns Hopkins University Press
I define junk food as highly ultra-processed fast foods, from KFC to burgers, candies, confectionery, ice cream. Junk food is also Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew – high-sugar, carbonated soda drinks.
What role does junk food play in lower- and middle-income countries?
There’s a proliferation of these junk foods now, not only in cities but in rural communities in India, in Mexico, even into the Brazilian Amazon.
In the emerging economies, these foods that were not [previously] accessible suddenly became very accessible in the 1990s or early 2000s.
We’re seeing [a vast and rapid] infiltration of these foods because of what I call “fear and opportunity.” “Fear” that industries have of losing market [share] in Western nations, and “opportunity” because there’s a [growing] middle class in these emerging economies that are eager to purchase them.
What is junk food politics?
Junk food politics is a two-way street. It’s when [junk food] industries influence politics and society so they can avoid regulations that will impact their profitability, such as taxes on junk foods and regulations on marketing and sales.
We often think industry is to blame. But governments are also to blame [because political leaders partner with industry on their own political agendas – which gives industry clout to undermine policies that would cut their profits].
What’s a good example of junk food politics in action?
In Brazil, for example, you have the rise of industry groups, [like the Brazilian Food Industry Association] that were very, very influential in lobbying the congress and infiltrating national agencies that are working on regulations [like advertising restrictions for junk food]. They’re engaging in partnerships [with governments and communities where] they can be perceived as a solution to the problems [of obesity and diabetes] by, for instance, helping to improve the [sharing] of nutritional information. They’re building legitimacy and avoiding costly regulations.
At the same time, [Brazil’s] President Lula [in his prior term] had a famous anti-hunger campaign. And Lula worked with Nestlé to strengthen this program and went as far as creating an office within his presidential palace to partner with industries that wanted to contribute to this anti-hunger program. And so that was a strategic, two-way partnership that benefited industry and benefited the government.
Of course, President Lula’s intentions were admirable in alleviating hunger. But perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to partner with companies that produce a lot of these ultra-processed foods, because it indirectly legitimizes the company. It amplifies the popularity of their products and their harmful consequences to health.
As low-resource countries rise in wealth, rates of obesity and diabetes also tend to rise. What is the scope of the problem? Why does it happen?
The incidence of childhood obesity is growing much faster in developing countries [than in the West]. [Rates of] type 2 diabetes among adolescents are extremely high in India and China and Mexico.
The rural poor are also becoming obese and getting diabetes. This is something we don’t normally assume. In India, for example, in the 1990s and early 2000s, obesity was seen as a “disease of luxury.” It was perceived that only people with status and money that could go to fast food establishments were having this problem. For many years the government didn’t do anything because they perceived [growing rates of diabetes and obesity]as affecting a small minority of the population.
But now, it’s become a general issue because of the increased access to junk foods.
How has access increased? How did junk foods go from being concentrated in cities to being common food items in rural places?
[Junk food distribution]started in cities, and over time they [expand] out to other areas of the country. In Brazil, for a while, Nestlé had these large blue Nestlé boats that traveled throughout the Amazon and distributed candy and cookies throughout the Amazon. [The “junk food barges,” as critics called them, have stopped]. In rural India, there are shops where people pay for one small shot of Coca-Cola while getting their phones charged.
In every country, junk food is something that’s voluntarily bought. It’s voluntarily eaten. So why are programs that encourage healthy eating and daily exercise and nutrition labeling not enough to convince people to avoid it?
Of course we want people to have nutritional information – we want people to know more, and we want them to know what they’re eating. And there’s growing commitment and success on better food labels. Chile, for example, has introduced more effective food labels – on products high in salt, sugar and fat, they have adopted these black octagon images that are on the food products – that have rippled out through the Americas.
But people are always flooded with marketing and access [to processed foods]. Even when you have this knowledge, there are incentives for you to eat these products that are readily available and less healthy.
What I hear you saying is that healthy eating and exercise campaigns focus on the individual, but poor health and nutrition are rooted in bigger, systemic problems.
Yes, absolutely. Nutritional information is very important, but it’s insufficient. We need to address socioeconomic factors, marketing factors, all these things that play into [making junk foods an easy, accessible choice].
You say governments in low-resource countries have made some progress on taxing junk foods and improving the labeling. What else do you think needs to happen?
Noneof these governments have committed to restricting advertising. [Countries have, instead, relied on voluntary pledges from companies to refrain from marketing unhealthy foods to children.] In a lot of these countries, there are no firm laws on what can be sold in schools. And even when they have laws or rules that prohibit the sale of junk foods in schools, they are not effectively being enforced.
There’s a paradox: While countries [such as Mexico, Brazil, India and Indonesia] have done a great job of increasing nutritional awareness, obesity and diabetes is still skyrocketing. And that’s because governments are doing a little bit on the fringes but not really getting to the heart of the problem. They’re not taking on these industries through regulations to sales and advertising.
What does junk food politics cost society?
There’s an extremely high cost to society, mainly from the health consequences. If you develop type 2 diabetes as a consequence of high sugar intake, it has a tremendous impact on your quality of life. Argentina, for example, has seen a crisis in the affordability of insulin. In the context of global universal health care, we don’t pay enough attention to ensuring that the poor do not go broke in getting the medicines that they need to address their high blood pressure, their [blood] sugar.
What’s the solution? What can cut into the influence that junk food politics has on public health?
The solution is having a government that is committed to ensuring the health of all of society. One that provides activists and communities with a voice that is equal to, or exceeds, the voice of industries within government. One that has no fear of taking on the powerful industries and creating regulations that protect vulnerable populations – especially children and the poor – over the interests of major corporations.
And the solution, too, is our work in communities as researchers and as community members, to raise the awareness about the importance of good nutrition and exercise, and to increase awareness about the need for access to healthier foods.
And just wondering if climate change will play any role?
That’s the topic of my next book – climate change and malnutrition.
And your thesis is that with the changing climate …
… the availability of healthy foods becomes increasingly scarce.
The late comic George Carlin once said, “You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge.”
A recent assessment of the educational background of world leaders underscores Carlin’s quip, and it provides at least one explanation for global leaders’ consistent inaction regarding climate change: They all went to the same schools.
The new project by youth campaign group Mock COP found that the 30 top universities in the world have not fostered the leadership skills and civic engagement necessary for our world leaders to navigate the impending ecological crisis.
Entitled “1.5 Degrees,” referencing the solemn recommendation from climate scientists that the planet must not warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent catastrophe, the project demonstrates that current world leaders are birds of a feather — an idle feather at that.
Just as Carlin said, the converging interests of world leaders — who share common backgrounds, educations, worldviews, priorities and goals — has resulted in an informal conspiracy of inertia.
Top universities failed leaders, and leaders fail us
“The people with the privilege to study at the so-called ‘top’ universities, and go on to become key decision-makers across society, are being educated at institutions that do not act in the public good and do not ensure their graduates are prepared to lead a more just and sustainable future,” the 1.5 Degrees website reads.
The project includes a ranking that grades the world’s top universities on how their engineering, law, economics, politics and health courses, which are traditionally chosen by decision-makers, align with the actions needed to tackle the climate crisis.
The ranking of top universities includes Yale, Cambridge, Oxford and Stanford Universities, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Imperial College London. No institution received a favorable grade. MIT, as well as Beijing’s Tsinghua and Peking Universities, scored the worst at preparing their graduates for a low-carbon future.
The team of young activists at Mock COP ultimately concluded that the most educated among us are often the worst enablers of climate destruction. They further found that critical courses pertaining to environmental citizenship are “influenced by large corporates working against the advice of the world’s leading climate scientists.”
By and large, leaders around the world are consistent in their approach to climate change — they don’t approach it at all. This can’t come as a surprise, though, once the common education factor is acknowledged. For example, Mock COP found that 20 current heads of state attended Harvard University. These schools shape their students’ worldviews, so if world leaders all went to the same few top universities, it is no wonder that they are acting in lockstep.
“World leaders consistently let us down at conferences like Davos, where they have the opportunity to create real, lasting change,” said Josh Tregale, a mechanical engineering student and Mock COP campaign coordinator, in a statement — referring to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting earlier this month. “Had our leading decision makers undertaken university courses which effectively taught the facts of the climate crisis and instilled sustainable thinking, then they would understand the urgency and act accordingly. Instead they are uneducated on the facts and unprepared for climate leadership.”
This all adds up to world leaders are well-meaning and inept at best — and ill-intentioned and adept at worst. Neither is very reassuring, but now that the issue has been identified, Mock COP hopes to influence change.
Youth organizers at Mock COP push for curriculum reform to tackle climate change
Mock COP hopes this project will serve to influence curriculum reform and create more of an emphasis on civic duty and environmental engagement at these top universities. If the most exclusive and accomplished institutions begin to prioritize this sort of education, the rest of academia should follow suit.
The team expects this information to help climate-minded young people decide where to study, as many students may think twice about attending these top institutions after Mock COP’s report.
The planet is not dying from ignorant people making mistakes. It is dying from self-interested, highly educated people making deliberate decisions that prioritize profits over planet. It is time to start teaching the people who have the power to save the planet that saving the planet is not only in their best interest — it’s in their job description.
New offerings spur rapid growth. From Installnet • February 1, 2023
With a growing roster of Fortune 1000 clients, commercial furniture solutions company Installnet today announces its brand refresh to better reflect its purpose and mission demonstrated through the company’s new offerings and development.
The company’s new wordmark reflects its modern and flexible approach to finding solutions that simplify the creation of inspired workspaces. Installnet’s self-serve platform of 350 commercial furniture installation companies, previously known as the Office Furniture Installation Alliance (OFIA), has been rebranded as Installhub.
The purpose of Installnet, founded more than 25 years ago, is to create opportunities for people and communities to thrive. The company provides a range of services, from premium project management to Ecoserv, an award-winning circular decommission program.
“Our mission is to deliver industry-leading solutions that help employees, business and communities prosper,” said Dale Ewing, founder of Installnet. “That includes zero waste to landfill through our Ecoserv program, which provides a much-needed, credible solution to companies serious about meeting their sustainability goals. Getting zero done is an audacious, but achievable goal.”
Over the last year, Installnet has served more than 50 Fortune 1000 companies. Its award-winning Ecoserv program has diverted more than 30 million pounds of waste from landfills since its founding in 2012 and served more than 1600 community groups, providing much-needed furniture, fixtures and equipment.
In 2022, Ecoserv diverted 92% more waste from landfill than the year before and donations to community groups rose 35%. Installnet and Ewing were both honored with 2022 SEAL Sustainability Awards for Ecoserv. The SEAL Sustainability Award honorees range from global brands to high-growth start-ups and scale-ups. This is the second consecutive year Installnet has received the award.
In 2022 the company completed more than 11,000 installation projects in the U.S. and Canada, helping customers create inspired workspaces. With a robust installation partner network and a proprietary web-based software, the company expects to grow 20% in 2023.
With this sewer pipe repair method, the chemical waste is blown into the air and can enter buildings through buried sewer pipes, plumbing, foundation cracks, windows, doors and HVAC units. Photo: Andrew Whelton/Purdue University
By Andrew J. Whelton, Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University. Reposted: February 1, 2023
Across the U.S., children and adults are increasingly exposed to harmful chemicals from a source few people are even aware of.
It begins on a street outside a home or school, where a worker in a manhole is repairing a sewer pipe. The contractor inserts a resin-soaked sleeve into the buried pipe, then heats it, transforming the resin into a hard plastic pipe.
This is one of the cheapest, most common pipe repair methods, but it comes with a serious risk: Heating the resin generates harmful fumes that can travel through the sewer lines and into surrounding buildings, sometimes several blocks away.
The blue cured-in-place pipe, or CIPP, can be seen inside this damaged storm sewer pipe. The CIPP was created by steam cooking the resin into the hard plastic. Photo: Andrew Whelton/Purdue University
Chemical plumes rising from nearby manholes and contractor exhaust pipes are also not just “steam.” These plumes contain highly concentrated chemical mixtures, uncooked resin, particulates and nanoplastics that can harm human health. When we examined the heating process in the lab, we found that as much as 9% of the resin was emitted into the air.
CIPP production is known to discharge about 40 chemicals. Some cause nausea, headaches and eye and nasal irritation. They can also lead to vomiting, breathing difficulties and other effects. Waste that contains chemicals, uncooked resin, particulates, and nanoplastics is discharged into the air during CIPP manufacture. This complex emission is not steam. Andrew Whelton/Purdue University.
Styrene, the most frequently documented chemical, is acutely toxic, and “reasonably anticipated” to cause cancer, according to the National Research Council. Chemicals other than styrene can be responsible for plume toxicity.
The earliest U.S. incident we know about was in 1993 at an animal shelter in Austin, Texas. Seven people were overcome by fumes and transported to a hospital. In 2001, fumes entered a hospital inn Tampa, Florida, causing employee breathing problems. Since then, hundreds more people are known to have been exposed, and the numbers are likely much higher.
In our experience, exposures are rarely made public. Municipalities have encouraged people affected by the fumes to only contact the CIPP contractor and pipe owner. In some cases, people were told the exposures were always harmless.
Chemicals can enter buildings through sinks, toilets, foundation cracks, doors, windows and HVAC systems. The chemicals can even enter buildings that have water-filled plumbing traps. Anticipating this risk, bystanders have been told to cover their toilets and close all windows and doors.
Wind can help dilute outdoor chemical levels. However, concentrated plumes can rush through buried pipes into nearby buildings. Bathroom vent fans may sometimes increase the indoor chemical levels. Levels that should prompt firefighters to wear respirators have been found in the buried pipes.
Fumes generated during sewer line repair, on the right, can enter nearby homes, schools and other buildings. Graphic: Andrew Whelton/Purdue University
Hand-held air testing devices commonly used by some firefighters and contractors do not accurately identify specific chemical levels. An earlier studyshowed the styrene levels were sometimes wrong by a thousandfold.
How to protect public health
With the wave of infrastructure projects coming, it’s clear that controls are needed to lower the risk that people will be harmed.
Our research points to several actions that residents, companies and health officials can take to keep communities safe.
We advise residents to:
Close all windows and doors, fill plumbing traps with water and leave the building during pipe-curing operations, especially when children are in the building.
Report unusual odors or illnesses to health officials or call 911. Seek medical advice from health officials, not the contractors or pipe owners. Evacuate buildings when fumes enter.
Companies can minimize risks too. They can:
Stop the cooking process when fumes leave the worksite to lessen the spread of contamination and exposures.
Use resins that release less air pollution than standard resins.
Ask federal agencies to evaluate hand-held air testing device use.
Capture and treat air pollution from the process. While this has not yet been done at scale, it is straightforward and would be a fraction of the overall project cost. This waste will be hazardous because of itstoxicity.
Public health and environmental agencies should also get engaged. Federal agencies know that the practice poses health risks and can be fatal to workers. California and Florida recognize in safety documentation that bystanders could be harmed. But, so far, few steps have been taken to protect workers’ and bystanders’ health.
There’s good news on the viability of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, with a new report detailing how the U.S. could potentially come within reach of his 2030 objective to power 80 percent of the nation’s electrical grid with clean energy. Doing so would also meet U.S. targets to halve carbon emissions by 2030, using a 2005 baseline, and further reduce them to 77 percent below 2005 levels by 2035, according to the report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Evergreen Action.
Time is of the essence, however. And not just because of any impending climate tipping points. The current administration isn’t guaranteed a second term. And, as the Washington Post’s Maxine Joselow pointed out last week, an incoming Republican president would likely reverse any last-minute changes. Ironically, rushing the conversion may also be the best way to end partisanship over the issue as long-term savings become apparent to businesses and consumers alike.
“President Biden committed to the most ambitious set of climate goals in American history,” Charles Harper, power sector policy lead at Evergreen Action, said in a statement. “Important progress has been made, but President Biden must take bold action this year in order to deliver on those commitments. By ramping up its work to transition the U.S. economy toward 100 percent clean energy, the Biden administration and state leaders can reduce toxic pollution, cut energy costs, create good jobs, and advance environmental justice. Let’s get to work.”
The report lists necessary measures which, based on modeling, could result in meeting the climate goals set out in the president’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if they are implemented immediately. Researchers say setting new and stringent rules through the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), will be paramount. Other necessary courses of action include making the most of the IRA’s grant programs and tax credits, and promoting stronger state standards on emissions to match federal targets.
“We don’t need magic bullets or new technologies,” Manish Bapna, NRDC president and CEO, explained in a statement. “We already have the tools — and now we have a roadmap. If the Biden administration, Congress, and state leaders follow it, we will build the better future we all deserve. There is no time for half measures or delay.”
The report does not call for an end to new power plants that generate electricity from fossil fuels, but it does recommend that rule changes and emission standards be applied to existing gas and coal facilities as well. The transition away from fossil fuels is thus presented as more of a carrot than a stick situation — with funds from the IRA needed to encourage the expansion of renewables, as opposed to attempting to eliminate the construction of new fossil fuel-based plants.
The increasing availability and cheaper cost of renewable energy benefits not just consumers, but also the U.S. manufacturers and businesses that rely on all possible savings to remain competitive. The more that can be done to encourage the grid transition to renewables, the cheaper power will be for everyone. In time, then, partisan opposition to renewable energy should wane.
However, it’s important to remember that no type of consumption comes without consequences. Resources must still be extracted to build batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, etcetera in order to power the clean energy revolution. As such, we must be more careful not to create a whole new environmental disaster in the process of slowing the climate crisis.
People in the U.S. use four times as much energy as the worldwide average. Cheaper power runs the risk of increasing total consumption, as seen with the connection between gasoline prices and driving habits. With the impending robotization of multiple industries, increased power usage could be dramatically compounded and raise emissions above current modeling. Therefore, it is imperative that people in the U.S. look to reduce their consumption, in addition to cleaning up the grid.
Many Americans are already willing to adjust their lifestyles to combat climate change, but they need the tools to successfully lower their carbon footprints. Clean power is a big part of this, but so is a public transportation infrastructure that moves us away from the personal passenger vehicle — electric or not — as the primary mode of transportation.
Likewise, the backlash against remote work doesn’t just dismiss employee needs, but it also ignores the environmental benefits of fewer commutes and climate-controlled office buildings. By looking at the bigger picture, perhaps we will begin to understand that our planet does not have unlimited resources. No matter how we power things, we cannot do so from a thought process of ever expanding abundance with zero consequences.
From the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Posted: January 31., 2023
No earthquake, drought or hurricane in recorded history has claimed more lives than the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the world’s largest disaster response network, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The shocking death toll—estimated at more than 6.5 million people—has inspired the humanitarian organization to take a deep dive into how countries can prepare for the next global health emergency.
Two groundbreaking reports released by the IFRC today, the World Disasters Report and the Everyone Counts Report, offer insights into successes and challenges over the past three years—and make recommendations for how leaders can mitigate tragedies of this magnitude in the future.
Jagan Chapagain, IFRC’s Secretary General, remarks:
*”The COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call for the global community to prepare now for the next health crisis. Our recommendations to world leaders center around building trust, tackling inequality, and leveraging local actors and communities to perform lifesaving work. The next pandemic could be just around the corner; if the experience of COVID-19 won’t quicken our steps toward preparedness, what will?” *
The IFRC network reached more than 1.1 billion people over the past three years to help keep them safe from the virus. During that time, a theme that emerged repeatedly was the importance of trust. When people trusted safety messages, they were willing to comply with public health measures that sometimes separated them from their loved ones in order to slow the spread of the disease and save lives. Similarly, it was only possible to vaccinate millions of people in record time when most of them trusted that the vaccines were safe and effective.
Those responding to crises cannot wait until the next time to build trust. It must be cultivated through genuinely two-way communication, proximity, and consistent support over time.
In the course of their work, Red Cross and Red Crescent teams documented how the COVID-19 pandemic both thrived on and exacerbated inequalities. Poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of access to health and social services, and malnutrition create conditions for diseases to spread faster and further. The world must address inequitable health and socio-economic vulnerabilities far in advance of the next crisis.
In its Everyone Counts Report—which surveyed National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from nearly every country in the world—the IFRC found that teams were able to quickly respond to the pandemic because they were already present in communities and many of them had engaged in preparedness efforts, had prior experience responding to epidemics, and were strong auxiliaries to their local authorities.
“Community-based organizations are an integral part of pandemic preparedness and response. Local actors and communities, as frontline responders, have distinct but equally important roles to play in all phases of disease outbreak management. Their local knowledge needs to be leveraged for greater trust, access, and resilience,” states Mr. Chapagain.
*”It has been a brutal three years, but we are releasing this research and making recommendations in an act of hope: The global community can learn lessons and do justice to this tragedy by being better prepared for future health emergencies.” *
The World Disasters Report offers six essential actions to prepare more effectively for future public health emergencies. The Everyone Counts Report highlights the need for accurate and relevant data in pandemic preparedness and response. Both are available to practitioners, leaders, and the public.
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.
Grocery chains under pressure to switch from HFCs to natural refrigerants to curb climate change
Supermarket fridges and freezers leak powerful greenhouse gases called HFCs. Switching to ‘natural refrigerants’ such as CO2 could make a difference in cutting emissions. Photo: Terry Chea/AP
By Emily Chung · CBC News · Posted: January 29, 2023
Climate-conscious shoppers may buy local food and try to cut packaging waste, but those efforts could be negated by potent greenhouse gases leaking from supermarket fridges.
Refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs are widely used to keep food cold or frozen at grocery stores and during transport. (They’re also used for other refrigeration applications, like ice rinks and air conditioners).
They were originally brought in to replace ozone-depleting refrigerants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were banned in a landmark 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol, in order to save the Earth’s protective ozone layer.
But HFCs are themselves powerful greenhouse gases.
Typically, each tonne of HFCs can trap as much heat in the atmosphere as 1,400 to 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 100 years, depending on the type of HFC.
Here’s a look at why that’s happening, what the solutions are, and how ordinary shoppers could make a difference.
How do HFCs get from supermarkets into the atmosphere?
Supermarket fridges aren’t like your fridge at home, which typically contains less than 200 grams of refrigerant. And it’s in a sealed unit that’s unlikely to leak, says Morgan Smith, spokesperson for the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council.
Her non-profit group has partnered with industry to help enable the transition from HFCs to more climate-friendly refrigerants because the complexity of their systems make them prone to leaking significant amounts of HFCs.
Beneath and behind the cases of vegetables, dairy and frozen foods at a typical supermarket are kilometres of piping with thousands of valves, containing literally a tonne of refrigerant.
“It’s so large and so complex, with so many different points of connection that those systems are inherently leaky, and so they leak about 25 per cent of their refrigerant charge every year,” said Smith.
That’s something another non-profit group called the Environmental Investigation Agency has captured on video using infrared cameras and HFC detectors in U.S. grocery stores. It also measured levels of HFCs in the store using chemical detectors.
Three chemical detectors show readings of HFCs at a Gristedes grocery store in New York during a survey by the Environmental Investigation Agency and 350NYC in 2022. Photo: Environmental Investigation Agency
It detected leaks at 55 per cent of the dozens of U.S. stores where it took measurements. On average,it found a single supermarket emits 875 pounds (400 kilograms) of HFCs a year, equivalent to carbon emissions from 300 cars. In the U.S. alone, it calculated supermarket HFC leaks cause as much global warming as burning 22 million tonnes of coal.
How big a deal are these emissions really?
HFCs are such a big problem for climate change that Canada and 196 other countries have signed an international agreement, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, to reduce HFC consumption 85 per cent by 2036, relative to 2011 to 2013.
Shelie Miller, a professor who studies the environmental impact of the food system at the University of Michigan, says emissions from refrigerants may be relatively small compared to the food system emissions overall and major categories such as food waste.
“But that’s also just because the food system has such a big impact,” she said.
On the other hand, targeting HFCs in supermarkets can be very effective at curbing emissions.
“You can make fairly small changes and have a relatively large impact just because the chemicals themselves that we’re using right now have such large global warming potentials,” Miller said.
While potent, HFCs are short-lived greenhouse gases, said Miller, lasting no more than 30 years in the atmosphere, compared to hundreds of years for CO2. Since a typical refrigeration system lasts about 30 years, decisions made now about what refrigerant to use can affect global emissions for decades.
“We need to be thinking about the sources and the hubs of where emissions are happening. And so our grocery stores are a great way to target our overall food system and reduce emissions.”
What can be used for refrigeration in place of HFCs?
The main alternatives are called “natural” refrigerants because they are all chemicals found in nature. They include:
CO2.
Ammonia.
Propane.
While CO2 is a greenhouse gas, its global warming potential is so much lower than that of HFCs. And propane, while it’s a fossil fuel, is not burned when used in refrigeration. In fact, all three of these chemicals are considered refrigerants with ultra-low global warming potential.
How are Canadian supermarkets progressing at switching away from HFCs?
According to Shecco, a market research firm focused on sustainable technologies, there were 340 commercial CO2 refrigeration installations in Canada as of May 2020. That was far fewer than Japan, with 6,500 and Europe with 29,000, and growing more slowly than every other region in the world listed, including the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.
However, Jeffrey Gingras, president of Evapco LMP, a Laval, Que.-based company that makes CO2 refrigeration systems, said he’s seen an exponential growth in installations in the past three years, and did a record 125 installations in supermarkets, about half of them in Canada, in 2022.
The Environmental Investigation Agency has been building a global map of refrigerants used in supermarkets since it launched its Climate-Friendly Supermarkets project in 2019.
Two Canadian community groups, Drawdown Toronto and Drawdown B.C., have helped coordinate submissions to the map in their regions, and have added about 250 stores to the map. (Note: I volunteered for Drawdown Toronto while on leave from CBC News and added one store. You can read more about that in our What On Earth newsletter.)
This is a refrigerator label from the inside of a supermarket fridge, showing the type of refrigerant used. In this case, it’s an HFC called R404A, with a global warming potential close to 4,000 times that of CO2. Image: Emily Chung/CBC News
That was enough for the EIA to issue its first ever scorecard on Canadian supermarkets last fall. It reported on the five largest food retailers in Canada: Costco, Loblaws, Metro, Sobeys and Walmart.
The best-performing was Sobeys, which had the highest percentageof stores using ultra-low global warming potential refrigerants (nine per cent), was the only listed company that publicly reports its refrigerant leak rate (seven per cent) and has committed to transition to climate-friendly refrigerants for all new stores and renovation projects starting in 2024.
Some stores have also reported taking their own actions on HFCs, including Loblaws, which ranked third in the report and told CBC News that it has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent “in a large part” because of its strategy to reduce refrigerant leaks: using less refrigerant, detecting leaks early and reducing the emissions intensity of the refrigerants it uses.
Walmart Canada, which came fourth in the report, told CBC News in an email that it is installing natural refrigerants in all new stores and during major remodels with new grocery departments, and will switch all stores running on HFC refrigerants to more environmentally friendly options. It did not give a timeline, but said its global operations are aiming for zero emissions by 2040.
The other companies did not respond to CBC’s requests for comment.
EIA’s global map does show very few green dots in Canada compared to the U.S. and Europe. Avipsa Mahapatra, the group’s climate campaign lead, said that may be because no Canadian supermarket chains have not submitted their own data, unlike in other countries, and there isn’t much information.
“I actually have a hunch that Canada is not very far behind,” she said.
Ordinary shoppers can add local grocery stores to the Environmental Investigation Agency’s map of supermarket refrigerants. (Environmental Investigation Agency)
Why aren’t HFCs getting ditched faster?
Morgan Smith of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council said making the switch to natural refrigerants isn’t easy. They may require different training and equipment: ammonia is toxic, propane is flammable, and CO2 operates under very high pressures.
Smith said CO2 tends to be the natural refrigerant of choice for most supermarkets because it’s non-toxic and its systems work a lot like HFC systems.The high pressures mean it does need different piping and different valves, so a system can take months to build, and can’t just be swapped out overnight like parts of the existing system when it needs repairs.
It’s easiest if you have the space to build a new system alongside while the old system is still running, Smith said. Otherwise, you might have to shut down the store during the retrofit, which is difficult for both customers and the store operator.
For smaller stores, one option is to switch to individual fridges similar to your home fridge, with propane refrigerant in a sealed unit, Smith said.
Experts say it’s not easy to convert an existing HFC refrigeration system to natural refrigerants, as they often require different equipment such as valves and piping. Photo: CBC / Radio-Canada
Michael Zabaneh of the Retail Council of Canada said refrigerant projects are quite expensive for supermarkets.
“They can be challenging and that’s probably the biggest barrier, the need to pay for higher capital costs to either upgrade the equipment so that it can handle natural refrigerants, or buy new equipment.”
However, he said most large grocery chains are aware of the problems with HFCs and customer and investor pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and are taking action.
The Environmental Investigation Agency’s Mahapatra acknowledged that retrofitting older stores is expensive and challenging. However, she says grocery chains should be making all new stores use natural refrigerants.
“There is no excuse for any supermarket today to build a new store that still contains HFCs. That is just simply foolish,” she said, noting that international agreements to phase out HFCs will eventually force companies to change the systems anyway.
What is the government doing about this?
The federal government will start to offer carbon offset credits for projects that cut refrigerant emissions, including those in supermarkets. Environment and Climate Change Canada told CBC News in an email that they’ll go into effect “in the next few months.” Once that happens, companies will be able to apply to get credits for projects that started as far back as January 1, 2017.
Federal regulations have also been brought in to comply with the Kigali Amendment, the international agreement on HFCs that went into effect in 2018, with reduction targets starting in 2019.
The regulations will start to ban the manufacture and import of certain equipment containing HFCs with a global warming potential above a specific limit.
Gingras said the Quebec government did offer incentives for a period of time starting 2014 that made natural refrigerant systems competitive with HFCs, and those did lead to a widespread conversion of supermarkets in the province. However, he hasn’t heard of anything similar in other provinces.
Is there a role for ordinary shoppers?
Avipsa Mahapatra says grocery store customers can make a difference by adding their local stores to the climate-friendly supermarket map, being more aware and putting pressure on grocery store chains, especially when it comes to new supermarkets.
“So if it’s a new store that is being built in your community, it is our job as … residents of that community, to make sure that it is not an HFC store.”
Morgan Smith at the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council also thinks the public can make a difference: “The more people that are aware of this top
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
How a ‘blizzard of false information’ undermines the threat of climate change
Atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, shown here at a research station in the Antarctic in the mid-1980s, remembers being laughed at by colleagues when she first presented her research on the cause of the thinning ozone layer. Photo: Submitted by Susan Solomon
If you’re over 30, you likely remember a time when there was a lot of hand-wringing and furrowed brows over the ozone hole and skin cancer, as well as the threat of acid rain destroying ecosystems.
In the 1980s and ’90s, those global environmental crises created buzz and grabbed headlines, but in the decades that followed, the world turned its attention to another threat: climate change.
Yet the success stories of how those threats were tackled — through the co-operation of scientists, policy-makers and the public — are often overlooked, if not outright denied.
A barrage of misinformation on social media, including various tweets and videos, claims those issues were never real in the first place. It’s a conspiracy theory that takes on various shapes, but the underlying common thread is the false claim that climate change is just the latest in a series of hoaxes invented by governments to control the public.
One TikTok video (reminder: this is misinformation) with more than three million views dismisses several global threats as “politics,” listing off a series of examples: “In the ’80s, it was acid rain will destroy all the crops in 10 yrs; in the ’90s it was the ozone layer will be destroyed in 10 years; in the 2000s it was the glaciers will all melt in 10 years …,” the TikTok poster says.
The video claims it was all “fear-mongering nonsense” that never came true.
Watching the video during an interview with CBC News, atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon nods knowingly. It’s not the first time she’s confronted that attitude.
“I’ve heard that kind of — I don’t want to even call it a line of argument — I’ve heard that kind of assertion in the past,” said Solomon, who is a professor in the department of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“It’s a little bit like saying, ‘I had a heart attack and my doctor put a stent in. They told me I had to exercise and now I feel great. So I think that was all just nonsense to make money for the medical establishment.”
This image, circulated on social media, is an example of a popular conspiracy theory that falsely claims climate change is a hoax, along with acid rain and ozone depletion. (Climate Knight/Facebook)
Scientists set the record straight
It was Solomon’s research in the 1980s that helped establish the cause of the thinning ozone: refrigerants called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.
She recalls a particular meeting where colleagues were discussing ozone depletion. Solomon, 30 at the time, said she presented her paper identifying how refrigerants were breaking apart in the stratosphere.
“People just laughed,” she said.
But Solomon knew she was on to something, and her work contributed to the growing body of evidence that ultimately led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, phasing out the harmful refrigerants.
That treaty is working, according to a recent international report, which said the ozone is expected to recover by 2066.
“The fact that we have actually done the right things and fixed certain problems is a cause for celebration. It’s not a cause for pretending that those problems never existed,” Solomon said.
The reason acid rain doesn’t grab headlines anymore is similar — it wasn’t a hoax, it’s another case of governments responding to the scientific community’s alarm bells with regulations, which worked.
“The acid rain story [and] the ozone story show that we are capable of dealing with environmental problems and that we can make significant progress,” said Mike Paterson, a senior research scientist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario.
Paterson wrote his master’s thesis on acid rain in the 1980s, and he recalls the very real impacts at the time, such as declining fish populations in North America and northern Europe.
Scientists established the cause — sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides produced by burning fossil fuels — and North America eventually took action with a series of policy reforms in the 1990s that successfully curbed emissions and reduced the acidity of rain.
Mike Paterson, a senior research scientist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, wrote his master’s thesis on acid rain in the 1980s, and he recalls the very real impacts at the time. Photo: Bartley Kives/CBC
How misinformation threatens climate action
The fact that the global threat of climate change is happening in a digital age rampant with misinformation adds a novel layer of complexity to solving the crisis, with its severity constantly being undermined.
A government-funded report published this week by the Council of Canadian Academies — a non-profit organization that gathers experts to examine evidence on scientific topics — states that “targeted misinformation campaigns have played a documented role in creating opposition to policies addressing climate change.”
The report, called Fault Lines, used modelling to estimate that COVID-19 misinformation and its impacts on vaccine hesitancy likely contributed to 2,800 deaths and 13,000 hospitalizations in Canada over a nine-month span in 2021.
The study highlights how misinformation can cause real harm — and warns of the threat that it poses to dealing with future crises by eroding trust in science and making people more susceptible to falling down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
Cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky, who contributed to the report, studies misinformation and public opinion around climate change.
“Exposure to misinformation about climate change leads people to take it less seriously and to be less willing to support policy actions,” Lewandowsky, who is the chair of cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol in England, said in an interview with CBC News.
Women carry belongings salvaged from their homes after flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains displaced millions of people in Pakistan in 2022. Attribution analysis has found that human-caused climate change likely contributed to the disaster. Photo: Fareed Khan/The Associated Press
Society is “drenched” in misinformation, he said, and the solution must go beyond teaching individuals how to debunk conspiracy theories and include shifts on a broader scale.
“We also have to look at the structures that are in place right now and that are assisting people with nefarious intentions to spread misinformation,” Lewandowsky said.
“We’re living in an environment where outrage or anger or fear — anything that evokes attention or captures attention — is being favoured by the algorithms of social media.”
Even if there is a strong scientific consensus on global warming, a steady stream of misinformation makes it difficult for people to sift through it all and sort fact from fiction, he said.
“If people are exposed to this blizzard of false information about climate change, then their right to be informed about risks is being undermined.”
If misinformation isn’t addressed, Lewandowsky said, it will make it all the more difficult for the public to realize and react to how serious climate change truly is, as it increasingly contributes to deadly disasters around the world.
By Mary Riddle from Triple Pundit • Reposted: January 28, 2023
Over 90 percent of business leaders are prioritizing long-term decarbonization — and 89 percent believe carbon markets will play a key role, according to a recent survey of 500 sustainability managers conducted by Conservation International and the We Mean Business Coalition.
A third of the business leaders surveyed are already investing in a voluntary carbon market, while over half are considering carbon credits as an option for the future.
Carbon markets come under criticism…
Carbon markets allow carbon-emitting companies and individuals to offset their greenhouse gas emissions through the purchase of carbon credits. These credits are meant to be tied to certified emissions reductions from projects designed to reduce, or in some cases remove, greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Credits are often from renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar installations, and nature-based solutions like reforestation and land restoration.
Carbon markets and credits have come under intense scrutiny in recent years due to lack of oversight and regulation. Companies and governments have been accused of greenwashing, as certain entities created fraudulent carbon credit programs that accepted payment, but never implemented carbon reduction projects. Other critics maintain that the carbon market allows companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases instead of finding methods to avoid emissions in the first place.
A recent investigation from the Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial found that more than 90 percent of rainforest carbon offset credits from a leading provider are likely to be “phantom credits” that do not represent actual greenhouse gas reductions, adding more fuel to the skepticism.
… But business leaders seem to still believe
Net-zero targets represent more than 90 percent of global GDP, and the vast majority of business leaders believe that carbon credits are a critical piece in the global decarbonization puzzle.
Over 80 percent of the business leaders surveyed by Conservation International and We Mean Business say they would like to accelerate their decarbonization plans beyond credits or offsets. They claimed to face barriers such as budgetary constraints, technological limitations, lack of collaboration, concerns about greenwashing, lack of transparency and regulation in the carbon market, and the quality of carbon credits available, which held them back.
To overcome some of the roadblocks and confusion around carbon credits, businesses are increasingly relying on carbon credit ratings agencies such as the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market and the Voluntary Carbon Market Initiative. Carbon ratings agencies help ensure the integrity of the carbon market through robust oversight, as well as stewarding a consistent taxonomy for businesses making carbon reduction claims.
“Without a transparent, high-integrity voluntary carbon market that functions at scale, we won’t stay within 1.5 degrees [Celsius],” Annette Nazareth, chair of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, said in a statement. “Companies’ priority must be to decarbonize their own value chains. High-integrity carbon credits allow them to go further, accelerating climate mitigation beyond their value chain by providing finance to critical climate mitigation activities that do not otherwise meet the risk and return expectations of investors. We need to find a way to make it easy for investors to recognize and price a high-integrity carbon credit no matter which program issued it, what kind of credit it is, whether it is based on a removal or reduction, a nature-based solution, or an emerging technology.”
Tackling challenges in the carbon market is urgent to the activation of climate finance. Another recent report from the We Mean Business Coalition found that if the world’s top 1,700 emitting companies purchased carbon credits for just 10 percent of their emissions, more than $1 trillion would be activated for climate finance by 2030.
“Climate change is the greatest test of collective action in human history, and a crisis of that scale demands an all-hands-on-deck, all-of-the- above strategy,” Dr. M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International, added in a statement. “Carbon credits are [a] proven tool for immediately reducing emissions, while also pursuing longer-term decarbonization ambitions. And though it isn’t always reflected in the headlines, this study affirms that private-sector buyers are indeed gravitating toward high-quality credits, placing a premium on transparency and accountability.”
The challenges to decarbonization are myriad, and the carbon marketplace is not yet ideal. However, many business leaders still feel a functional, scalable carbon credit system could accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions, perhaps just in time.
By Michelle Woodhouse, Water Program Manager, Environmental Defense • Reposted: January 28, 2023
If you’re a reader of our blogs or a lover of Lake Erie, you may already know that excess amounts of fertilizer are making their way into our waterways and are a key culprit in contributing to toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie and other freshwater bodies. Some of these fertilizers are chemicals, but some are just old-fashioned manure.
Using a natural fertilizer such as manure is a good practice – but there are still some rules that need to be followed to minimize negative impacts on the environment.
Fertilizer management best practices are called the “4 Rs.” Applying the right fertilizer source at the right rate, at the right time, and in the right place – are considered the rules of thumb for fertilizer application. These rules apply to manure as well as chemical fertilizers. And when it comes to applying manure, winter is the worst time.
What are the risks of winter spreading?
Winter spreading of manure is a practice that is under intense scrutiny because of the elevated risks for nutrient losses and its effect on water quality. The risk of runoff to surface water increases when applied on frozen or snow-covered ground. Frozen soils have limited, or no infiltration, so immediate runoff occurs if rainfall or snow melts before the soil thaws. With winter applications, no growing crops are available to absorb the nutrients.
Winter spreading of fertilizer is actively discouraged within the agricultural community and by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. However, it still occurs, and the practice of winter spreading is not only inefficient but also harmful to the watershed.
One of the main reasons manure is applied in winter is due to insufficient manure storage capacity. Therefore, increasing manure storage capacity is a simple way to alleviate much of the need for winter spreading. A more heavy-handed approach taken by some governments is to ban winter spreading altogether to try and enforce full compliance within the farming community.
What protections exist in Ontario to protect the Great Lakes from agricultural runoff and nutrient pollution?
Several pieces of legislation exist in Ontario that make it an offence to allow manure to enter waterways. The main pieces of legislation are the Environmental Protection Act, the Ontario Water Resources Act, and federally, the Fisheries Act. The Nutrient Management Act regulations are also most restrictive for winter applications. Farmers are also required to follow nutrient management plans when fertilizing crops and managing animal waste, which includes ensuring enough storage capacity for manure.
These weaknesses in the Nutrient Management Act contribute to year-round issues with nutrient losses and runoff, including in the winter months. All of this contributes to a deteriorating situation for the health of the Great Lakes and the toxic algae bloom issue that plagues Lake Erie annually. Governments need to strengthen the regulations requiring farms to have nutrient management plans. For the farms that do require plans, greater monitoring and enforcement of compliance are required.
Every year, scientists from NOAA and the Great Lakes region warn us that Lake Erie is approaching a tipping point, and if we don’t get our act together in the near term, we could lose one of our greatest global treasures. Bringing an end to the winter spreading of manure is one of the critical actions we need to take if we want to avoid this devastating loss.
Seeds are seen as students at Eucalyptus Elementary School learn to plant a vegetable garden in preparation for Plant a Seed Day in Hawthorne, California on March 13, 2019. Photo: DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images)
By Kaitlyn Radde from National Public Radio News • January 27, 2023
In the wake of wildfires, floods and droughts, restoring damaged landscapes and habitats requires native seeds. The U.S. doesn’t have enough, according to a report released Thursday.
”Time is of the essence to bank the seeds and the genetic diversity our lands hold,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report said.
As climate change worsens extreme weather events, the damage left behind by those events will become more severe. That, in turn, will create greater need for native seeds — which have adapted to their local environments over the course of thousands of years — for restoration efforts.
But the report found that the country’s supply of native seeds is already insufficient to meet the needs of agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is the largest purchaser of native seeds and which commissioned the study in 2020. That lack of supply presents high barriers to restoration efforts now and into the future.
”The federal land-management agencies are not prepared to provide the native seed necessary to respond to the increasing frequency and severity of wildfire and impacts of climate change,” the report concluded. Changing that will require ”expanded, proactive effort” including regional and national coordination, it said.
In a statement, BLM said federal agencies and partners have been working to increase the native seed supply for many years. The bureau said it is reviewing the report’s findings.
The report’s recommendations ”represent an important opportunity for us to make our collective efforts more effective,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said.
While native plants are the best for habitat restoration, the lack of supply means restoration efforts often use non-native substitutes. They’re less expensive and easier to come by, but they aren’t locally adapted.
”Without native plants, especially their seeds, we do not have the ability to restore functional ecosystems after natural disasters and mitigate the effects of climate change,” BLM said.
Some private companies produce native seeds, but that requires specialized knowledge and equipment. On top of that, they often lack starter seed, and demand is inconsistent — agencies make purchases in response to emergencies with timelines companies say are unrealistic. Proactively restoring public lands could help reduce this uncertainty and strain, the report recommends.
In order to sufficiently increase the supply of seeds, the report concluded that BLM also needs to upscale its Seed Warehouse System, which ”would soon be inadequate in terms of physical climate-controlled capacity, staff, and expertise.” There are currently two major warehouses with a combined capacity of 2.6 million pounds, with limited cold storage space.
By Daniel Sperling, Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Founding Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis via The Conversation • Published: January 26, 2023
California is embarking on an audacious new climate plan that aims to eliminate the state’s greenhouse gas footprint by 2045, and in the process, slash emissions far beyond its borders. The blueprint calls for massive transformations in industry, energy and transportation, as well as changes in institutions and human behaviors.
These transformations won’t be easy. Two years of developing the plan have exposed myriad challenges and tensions, including environmental justice, affordability and local rule.
For example, the San Francisco Fire Commission had prohibited batteries with more than 20 kilowatt-hours of power storage in homes, severely limiting the ability to store solar electricity from rooftop solar panels for all those times when the sun isn’t shining. More broadly, local opposition to new transmission lines, large-scale solar and wind facilities, substations for truck charging, and oil refinery conversions to produce renewable diesel will slow the transition.
I had a front row seat while the plan was prepared and vetted as a longtime board member of the California Air Resources Board, the state agency that oversees air pollution and climate control. And my chief contributor to this article, Rajinder Sahota, is deputy executive officer of the board, responsible for preparing the plan and navigating political land mines.
We believe California has a chance of succeeding, and in the process, showing the way for the rest of the world. In fact, most of the needed policies are already in place.
What happens in California has global reach
What California does matters far beyond state lines.
In the U.S., through peculiarities in national air pollution law, other states have replicated many of California’s regulations and programs so they can race ahead of national policies. States can either follow federal vehicle emissions standards or California’s stricter rules. There is no third option. An increasing number of states now follow California.
So, even though California contributes less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, if it sets a high bar, its many technical, institutional and behavioral innovations will likely spread and be transformative.
What’s in the California blueprint
The new Scoping Plan lays out in considerable detail how California intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 48% below 1990 levels by 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.
It calls for a 94% reduction in petroleum use between 2022 and 2045 and an 86% reduction in total fossil fuel use. Overall, it would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2045 relative to 1990 levels. The remaining 15% reduction would come from capturing carbon from the air and fossil fuel plants, and sequestering it below ground or in forests, vegetation and soils.
To achieve these goals, the plan calls for a 37-fold increase in on-road zero-emission vehicles, a sixfold increase in electrical appliances in residences, a fourfold increase in installed wind and solar generation capacity, and doubling total electricity generation to run it all. It also calls for ramping up hydrogen power and altering agriculture and forest management to reduce wildfires, sequester carbon dioxide and reduce fertilizer demand.
This is a massive undertaking, and it implies a massive transformation of many industries and activities.
Transportation: California’s No. 1 emitter
Transportation accounts for about half of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, including upstream oil refinery emissions. This is where the path forward is perhaps most settled.
The state has already adopted regulations requiring almost all new cars, trucks and buses to have zero emissions – new transit buses by 2029 and most truck sales and light-duty vehicle sales by 2035.
In addition, California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard requires oil companies to steadily reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels. This regulation aims to ensure that the liquid fuels needed for legacy cars and trucks still on the road after 2045 will be low-carbon biofuels.
But regulations can be modified and even rescinded if opposition swells. If battery costs do not resume their downward slide, if electric utilities and others lag in providing charging infrastructure, and if local opposition blocks new charging sites and grid upgrades, the state could be forced to slow its zero-emission vehicle requirements.
The plan also relies on changes in human behavior. For example, it calls for a 25% reduction in vehicle miles traveled in 2030 compared with 2019, which has far dimmer prospects. The only strategies likely to significantly reduce vehicle use are steep charges for road use and parking, a move few politicians or voters in the U.S. would support, and a massive increase in shared-ride automated vehicles, which are not likely to scale up for at least another 10 years. Additional charges for driving and parking raise concerns about affordability for low-income commuters.
Electricity and electrifying buildings
The key to cutting emissions in almost every sector is electricity powered by renewable energy.
Electrifying most everything means not just replacing most of the state’s natural gas power plants, but also expanding total electricity production – in this case doubling total generation and quadrupling renewable generation, in just 22 years.
That amount of expansion and investment is mind-boggling – and it is the single most important change for reaching net zero, since electric vehicles and appliances depend on the availability of renewable electricity to count as zero emissions.
Electrification of buildings is in the early stages in California, with requirements in place for new homes to have rooftop solar, and incentives and regulations adopted to replace natural gas use with heat pumps and electric appliances.
The biggest and most important challenge is accelerating renewable electricity generation – mostly wind and utility-scale solar. The state has laws in place requiring electricity to be 100% zero emissions by 2045 – up from 52% in 2021.
The plan to get there includes offshore wind power, which will require new technology – floating wind turbines. The federal government in December 2022 leased the first Pacific sites for offshore wind farms, with plans to power over 1.5 million homes. However, years of technical and regulatory work are still ahead.
For solar power, the plan focuses on large solar farms, which can scale up faster and at less cost than rooftop solar. The same week the new scoping plan was announced, California’s Public Utility Commission voted to significantly scale back how much homeowners are reimbursed for solar power they send to the grid, a policy known as net metering. The Public Utility Commission argues that because of how electricity rates are set, generous rooftop solar reimbursementshave primarily benefited wealthier households while imposing higher electricity bills on others. It believes this new policy will be more equitable and create a more sustainable model.
Industry and the carbon capture challenge
Industry plays a smaller role, and the policies and strategies here are less refined.
The state’s carbon cap-and-trade program, designed to ratchet down total emissions while allowing individual companies some flexibility, will tighten its emissions limits.
But while cap-and-trade has been effective to date, in part by generating billions of dollars for programs and incentives to reduce emissions, its role may change as energy efficiency improves and additional rules and regulations are put in place to replace fossil fuels.
One of the greatest controversies throughout the Scoping Plan process is its reliance on carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. The controversy is rooted in concern that CCS allows fossil fuel facilities to continue releasing pollution while only capturing the carbon dioxide emissions. These facilities are often in or near disadvantaged communities.
California’s chances of success
Will California make it? The state has a track record of exceeding its goals, but getting to net zero by 2045 requires a sharper downward trajectory than even California has seen before, and there are still many hurdles.
Environmental justice concerns about carbon capture and new industrial facilities, coupled with NIMBYism, could block many needed investments. And the possibility of sluggish economic growth could led to spending cuts and might exacerbate concerns about economic disruption and affordability.
There are also questions about prices and geopolitics. Will the upturn in battery costs in 2022 – due to geopolitical flare-ups, a lag in expanding the supply of critical materials, and the war in Ukraine – turn out to be a hiccup or a trend? Will electric utilities move fast enough in building the infrastructure and grid capacity needed to accommodate the projected growth in zero-emission cars and trucks?
It is encouraging that the state has already created just about all the needed policy infrastructure. Additional tightening of emissions limits and targets will be needed, but the framework and policy mechanisms are largely in place.
Rajinder Sahota, deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, contributed to this article.
By Mary Riddle from Triple Pundit. Posted: January 27, 2023
Investors, insurers, and financial institutions in the EU have a new method for assessing the sustainability of their investments. Last week, the Observatory Against Greenwashing launched its independent Science-Based Taxonomy, in direct response to the EU Taxonomy system that some say is ineffective.
The EU Taxonomy is a classification system that claims to give investors, businesses, and financial institutions a common language for identifying the degree to which a specific investment, financial product, or economic activity can be considered sustainable.
However, critics have said the draft guidance is not sufficiently science-based and certain aspects, such as classifying gas-fired power, tree-burning, logging and nuclear energy as sustainable, could do more harm than good.
To create a more sustainable system for classifying investments, a coalition of experts and NGOs including WWF, BirdLife International, and Transport and Environment, formed the Observatory Against Greenwashing (OAG). The group aims to improve on the EU Taxonomy and provide investors with better, science-based guidance on the sustainability of their investments.
What is the independent Science-Based Taxonomy?
The independent Science-Based Taxonomy is based on the EU Taxonomy, but it only keeps the portions of the text that researchers found to be environmentally sound. It also makes more robust criteria for the parts of the EU Taxonomy that the OAG deemed unscientific or harmful to the environment.
“The EU Taxonomy was originally designed to eliminate greenwashing but instead has become another tool to deceive consumers,” Vedran Kordić, EU Taxonomy coordinator from WWF Adria, said in a statement. “The science-based Taxonomy wants to succeed where the original Taxonomy failed: It will create rigorous criteria which financial institutions can use to properly assess what is green and what is not.” According to the OAG, 1 in 3 activities deemed sustainable in the EU Taxonomy actually cause planetary harm.
The EU Taxonomy was established in 2018 with a mission to inject capital into projects that would help the EU meet objectives laid out in its Green New Deal, including carbon neutrality by 2050. But critics argue the EU Taxonomy is disingenuous and fundamentally flawed due to the inclusion of natural gas and nuclear energy sources on its list of sustainable investment options.
“This isn’t good enough. We need a better taxonomy, one based on science,” said Luca Bonaccorsi, sustainable finance director at Transport and Environment, a coalition of European NGOs working on transportation issues, in a statement. “Now the investor community has it.”
ESG regulations are expanding in the EU and beyond
While controversy continues to surround ESG regulation for financial products in the EU Taxonomy, the EU Commission is calling for an increase in regulation of other consumer goods and services in an attempt to respond to claims of bogus greenwashing. The EU has drafted a legal proposal that would require companies to provide scientific evidence to justify sustainability claims such as “carbon neutral” or “contains recycled materials.” The draft rule also calls on EU countries to develop systems for evaluating the environmental claims of companies, including issuing penalties for businesses that do not comply.
The expansion of ESG (environmental, social and governance) regulation is not limited to Europe. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to channel over $400 billion into clean tech companies over the next 10 years. Additionally, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to finally issue its climate disclosure regulations in April, several months later than planned. The new SEC rules, if issued, would require companies to make disclosures surrounding their climate-related risks, as well as their greenhouse gas emissions and those of their supply chains.
American Airlines Cargo is taking part in a global effort to transport life-saving medical and sanitation supplies to Haiti as the nation struggles to control a deadly cholera outbreak. In partnership with Airlink, a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to bringing critical aid to communities in crisis, American is carrying more than 55 tons of medical supplies from Europe to Miami, where they will be staged for distribution to Haiti.
“We’re proud to partner with Airlink to make a positive impact on the world,” said Greg Schwendinger, President of American Airlines Cargo. “At American, our mission is to care for people on life’s journey, and we are honored to play a role in transporting critical goods to the people and places they are needed most.”
Cholera, which spreads mainly through contaminated food and water, has sickened thousands of people in Haiti since the outbreak began in October 2022. The illness has worsened a humanitarian crisis caused by civil unrest that makes accessing supplies difficult for health care workers in the Caribbean country. American will serve as a vital link in moving personal protective equipment (PPE), clean water filters, nebulizers, blood tubes and other sterile items to help fight the crisis.
American first partnered with Airlink in March 2022 to ship humanitarian aid to those impacted by the conflict in Ukraine. Since then, it has carried nearly 90 tons of life-saving cargo to the region. Through this partnership, American helped transport cargo and relief personnel for 47 different non-profit organizations, supporting humanitarian efforts in 21 different countries.
Last year, American and its customers donated 85 million AAdvantage® miles to Airlink though American’s Miles for Social Good program. So far, the miles have provided travel for 351 relief workers to support social programs around the world.
For more information about American’s Miles for Social Good program and to donate online, visit www.aa.com/letgoodtakeflight.
By Tina Casey from Triple Pundit • Reposted: January 26, 2023
City taxpayers in states like Texas are set to lose out financially due to “anti-ESG” laws. Image credit: Perry Merrity II/Unsplash
When red-state policymakers began to target ESG (environment, social and governance) investing for attack, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. As it happens, that someone is the local taxpayer. A new anti-ESG state law in Texas has already induced one city to miss out on the most competitive bid for its municipal bond sale. As for cities in blue states, growth in the market for municipal green bonds could help ensure economic health and resiliency in the era of climate change.
Somebody’s gonna get hurt: Small city loses $277,334 on bond sale
An early sign of trouble appeared last September when Bloomberg reported that the city of Anna, Texas (population 16,792) declined to pick the best bid for its bond sale. The bidder, Citigroup, apparently ran afoul of a new state law, SB 19. That law passed in 2021 with the goal of protecting gun industry stakeholders from being passed over by financial firms with ESG policies.
Citigroup is one such firm. In 2018, the company set a relatively mild “best practices” policy on gun sales for its retail clients. The new policy required background checks and a 21-year age threshold, and it limited the sale of extra-lethal equipment such as bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.
“It is not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms,” Ed Skyler, Citigroup’s EVP of global public affairs, said of the policy back in 2018. “But we want to do our part as a company to prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands.”
Skyler also noted that Citigroup’s policy applied to retail clients only, not to the company’s relationships with gun manufacturers, which he described as “few.” Even so, that was enough to set off alarm bells under SB 19.
As described by Bloomberg, city officials in Anna rejected Citibank’s bid after discussing the matter with the state Attorney General. They dropped the opportunity to get the best deal, reportedly costing local taxpayers $277,334.
A follow-up analysis commissioned by Ceres and the investor group As You Sow also indicated that similar losses are in store for cities as a group of state policymakers consider similar laws. That group includes lawmakers in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Picking winners and losers in the market for municipal green bonds
The prospect of a negative bottom-line outcome for city residents will probably not make red-state policymakers change their minds and stop the crusade against ESG investing. After all, punishing city dwellers to make a point is par for the course among red-state policymakers.
In contrast, blue-state taxpayers can look forward to a competitive environment for their municipal bond sales, including municipal green bonds.
Earlier this month, an organization of international investors called the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) released a report in support of the U.S. municipal market titled, “The thematic ESG approach in U.S. municipal bonds.”
“As the largest liquid sub-sovereign debt market in the world, the U.S. muni bond market merits consideration by ESG-minded fixed income investors,” PRI emphasized.
PRI is tasked with promoting the six ESG principles outlined by the United Nations Global Compact in 2006. More than 1,500 investment firms have signed onto the principles, with assets under management totaling an eye-popping $62 trillion.
In the report, PRI noted that municipal bonds are “well-positioned for investors pursuing a thematic ESG approach.” While cautioning that investors still need to exercise due diligence, the report’s authors noted that thematic or “labelled” municipal bonds can “help investors assess and report on the environmental and social outcomes of their investments.”
PRI analyst Jasper Cox elaborated: “U.S. municipal bonds are useful for fixed income investors seeking to contribute to sustainability outcomes, since issuers of these bonds are crucial for the wellbeing of most Americans and also the transition to a low carbon economy.”
Based on data culled from PRI’s ESG reporting platform, the organization observed that momentum is growing for “thematic ESG investing in U.S. muni bonds due to increasing investor interest in environmental and social themes.”
Among other factors, the report also took note of “growing opportunities to fund climate-related projects.”
Indeed, some PRI signatories are using muni bonds to align investment objectives with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals or, alternatively, exclude bonds linked to revenue from certain sectors, such as tobacco.
Yes, interest in municipal green bonds is growing
Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs provided another indication that the outlook for municipal green bonds in the U.S. is a healthy one — at least for blue-state cities.
“The global bond market will be an important source of investment to drive the climate transition, and green bonds finance projects with positive environmental impact,” the firm’s lead portfolio manager for green, social and impact bonds, Bram Bos, wrote in a company blog post.
Bos explained that the market for municipal green bonds is expanding as the twin forces of investor interest and government policymaking come to bear. Though much of the activity has been centered in Europe, Goldman Sachs expects the pace to pick up in the U.S. and elsewhere in the coming years, Bos reported.
That outlook was affirmed back in 2021 by Fidelity, which issued a white paper noting that municipal green bonds were a small but growing segment of the market.
“Provided that the bonds meet the investor’s current investment objectives and that the investor understands the associated risks, Green Bonds may present a unique investment opportunity,” Fidelity stated.
ESG is here to stay
CNN ran the numbers earlier this week and reported that “sustainable investing generated returns similar to the market” last year. That’s an interesting contrast with the New York Times, which ran a string of articles critical of ESG investing last year.
Among other data indicating strength in the ESG area, CNN cited the Morningstar U.S. Sustainability Index, which fell 18.9 percent in 2022. That may look bad at first, but in the context of an overall market downturn, the Index actually did better than the S&P 500 — which fell 19.4 percent.
Against this backdrop, the anti-ESG, “anti-woke” movement is simply another Republican exercise in performative politics, aimed at mollifying their supporters in the fossil energy and weapons industries while feeding the emotions of their angry base, regardless of the consequences for everyone else.
It’s little wonder that the Republican Party underperformed expectations in the 2022 midterm elections by a wide margin. The world is passing them by, and that includes ESG investors and the voters who benefit from fact-based financial decision-making in the era of climate change.
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good, released an employee engagement benchmark calculator, which allows companies to see where their employee volunteering and giving programs align with peers. The calculator groups companies evaluated within the YourCause 10th Annual CSR Review by industry and employee count, comparing 66 different possible categories. Data evaluated is a subset of the entire YourCause client and employee population representing more than 350 companies and over 7.6 million employees that engaged in social impact from 118 countries.
“Since 2015, YourCause has provided insights into employee engagement and social responsibility from Fortune 500 companies and millions of employees collected from our portfolio of CSR software. This tool and the insights provided are a direct result of implementing client feedback”, said Brandon Sharrett, president and general manager, YourCause from Blackbaud “With the help of our customers we can develop a better solution that enables them to focus on driving social impact.”
The calculator prompts users to choose from 6 company size groups and 11 SIC categories, for example, healthcare and 10,000-50,000 employees or healthcare and 100,000+ employees, etc. The results come with a short, curated list of resources to help companies quickly navigate to online guides packed with ideas and client stories.
Investing in CSR and Employee Engagement Matters
Businesses are looking to help drive social impact that creates better lives for the people in their communities. Forbes recently released an article with 15 tips from social impact leaders on building a successful program and number 5 was all about engaging the entire workforce. “Leaders have to engage their entire workforce in order to drive social impact”. The benchmark tool from YourCause will allow companies to set realistic, strategic goals towards engaging their entire workforce and ultimately driving meaningful social change in their communities. Companies using YourCause CSRconnect® for employee engagement can use the robust reporting tools to look at participation rates by department, office location or manager level to set smaller goals for individual teams or groups. These smaller goals will add up to an increased participation rate for the whole firm.
“Corporations are constantly looking for insights to boost employee engagement and nothing empowers them more than strong data insights. Providing our industry data in this easy-to-use benchmarking tool gives corporations a great, and measurable, starting point on their path to increased engagement,” said Nathan Froelich, Senior Manager, Strategy and Business Development, Corporate Impact at Blackbaud.
About Blackbaud Blackbaud is the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, higher education institutions, K–12 schools, healthcare organizations, faith communities, arts and cultural organizations, foundations, companies and individual change agents.
Hog farmer Mike Patterson’s animals, who have been put on a diet so they take longer to fatten up due to the supply chain disruptions caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks, at his property in Kenyon, Minnesota, U.S. April 23, 2020. Picture taken April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will study whether to toughen regulation of large livestock farms that release manure and other pollutants into waterways.
EPA has not revised its rules dealing with the nation’s largest animal operations — which hold thousands of hogs, chickens and cattle — since 2008. The agency said in 2021 it planned no changes but announced Friday it had reconsidered in response to an environmental group’s lawsuit.
While not committing to stronger requirements, EPA acknowledged needing more recent data about the extent of the problem — and affordable methods to limit it.
“EPA has decided to gather additional information and conduct a detailed study on these issues in order to be able to make an informed decision as to whether to undertake rulemaking,” the agency said.
Food & Water Watch, whose lawsuit prompted the agency’s reversal, said a new approach was long overdue.
“For decades EPA’s lax rules have allowed for devastating and widespread public health and environmental impacts on vulnerable communities across the country,” Tarah Heinzen, the group’s legal director, said Monday.
Beef, poultry and pork have become more affordable staples in the American diet thanks to industry consolidation and the rise of giant farms. Yet federal and state environmental agencies often lack basic information such as where they’re located, how many animals they’re raising and how they deal with manure.
Runoff of waste and fertilizers from the operations — and from croplands where manure is spread — fouls streams, rivers and lakes. It’s a leading cause of algae blooms that create hazards in many waterways and dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie.
Under the Clean Water Act, EPA regulates large farms — known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs — covered by federal pollution permits. Federal law requires only those known to discharge waste to obtain permits, although some states make others do so.
EPA’s most recent tally shows 6,266 of the nation’s 21,237 CAFOs have permits.
In its plan, the agency said its rules impose “substantial and detailed requirements” on production areas — barns and feedlots where animals are held, plus manure storage facilities — as well as land where manure and wastewater are spread.
While prohibiting releases to waterways, the rules make exceptions for production area discharges caused by severe rainfall and for stormwater-related runoff from croplands where waste was applied in keeping with plans that manage factors such as timing and amounts.
In deciding whether to revise the rules, EPA said it would consider how well they’re controlling pollution and how changing them would bring improvements.
The agency conceded its data on discharges to waterways is “sparse,” with a preliminary analysis based on reports from only 16 CAFOs. In addition to seeking information from more farms, EPA said it would assess whether discharges are widespread nationally or concentrated in particular states or regions.
It also will look into practices and technologies developed since the rules were last revised, their potential effectiveness at preventing releases, and their cost to farm owners and operators. Under the law, new requirements on farms must be “technologically available and economically achievable.”
Revising water pollution rules typically takes several years, three full-time employees and $1 million per year for contractor help, EPA said. The study will determine whether “the potential environmental benefits of undertaking rulemaking justify devoting the significant resources that are required,” it said.
Livestock groups have said government regulation is strong enough and that voluntary measures such as planting off-season cover crops and buffer strips between croplands and waterways are the best way to curb runoff.
Environmental groups argue regulations should cover more farms, require better construction of manure lagoons to avoid leaks, and outlaw practices such as spreading waste on frozen ground, where it often washes away during rainstorms or thaws.
“We’re not talking about really expensive fixes here,” said Emily Miller, staff attorney with Food & Water Watch. “We need the standards to be stronger so they actually prevent discharges as they’re supposed to do.”
National Parks Conservation Association and Nature Valley are furthering the permanent protection of places that honor the people and stories who shaped our public lands.
From the National Parks Conservation Association • Reposted: January 25, 2023
Today, National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and its partner Nature Valley are announcing a new video series that celebrates and brings awareness to the historical and cultural heritage of our Hispanic and Latino communities – while generating greater access to nature by preserving public lands and national park sites.
The series features three videos highlighting transformational park experiences by national park advocates in Texas and California. These stories are told through the lens of recreation, accessibility and representation, and family heritage. Each story is further brought to life through a unique piece of artwork reflective of each advocate’s experience and emblematic of the park site special to them.
The first video in the series released today features community member, Josie Gutierrez, and her experiences within San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Josie’s story serves as an example of how park access allows people to connect to nature through recreation, while also providing a space to find peace and relaxation in the outdoors. Also revealed in the video is an art piece created by Cristina Noriega, a painter and muralist born and raised in San Antonio, commissioned to embody Josie’s experience at the San Antonio Missions. Subsequent videos highlighting additional national park advocates and their profound personal experiences within park sites will be released over the coming months.
“Our national parks tell the stories of America,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of National Parks Conservation Association. “They teach us about our history, our culture and the power of place. By sharing these powerful first-person stories, as we have done in this video series, we hope to introduce more people to America’s national parks and the richness of the experiences people have within these protected places. And we hope they are inspired to create stories of their own.”
Partners since 2009, Nature Valley recently donated $200,000 to NPCA to support the permanent protection of park sites that celebrate and bring awareness to the historical and cultural heritage of our Hispanic and Latino communities. These funds advance NPCA’s work around access, equity and representation within the outdoors to ensure our parks tell comprehensive stories of our nation’s rich history and culture, while providing all Americans the opportunity to see themselves in our parklands.
“Nature Valley is committed to ensuring nature’s energy is accessible to all, starting with education and awareness,” said Katie Wong, head of ideas and partnerships for General Mills. “Our partnership with National Parks Conservation Association advances this mission by furthering the permanent protection of places and spaces that honor the historical and cultural heritage of Hispanic and Latino communities who shaped our public lands by amplifying their stories.”
To view the first video in the series and learn more about NPCA and Nature Valley’s partnership and its impact, visit www.npca.org/naturevalley. Viewers can also follow along on NPCA’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and TikTok as videos are released through April.
Eric Block On Responsible Branding 
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