Search

A study just published by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has linked a building’s indoor air quality directly to its occupants' cognitive function. Cognitive function is defined as the cerebral activities that lead to knowledge including acquiring information, reasoning, attention, memory and language.

The revolutionary finding of this study is that lowering indoor air levels of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) improves human cognitive function. In other words: Cleaner air makes us smarter!

This amplifies the issue of CO2 as a pollutant to a new level. It brings the issue inside our homes, offices and schools. It creates a significant motivation to reduce indoor air pollution by reducing CO2 and VOC levels.

Impacts on competitive advantage, building owners, lawyers and smartphones

To this economist focused on 21st-century mega trends this study shouts out business and societal questions around “competitive advantage.” It suggest that a business with superior indoor air quality will have higher performing work associates. It suggests that a business with superior indoor air quality will be more effective in messaging, and winning, customers.

The study presents a radically new real estate value proposition. It suggests that buildings with superior indoor air quality will sell for more money and win higher leasing levels.

Indoor air quality could become a major educational issue with societal ramifications. It raises questions about student performance (with issues of inequality) based on a school’s indoor air quality and proximity to sources of CO2 like highways, factories and power plants.

Based on this study, the role that CO2 has in driving climate change may be only half of the environmental cost/benefit analysis tied to CO2 emissions. A recognition that indoor CO2 levels have a measurable human cognitive function impact should spark massive building code revisions.

It would also appear to be only a matter of time before poor indoor air quality soars to a top-of-mind issue among lawyers with the likely emergence of class action litigation against building owners and property managers. And it suggests a future killer app for smartphones or wearables that continuously monitors indoor air quality to protect us from working or living in a home, factory, office or hotel with poor indoor air quality.

Smart vs. green buildings

A stated motivation for conducting this study was to access the growing number of green buildings that achieved increased energy efficiency by wrapping a building to minimize conditioned air (and energy) loss. These tightly-sealed buildings were thought to represent “sick building syndrome,” where occupants felt impacted by poor indoor air quality.

The study found that, in fact, poor ventilation in tightly-sealed buildings does create a human health threat. The finding holds the potential to shift building design and operations away from “green” buildings and toward “smart” building designs like those adopted into California’s building codes that incorporate ventilation solutions with building sensors, smart technologies and onsite renewable generation to achieve Zero Net Energy annual results.

How indoor air quality could impact real estate values

Who wants to work, stay or live in a building that makes them dumber? How that question is answered during the 21st century could make CO2 and VOC levels a major determinate in real estate sales.

Future real estate disclosure could include measured quantification of a building's indoor air quality. The ability to finance a building or home, including the cost of financing, could be impacted by a building’s potential air quality impacts on occupants. In the future home prices and sales could be impacted by how a potential homebuyer’s smartphone or wearable measures the house's indoor air quality during a walking tour.

Smart buildings will cost less, mean more and makes us smarter

Smart buildings are a 21st-century mega trend. They will cost less because they will use onsite solar energy systems that are projected to deliver grid parity, or lower prices, in all states by next year. Smart buildings will achieve lower costs by deploying battery systems, which are projected to reach grid price parity in five years, to enable price arbitrage against utility rates plus enhanced service reliability. They will cost less because smart technologies will optimize energy and water consumption around human behavior and comfort. They will cost less because they create less risk, litigation and human compliant.

Smart buildings will mean more for two reasons. The first is tied to the human experience: They will enhance human productivity and satisfaction with their seamless connectivity to human activity. A recent survey found that people want their smart home or office to be easy to use and experience. Smart tech will be bundled, connected and intuitive. Smart tech will anticipate human need (like sensing two people walking into a room and automatically turning on the appropriate level of lighting and conditioned air ventilation). The smart home or building will be secure and protected against misuse through easy-to-implement human interaction like a voice command or the touch of a finger.

The second reason they will mean more is tied to their ability to protect/enhance human and environmental health. Smart buildings will have reduced environmental emissions. They will monitor air quality around human health parameters. They will be a major contributor toward the mitigation of climate change.

Smart buildings will reshape the 21st-century economy, improve our environment, enhance human health and make us smarter from just breathing cleaner air.

Image credit: Pixabay

I've always loved BSR for the networking opportunity -- lots of people come through that I don't otherwise get an opportunity to meet. However we don't just go to conferences to network -- theoretically, there should be some learning too. But let's be honest -- those true "aha!" moments come few and far between. Well, I had one, and I'm excited enough that I need to tell you about it.

We at TriplePundit are in the business of communicating ideas. We do so primarily through the written medium but increasingly in person and in front of large crowds. While I speak in public enough that I don't get nervous (anymore), I don't love it love it. The written word has always been my favorite medium, and I am most comfortable in an in-person or small group interaction. I wanted to get more comfortable in front of a crowd, so I attended a small pre-conference workshop with Lisa Wentz, a public speaking executive coach, on Demystifying Public Speaking. I had specific goals: to improve my enunciation and projection; people tell me I mumble.

Wentz warned the dozen or so mostly-women attendees that public speaking improvement wasn't about tips or tricks. She had a reframe for us. The goal of public speaking is to communicate ideas. And the goal of good public speaking is to communicate those ideas well. It's not about the person; it's about the ideas.

Whoa! It sounds obvious when you write it out like that ... But I think those of us who are reluctant to speak publicly can get so caught up in our own anxiety that we forget that the goal is simply to communicate information effectively. Through that lens it became clear that we don't want our own s**t -- insecurity, anxiety, sweaty palms or frog-in-the-throat -- to get in the way of the message. It's not about you, on stage in front of a crowd being stared at; your body and voice are a vessel for conveying important information that your audience needs to hear. A simple idea with a whole host of implications!

When it came to individual feedback, interestingly, Wentz leaned toward the introspective. We have to clear out the issues that hold us back before we can move forward and get on with the important information we are trying to convey. With me, Wentz seemingly saw straight into my brain and called out the internal naysayer who critiques my sentence structure and questions my decision to speak at all. She advised me to tell him to stuff it. Her advice was on the nose. Now that I recognize that little stinker, I can tell him to take a hike when he pops up. He doesn't get a voice. The information I'm trying to convey is too important.

The issues we in the sustainability community are trying to solve -- climate change, poverty, access to water, health and education, to name a few -- are much larger than any of us. Truth be told, they probably won't be solved in the lifetime of anyone who is reading this right now. But yet we persevere. We're brave and strong; we're doing something we can't not do. We shouldn't let our neuroses hold us back.

Image credit: Flickr/Terren in Virginia

Steven Piersanti founded Berrett Koehler Publishers 24 years ago, shortly after being fired. Piersanti, an executive at Jossey Bass, refused an order from the company's new owner, billionaire investor Robert Maxwell, to lay off eight valued employees. He was dismissed for insubordination.

After the news got around, Piersanti was deluged with offers of support from authors, suppliers and investors who were also dismayed by Maxwell's emphasis on maximizing short-term profits at the expense of everything else. Piersanti started Berrett Koehler (BK) to represent the interests of all stakeholders in the publishing process. Today the company has a large catalog of books (including one of mine) on progressive business practices and work/life issues.

Four years ago, BK applied to B Labs to audit over 280 of its social, environmental and employment practices. BK wanted to demonstrate that it met a high standard for corporate citizenship and was creating social benefits as well as profits. When it passed the audit, BK became one of over 1,450 certified B Corporations, which are audited every two years. But that wasn't enough for Piersanti.

On Oct. 21, BK also changed its California corporate charter to become a Benefit Corporation. BK's articles of incorporation now require directors to balance the interests of employees, customers and other stakeholders with those of shareholders in all company decisions. BK and other Benefit Corporations must produce a public benefit as well as profits, and they must also report to the public on exactly how those benefits are being produced.

"The audit and the chartering need to work hand-in-hand," Piersanti told TriplePundit. "Neither one is sufficient if you're really committed to running a business that also pursues social goals.

"The B Labs audit is rigorous, but it is also voluntary. You could pass the audit in October, elect new leadership in November, and abandon all the policies that made you a certified B Corp in December. On the other hand, becoming a chartered Benefit Corporation creates legal obligations that are far more likely to survive hard times or changes in leadership. But those obligations are vague, and there's no penalty if you don't meet them.

"If you're a chartered Benefit Corporation but you don't undergo the audit, you could say in your papers that handing out free guns to everyone is your public benefit. If you take the audit, you can't get away with that. The audit is the state-of-the-art, and the charter means you're not going back, but you have to do them both or it won't really work."

Piersanti, 62, says he had an eye on his own legacy when he took BK through the two-part process. "Succession planning is important to any business," he says. "But if your business has a mission, you need to be concerned with more than finding the right people for the right positions. You also need to pay attention to the institution and how it's structured, or else the mission won't survive you."

Image credits: 1) B Lab 2) Courtesy of Steven Piersanti

That little can of tuna many people love to eat is packed with more than just protein. It likely is linked to human rights abuses. Take Thai Union, the largest canned tuna producer on the planet, which supplies brands and retailers around the world. Despite media attention, the company has failed to do anything about human rights abuses in its tuna supply chain, according to a recent Greenpeace report.

Thai Union owns Chicken of the Sea, a popular American canned tuna brand. An Associated Press article earlier this year revealed that the canned tuna sold in American grocery stores may have been caught by slaves. A 2014 report by the U.S. State Department backs up what the AP discovered through its year-long investigation. The State Department downgraded Thailand to the worst level, a Tier 3 country.

Greenpeace’s report states that “men and women working throughout the seafood sector are exposed to a range of abuses.” Migrants who cross borders are particularly vulnerable to “exploitation and abuse.” Thailand’s seafood sector has been linked to human trafficking, debt bondage, child labor and forced labor.

Video testimonies, courtesy of Greenpeace, highlight just how bad the human rights abuses are in the Thai tuna industry. One man, who worked on a tuna fishing vessel, says he and another worker were referred to as “soccer balls” because they were under the feet of their employers and could be “kicked anywhere and didn’t have the ability to go anywhere on their own.”

The two workers were deceived by brokers with the promise of good jobs in onshore industries. Instead, they were locked in rooms or put under armed guard as they waited for the ship to depart Indonesian waters. Both men were forced to work on fishing vessels that supplied Marine One, a reefer that transported tuna and other marine fish to one of Thailand’s main seafood processing hubs.

Thai Union hasn’t done enough to address human rights abuses

After the AP article ran, Thai Union announced it would drop the supplier connected to labor abuse in the article. However, it failed to state that it would cease sourcing fish from Silver Sea Line C reefers, which have been linked to transhipment of fish caught by forced labor.

Although Thai Union did end transhipment, a process of transferring fish from ships to larger vessels in Thai waters, for some species, it hasn’t ended it for most of its tuna -- which is sourced from other countries. Transhipment worsens the risk of human rights abuse because it allows ships to trap workers and keep them at sea indefinitely, according to a Greenpeace statement. 

Thai Union released a statement on the report, claiming that its policy banning transhipment “applies to international transactions for tuna as well as those transactions in Thai waters.” Greenpeace points out that the company’s statement on transhipment is “intentionally vague and uses existing requirements to make the company appear stronger on this issue.” In reality, Thai Union is “not doing anything above and beyond the industry status quo,” Greenpeace added.

Greenpeace also takes exception to Thai Union’s claims about audits. The company stated that its global tuna supply chain is subjected to annual audits by International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), an independent third party.

While Greenpeace doesn’t dispute the annual audits by ISSF, it points out that ISSF “does not adequately address social issues, and their audits cannot be considered independent” because they don’t provide “important information public and consumers cannot rely on an industry trade association to verify that these issues are being addressed.”

What consumers can do

“Consumers have the power to change the tuna industry for the better,” Kate Melges, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace USA, told Triple Pundit. So, what can concerned consumers do? First, they can check out Greenpeace’s Canned Tuna Shopping Guide, released earlier this year. It ranks 14 American canned tuna brands on environmental and social responsibility issues. Consumers can use the guide to buy canned tuna from higher ranked companies.

“There are better tuna brands for consumers to support, including Wild Planet, American Tuna and Ocean Naturals sold here in the U.S.,” Melges said. She added that the “best way” to encourage companies like Thai Union to change is to “show them we will only buy sustainable tuna products, caught by fishermen that are treated fairly, using techniques that do not harm the wider marine environment.”

There is something else consumers can do. They can join Greenpeace’s campaign, launched last month, which calls on Thai Union to eliminate labor abuse and environmentally damaging fishing practices. Part of that campaign is a Greenpeace petition that calls on Shue Wing Chan, Chicken of the Sea's CEO, to “commit to a strong policy that ensures that the company’s tuna is truly sustainable and ethically-sourced.”

Image credits: 1) Mike Mozart 2) Greenpeace 

By Geoff Ledford

The human body is an amazing machine, made up of individual muscles and organs that work together to support life. Consider this for a moment: While most machines simply wear out with use, our bodies actually get stronger the more we use them.

At thinkPARALLAX, we believe that corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is a similarly remarkable entity. An effectively-communicated CSR story can produce tremendous benefits for an organization – from engaged stakeholders to a growing bottom line. Disney cartoon villains excepted, corporate responsibility provides a cause that most people can rally around. And, like a human body, the overall health of an organization’s CSR communication also depends on many parts working in unison.

However, in our experience we’ve seen firsthand what can happen when the essential “organs” of CSR communication strategy fail to come together. Potentially transformative CSR initiatives get buried in the pages of dense, technical reports, robbed of their power simply because they were not communicated properly.

To help organizations avoid such unwitting pitfalls, thinkPARALLAX has released our newest issue of Perspectives, The Anatomy of Healthy CSR Reporting. The piece discusses the following five components of healthy CSR communication that are sometimes overlooked.

1. Tailor your message to your audience

Effective communication requires an organization to leverage the full range of tools and communication channels available. That means social media, video, infographics, customer-facing communications, internal campaigns, special events, speaking engagements, paid media, and so on. Don’t be afraid to think beyond the report!

2. Infuse hard data with human connection

The best sustainability communications balance facts with an emotional appeal that makes them relevant. GHG emissions, product life cycle analysis, and supply chain impacts are weighty, technical issues that, on their own, may alienate certain audience segments. Numbers and hard data become more meaningful when they are woven into a narrative.

3. Back up your claims with verified and relevant data

While emotional appeal plays a crucial role in effective sustainability communication, it can be a slippery slope. It’s well and good to have a picture of your CEO shaking hands and kissing babies, but you’d better have good solid data to back up such images and make them relevant.

4. Talk with your audience – not at them

If you’ve ever watched a good stand up comedian interact with an audience, you’ve already experienced how effective audience engagement can be. Audiences love to be asked participate – especially when the subject in question is something that they care about. Give your audiences a place to tell you what they think, feel, and value, and your audiences will engage with your CSR communications openly and enthusiastically.

5. Have the guts to tell the whole story

Sustainability is hard. We don’t have all the answers. In the face of the environmental challenges facing our planet, that’s a difficult reality. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Unfortunately, many corporations view sustainability reporting as a story that can only be told using sunshine, smiley faces, and rainbows. While this might seem like the “safe” strategy, such an approach is inherently short-sighted. Brands that really want to make inroads with their audiences must be comfortable addressing issues that don’t have an immediate solution.

The full issue of Perspectives examines each of these parts in more detail, provides more examples of each strategy at work, and offers tips for maximizing the effectiveness of CSR communication. To read more, download the full version of The Anatomy of Healthy CSR Reporting. 

Geoff Ledford is a Creative Strategist at thinkPARALLAX – a strategic creative communications agency with a passion for building brands with purpose. We work at the intersection of business strategy, sustainability, and communication. Our values stem from the belief that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive – good business means doing the right thing. We cultivate knowledge, spread awareness, and create purposeful connections with audiences.

Apple, Diageo, Sainsbury's, Roche Holding and Google are among CDP's ranking of corporate 'A listers' for their actions to mitigate climate change. 

The international not-for-profit CDP holds the most comprehensive set of global corporate environmental data and has just issued its annual Climate Change Report on behalf of 822 investors representing US$95 trillion.

The new publication includes the 2015 Climate A List, which comprises those companies identified as A grade for their actions to mitigate climate change. Nearly 2,000 companies submitted information to be independently assessed against CDP’s scoring methodology; 113 have made the list, which features brands from around the world such as, Apple, Microsoft and Google, the three largest by market capitalization.

CDP’s executive chairman and co-founder Paul Dickinson says: “The influence of the corporation is mighty. The momentum of business action on climate change suggests we have reached a tipping point, where companies are poised to achieve their full potential. They need ambitious policy at both a national and international level that will support them in this regard and will catalyze participation from industry at scale.”

Access the report here. 

 

Picture credit: www.dreamstime.com

 

With only 58 days to go before entries open for next year’s National CSR Awards (NCSRA), its organisers have announced new and expanded categories.

With the introduction of three international awards - Best International Sustainable Community Project, Best International Conservation Project and Global Sustainable Transport – all 24 award categories* look to address the key business issues that are essential to creating a more sustainable future.

Karen Sutton, chief executive, NCSRA, explained the rationale behind the revamp of the award categories: “We wanted to ensure that the awards are an accurate reflection of where business is making progress in all aspects of CSR and sustainability and the revised categories do just that.

"For example, we’ve changed 2015’s Carbon Offsetting to Carbon Neutral because the days when social responsibility could be treated as an add-on to business-as-usual are gone. Companies cannot simply give money to compensate for unsustainable practice.”

Companies of all sizes are urged to enter. “Whether you have 10 employees or 10,000, the awards are looking to reward and recognize business excellence and innovation in CSR and sustainability. All entries have an equal chance of winning,” added Sutton.

Entries open on 4 January 2016 but early registration of interest is encouraged.

To register your interest and to learn more about the Awards, click here. 

 

*The 24 categories for 2016 are:
Overall Excellence in Social Responsibility
Best Newcomer to CSR
Best Community Project 
Best Community Development 
Best Partnership in the Community
Best International Sustainable Community Project
Best International Conservation Project
Best Educational Project (multiple awards for Equality, STEM and Apprenticeships)
Innovation for Workplace Practices
100% Green – Carbon Neutral 
Clean Energy Project
Community Energy Project
Built Environment (multiple awards for domestic and commercial)
Green Supply Chain (multiple awards for large and SME)
Nutritional & Health Awareness Initiative
Outstanding Individual Corporate Leadership
Outstanding Individual Community Hero (Nomination award – FREE)
Construction Waste Neutral
Best SME – Charity Support (under 50 staff)
Global Sustainable Transport

 

“Growing congestion due to a booming economy.”

“An influx of new people into already crowded cities.”

“Rising real estate prices.”

Sounds like the San Francisco Bay Area today, no? But actually, these are clips from newspapers stories in the 1950s, when San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose saw rapid population growth due to soldiers returning from World War II and the first phase of the baby boom.

That is when the region embarked on a plan to build what was then the largest public works project in American history -- the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, now known as BART -- which opened in 1972 and is, today, a vital pipeline for the region, carrying more than 400,000 people each workday.

Today, the Bay Area is in the midst of another boom, due to the region's lucrative tech sector. The region's population has grown by 200,000 since 2010, and another 2 million are expected by 2040, while our regional transport system – highways, buses, BART and Caltrain – are already reaching peak capacity. Yet, there is little momentum for the type of massive, public works project we saw in the '50s and '60s.

Here's how we got into this mess.

Missing links

The Bay Area was initially not a single metropolitan area, but three. San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose all grew with very different political, urban and, ultimately, transport structures. Then came the suburbs.

“As suburban populations centers got more power ... they wanted to get away from [big urban areas], and so they created their own cities and transit agencies,” Rod Diridon Sr., with the Mineta Transportation Institute, told TriplePundit.

With the sprawl that came with the post-World War II population boom, these suburbs sprung up and filled in the gaps between – and spread beyond -- the three initial populations centers. Highways became a fixture in the region, and, besides BART and, to some extent, Caltrain, transit was left to the individual cities and counties that were reluctant to cede control to a regional authority.

That means, today, there are an astounding 27 different transit agencies operating across the nine counties that make up the Bay Area -- which, according to Gerry Tierney, an urban mobility expert at Perkins + Will’s San Francisco office, is one of the chief reasons we lack a comprehensive regional transportation system today.

“When you have 27 separate transit agencies, it is impossible to get coherent transportation planning that will operate on a complete Bay Area basis,” Tierney told Triple Pundit.

“We have a 19th-century political structure trying to address 21st-century problems.”

In the early 1990s, 32 regional business leaders, community activists and academics came together to push to address the region's lack of integration as part of the Bay Vision 2020.

The commission's final report, which quoted then University of California-Berkeley chairman Ira Michael Heyman, sounds incredibly prescient and is apt to the challenges facing the region today.

“As with most people in the region, we cherish the Bay Area and seek to assure its beauty, livability, economic strength, and the opportunities it affords those who live here. We have concluded, however, that these qualities are in jeopardy because we have no effective means for addressing the problems that cross city and county boundaries. Only by some changes in the structure of government in the region can we tackle increasing traffic congestion, long commutes between home and job, shortages of affordable housing, loss of valued open space to urban sprawl, predictable air pollution, and deterioration of our economic base."

The report set out an initial plan to merge the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Air Quality Management District in order to integrate planning and decisions for land-use, transportation and air quality. This would then lead to greater integration of the region's myriad transit agencies. It went to the state legislature, where it passed the House but, after intense lobbying by agencies and certain Bay Area cities, it was defeated in the Senate.

“My guess, it would put them out of business,” said Diridon, speaking of the opposition to what seems to be a common sense plan. “Instead of having three different very powerful boards, three different executive staffs, and so on and so on, you'd have one.”

“That would [have been] the first step in beginning to merge the transit agencies.”

Had the bill passed, it could have allowed a powerful regional agency to plan for the challenges now facing the region. Moreover, it could have avoided absurd situations like the one now facing Caltrain. The commuter rail between San Francisco and San Mateo and Santa Clara counties is facing a steep budget shortfall: Three of the agencies that fund it – San Mateo County's SamTrans, Santa Clara County's VTA and San Francisco's MTA -- are planning to cut subsidies, despite the fact that Caltrain is not only the region's most efficient system, but has also seen higher ridership growth than services run by the three agencies.

New, informal transit

There is another side-effect of the region's transit shortcomings: Entities setting up their own as informal systems. The most well-known of these are the controversial tech shuttles.

Before the shuttles emerged, driving was the optimal choice for those commuting to Genentech, Google and Facebook's campuses, which are far from mass transit; hours on public transit was deemed unfeasible. Many commuters don't stick to a single transit agency area, but travel across the region and across multiple jurisdictions that, to this day, don't connect, coordinate or have a combined fare structure. Shuttles were created to fill in a missing gap, and are used not only by tech companies, but aso by UC-San Francisco, Mission Bay, and even cities like Emeryville and San Leandro.

“It is estimated that up to 45 percent of non-automobile users in the peninsula are on private shuttles,” Tierney said. For Tierney, shuttles are an integral part of the region's transport picture, and are likely here to stay, but they need to work together with existing, public and private transportation infrastructure.

This shows that companies are aware of the transit challenges in the Bay Area, and it is an opportunity. Remember that crisis in the 1950s? Then, it was Bay Area business leaders who pushed for transit measures that led to BART. This time, as the region faces another challenge, it is yet to be seen if the new business tech bigwigs are willing to push for the comprehensive, regional, integrated transit system we so desperately need.

Next we'll look at initiatives and solutions to the regional transportation challenge, and what role tech companies can play in helping build coalitions for change that not only benefits them, but Silicon Valley and the Bay Area as a whole.

Image Credit: Eric Fischer via Flick

Talk to any restaurant owner, and you will likely find that food waste is one of the top concerns when it comes to revenue loss.   A 2013 study conducted by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), on behalf of the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, indicated that more than 84 percent of the food waste generated by surveyed U.S. restaurants ended up in the landfill.  Only 1.4 percent was donated, while 14.3 percent was recycled, and most of that was reclaimed as cooking oil.

On average, say the authors, that translates to 15.7 percent food loss across the industry, or 3.3 pounds of food waste per $1,000 of company revenue. As the survey points out, that's a significant loss for both large and small companies in the restaurant sector. For a corporation with a billion-dollar revenue, it works out to more than 3 million pounds of consumables that are paid for, but not used.

The survey also uncovered some interesting statistics regarding the barriers that restaurants commonly face when it comes to donating or composting leftover food.  Most of the conventional restaurants and quick-stop eateries organization surveyed said transportation constraints, limits in storage capacity and insufficient on-site refrigeration were the greatest impediments to donating extra food to charities. Barriers to recycling/composting food waste included "insufficient recycling options," management or building limitations, and transportation challenges as major reasons why recyclable food usually ended up in the landfill.

Addressing the national food waste challenge

Fortunately, cities like San Francisco and Seattle are working to address those challenges by ensuring that recycling and composting options are available and used by businesses as well as private residents. But as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have discovered in recent years, many companies lack the knowledge and familiarity with processes that allow them to divert their food waste to secondary uses.

In 2013, the two agencies took up this issue and launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge in an effort to educate and incentivize small businesses in food waste reduction procedures. The agencies found that, just like private homeowners, businesses benefited substantially from tools that allowed them to track their food use and the waste they generated.

The EPA also found that small restaurants (in the BSR survey, these were identified as those businesses with 10 or fewer outlets), were able to overcome their obstacle to composting when they joined together to take advantage of commercial composting services.

"Sometimes a single restaurant will not generate enough for the [compost] haulers to come or to outweigh the cost of getting the contract.  When small restaurants join up under one contract, it makes it more economical and easier for them to gain access to compost options," said the EPA.  Joining together as a neighborhood effort also means there are less trucks on the road and less emissions associated with the supply of services.

Of course, not all of the waste occurs at the preparation stage. A substantial amount of purchased, uneaten food is left on the table in U.S. restaurants, often due to abundantly large servings that are abandoned, rather than packaged up in "doggie bags."

"Customer engagement and interest is another key element for wasted food reduction in restaurants. Customer support of repurposing foods like leftover prime rib from Monday being used in Tuesday’s pot roast," says the EPA, helps ensure that uneaten food isn't destined for the landfill.

In the kitchen, coming up with innovative ways of repurposing chicken, beef, vegetables or other foods that weren't used the day before can reduce food spoilage at the preparation stage. Smarter, leaner approaches to menus help trim revenue loss as well. "[The] support of less choices on the menu to ensure that 4 pounds of lamb are not thrown away for the 1 pound that is sold allows the restaurant owners to make these choices without fear of losing their customers or money."

Through the Food Waste Challenge, restaurants also have access to a number of innovative software tools that help them fine-tune their purchasing and usage of the products they buy.

"Just-in-time software provides real time operational planning tools for managing large networks.  This includes scheduling and rescheduling of deliveries, lean manufacturing planning, and solutions for a mobile workforce that can quickly respond to customer needs," says the EPA. The software also "allows our participants to inventory and learn what their actual food use is, then allow[s] them to plan and execute the purchase of only what is needed, which helps them to reduce their wasted food."

Donating leftover food: The Bill Emerson Act

Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said that restaurant owners are often afraid to donate food to charity organizations. "There is a perception of liability," he said, that often makes businesses reticent to give away unused, day-old food. However the Federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, signed into law by the Bill Clinton administration in 1996, serves to indemnify businesses that are willing to donate to charities. Additional state laws provide their own support for similar charitable efforts.

The U.S. Food Waste Challenge program also teaches restaurants and other businesses that sell-by dates on cans and other products are only meant as a guide to help purchasers know when a product is considered freshest. But a recently passed sell-by date "doesn't mean mean it's bad," said Stanislaus, and doesn't mean it can't be donated if it isn't going to be used.

The type of wrapping that is used on take-out products also helps ensure a longer shelf life. "Efficient packaging and storage can increase the life of food products. Meat that is vacuum-sealed will remain fresh three to four days longer than meat that is wrapped in plastic," said the EPA.

Composting and recycling everything else

San Francisco's Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance of 2009 ensures that all private and commercial residents recycle and compost their reclamable materials, including food scraps. Other cities have since followed this example, with mandatory or recommended policies on composting and recycling that vary according to each municipality. The EPA and USDA Food Waste Challenge also works with restaurants to increase their access to composting and recycling options for those foods that can't be reused or given away.

Lastly, certification programs like those provide by the privately-run Green Restaurant Association help incentivize both restaurants and their patrons to think about the ways that they can ensure the food they purchase isn't wasted. The association's standards cover more than waste reduction, with a holistic approach to sustainable, affordable business operations.

"Leftover food is no longer seen as waste or something that people should push to the back of their refrigerator," the EPA pointed out. New strategies, innovative apps for our mobile phones, and thoughtful programs that help ensure restaurants and consumers get the most out of the food they buy translate not only to savings in what gets put into the fridge, but also what gets subtracted from the revenue at the end of the day.

Image credits: 1) Patrick Feller; 2) Business for Social Responsibility; 3) Environmental Protection Agency

Last month, the USDA announced a goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030, and every day more people are waking up to the reality that food waste is an urgent problem.  Establishing a target and setting food efficiency as a priority is a step in the right direction and a move that has the potential to have a big impact on public health, the environment and the economy.  But how are we going to get there?  

Food Shift, an organization based in Oakland, California, is dedicated to this issue and has compelling insights into both what needs to happen on the ground with the launch of the Alameda Kitchen and what needs to happen to shift the system in a more sustainable direction.

One thing is for sure: We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.  Despite over 50,000 organizations across the country that recover and redistribute surplus food to feed the hungry, 40 percent of food in the U.S. is still getting wasted and 49 million Americans still lack access to healthful food.  As deeply as I feel connected to the hard work, big hearts and best intentions within the traditional models of food recovery and food assistance -- they aren’t solving the problems.  

Inspired by the nationally acclaimed nonprofit social enterprise, D.C. Central Kitchen, Food Shift is launching the Alameda Kitchen to transform fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be wasted into nutritious, affordable food products and meals for low-income populations.  In the process we’ll provide job training for the formerly homeless.

Here’s what Food Shift is doing differently and why it’s important in the effort to reduce wasted food and hunger.

Make it financially sustainable

Despite the value of their services, most food rescue and food assistance groups have limited resources, inhibiting their ability to hire staff, build capacity, and acquire necessary infrastructure to meet demand, expand their programs, improve efficiency, or innovate to meet current community needs.

As an alternative to the traditional charity model, Food Shift’s Alameda Kitchen will produce and sell food products to support the ongoing operations and growth of the program. It’s critical that both food recovery and food assistance groups expand the metrics by which they are calculating their impact to include not just the social but the environmental and economic benefit of their services in order to attract the resources they deserve to sustain their work.

While Alameda Kitchen demonstrates one approach, there are many more ways food recovery and food assistance could innovate in this realm.

Move beyond charity to provide jobs

We know that food alone will not solve hunger. A free meal is only a temporary fix to a complex problem rooted in unemployment and structural inequality. For the Alameda Kitchen, Food Shift is partnering with Alameda Point Collaborative (APC), a supportive housing community for individuals previously without a home and where 85 to 90 percent of residents are unemployed.  Community members will be hired as kitchen and processing staff. The revenue generated from the products we create will help us pay fair wages and allow us to expand our program to reduce waste and increase access to affordable healthy food.  

Be a catalyst for nutrition and good health

All too often food assistance centers are overwhelmed with donations of unhealthy, processed foods, like day-old cakes and sweets.  When we fail to provide healthful food for already vulnerable populations, we are simply adding fuel to fire and contributing to health issues like obesity and heart disease. Everyone deserves the option of nutritious food — and food recovery efforts should be no exception.  

The Alameda Kitchen will source locally and prioritize nutrition and improving the health of the community as a core value of our program. We are excited about the potential of creating products for local schools, senior centers, and for Hope Collaborative’s healthy corner store initiative.  By rescuing surplus food and bringing it into the kitchen we can transform slightly bruised apples into applesauce for seniors, overripe bananas into muffins for school children, or misshapen veggies into an affordable Food Shift soup!

Replicate what’s working

D.C. Central Kitchen hires unemployed individuals to process surplus produce into meals for homeless shelters, schools and other vulnerable populations, as well as operates a revenue-generating catering program.  

Last year, D.C. Central Kitchen recovered over 800,000 pounds of food, distributed 1.7 million meals, trained 85 students who had a 90-percent job placement rate, generated over $6 million in revenue through their catering program, and employed 150 staff.  

This model has been replicated over 60 times, and we need to continue replicating evidence-based solutions that shift the system and provide long-term results.

The Alameda Kitchen is a realistic strategy that embraces the potential of food to be used as a tool to empower people and strengthen communities. This is a way that we can do more than just feeding people through a soup kitchen by also “feeding” them through skill building, employment and opportunity. Rather than spending more resources on waste disposal or expanding our food banks, we need to explore, invest in and replicate innovative models that are creating opportunity and developing more healthy communities.

Food Shift recently launched a crowdfunding campaign with the goal of raising $30,000 to start the Alameda Kitchen -- with two weeks left to go, we’re $6,000 shy of our target.  The funds raised will help to pay fair wages to APC resident workers and increase access to healthy affordable food in the surrounding community. Those who contribute to the campaign can take advantage of several perks, such as a week’s worth of produce from Imperfect, an Oakland-based CSA that provides “imperfect” produce, a cheese making class from FARMcurious, a tour of Back to the Roots, or a ticket to the Alameda Kitchen launch party!  

Watch Food Shift's Alameda Kitchen video here:

https://youtu.be/_ArUrPWpMt4

Image credits: Food Shift

Dana Frasz is a sustainable food systems entrepreneur and advocate.  She is the founder and director of Oakland, Calif.-based organization Food Shift.  Food Shift is a key educator, innovator, and leader within the movement toward a more sustainable use of food and recently released a report highlighting challenges and opportunities within the food recovery space. Learn more at www.foodshift.net, on facebook, or on twitter.

Learn more about Dana here or connect with her at [email protected] or on twitter.