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Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Kevin Carter, Director, Diversity & Inclusion, Campbell Soup

Similar to every initiative at Campbell Soup, we reexamined our Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) efforts in 2012. It meant asking ourselves several hard questions but most importantly, "what we believe, what we will do and how we will measure our success?"

I serve as the Director of Diversity & Inclusion. I collaborate with business units on diversity strategy; manage our Business Resource Affinity Networks, or BRANs, and conduct facilitated leading and learning on such topics as Intercultural competence and work style orientation. I have also been acquainting myself with social media through Inclusion Innovates to share Campbell D&I efforts externally to build affinity in the marketplace.

This retrospection was important for Campbell, D&I and all our employees because we seemed stuck in a different era; not yet successful connecting with an increasingly large multicultural marketplace. It had become simply crucial that we acted more like the “iconic” brand we aspire to be and build a robust affinity with new demographic groups.

Hispanic Network de Campbell and Pepperidge Farm (HNdeC), one of the company's eights BRANs, has initiated several efforts towards this purpose, many in partnership with the Campbell Consumer Insights Department, to aid the company in gaining a deeper understanding of the Hispanic consumer, including attitudinal and food-specific perspectives.

What We Believe: Diversity and Inclusion

In addressing these questions, it became clear that the company needed to progress from diversity to inclusion to impact. By accepting this as our journey, we would be consciously declaring that D&I is a continuous improvement process that must result in clear business outcomes that lead to organizational success.

Typically, diversity efforts are measured by an organization's ability to attract, select and retain a mix of people in the workplace relevant to effective operations. Similarly, inclusion efforts are usually measured by whether or not this diverse mix of talent is acknowledged, valued and engaged in pursuit of business goals. We are now clarifying one additional, and vital, component: D&I progress is ultimately measured by an organization's ability to leverage a diverse mixture of talent for business impact in sales, productivity and performance.

What We Will Do: Impact

We will focus on talent management, work climate and networks to delivery business impact.

In talent management, our efforts to attract, recruit and retain diverse talent include such activities as recruiting professionals at conferences organized by the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA), National Society of Hispanics MBAs (NSHMBA) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). We also partner with our BRANs to attract and develop talent at the company.

For example, Campbell Maxton American Indian Network (MAIN) partners with Robeson Community College to assist high school and associate degree students obtain the skills, competencies and opportunities to work at Campbell’s. Specifically, 28 employees have gained additional skills through RCC’s Advanced Manufacturing and maintenance apprenticeship programs which have allowed them to move into our Maintenance department to replace employees who have retired over the past three years.

When we shift to work climate, the journey switches from active recruitment to consistent education and empowerment.

One of our classes on Inclusive Leadership, for example, provides leaders with the awareness, knowledge and skill readiness to enable individuals and groups to contribute their fullest potential. Valuing Diversity, Practicing Inclusion explores the various diversity challenges that are affecting the business and links them to the organization’s existing diversity initiatives.

We are asking our managers to reflect on some fundamental questions such as: how do my strengths prevent others from exhibiting theirs and what don’t I know about others that could aid our collective success?

Educating Managers about Idea Networks

In learning sessions, these types of questions are “eye openers” because managers reflect on how they may not be valuing the diversity, or the uniqueness, that a direct report brings to a collective task. In a recent session, for instance, many participants were surprised about the homogeneity of their “idea networks.” The concept of “idea networks” is important for our diverse employee base because diverse people generate diverse ideas that lead to innovation.

While classroom education serves a specific purpose, we complement these with networking, relationship-building and experiential learning through our eight BRANs.

BRANs are employee led, company supported, volunteer organizations that assist the company with successfully on-boarding, engaging and developing members representing demographic difference within the organization. These Networks have hosted or sponsored sessions such as the Asian Network of Campbell's (ANC) China 101 workshop and the Bridge Network's Generations program and the Women of Campbell and Pepperidge Farm (WoC) Leadership series.

Our BRANs have also reached outwards to connect with business partners. Campbell’s Administrative Professionals (CAPs) hosted the executive assistants of the World 50 organization to foster relationships to accelerate administrative assistant on the job performance, skills and competencies.

Employee Groups: Building Competence, Generating Affinity

BRANs generate three organizational benefits: connection, competence, and business development.

Specifically, BRANs provide members with opportunities to connect with others to share experiences, best practices and form essential support systems. Similar to other organizations; however, it is a constant challenge to prove the value of BRANs to middle-managers. While leaders typically understand that an organization has to cultivate employee engagement and input, we’ve learned that managers don’t always support employee participation, particularly if they are on tight deadline.

To address this reality, we are continually projecting the value BRANs bring to our organization internally as well as externally. It is proven that successfully initiated employee networks generate insights and often business development opportunities. For example, our African American Network (CAAN) hosted presentations on "Multicultural Marketing to African Americans," that led to a spirited discussion on how to increase sales for a specific product segment. ANC then sponsored an internal cooking competition using Campbell’s Chefs and ingredients where recipes were shared at the 33rd Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Festival.

Shifting into High Gear: Testing the Power of Social Media

As I mentioned early, however, diversity and inclusion are an evolutionary journey. So over the next 12 to 36 months, we are going to kick things up a notch by doing some things that are familiar, some others that are evolutionary, as well as some that are revolutionary.

The familiar:

• Funding D&I efforts, such as education and external partnerships,
• Supporting BRAN activities, and
• Developing and retaining diverse talent.

The evolutionary: accelerated embedding of D&I through higher levels of manager commitment and BRANs cross-collaboration to create business results.

The revolutionary: an accelerated use of technology, social media and innovative ideas, matched with a culture of open-mindedness, Intercultural expertise and collaboration to reach our objectives.

For example, the Campbell and Pepperidge Farm chapters of Our Pride Employee Network (OPEN) hosted a booth at the Equality Forum "Out" festival. OPEN handed out a mix of V8 Fusion, Sparkling Fusion, V8 Energy, PF Goldfish, Cookies and Crackers and Swanson Flavor Boost varieties with Recipe cards.  Additionally, the Network conducted a survey to acquire demographic data about the LGBT community and its allies regarding attitudes towards Campbell and its products.

Our goal in the social media arena is to “step and breathe” – first make connections, gain insights and then collaborate with company departments on projects that generate business. The possibilities are exciting!

How We Will Measure Success

As most leaders know, D&I management consists of formal and informal processes, policies and practices built in to effectively manage commonalities and differences among all organizational stakeholders in a manner that delivers value to the organization. It's a mouthful but it's meant to be expansive and a testament to the rich diversity of our organizational talent.

Evolving from diversity and inclusion to impact, the final all-important rung requires an accelerated effort in benchmarking, educating and networking.

Benchmarking: Diversity and inclusion must be managed against clear benchmarks addressing some of our most important organizational challenges like innovation and human capital, two key challenges for all corporations today. D&I connects the two! A diverse team means many more ideas, different perspectives and a continual cycle of innovation. We want to go beyond compliance. This means leveraging information from Equal Employment and Affirmative Action Programs and Employee Life-Cycle analysis with anecdotal and quantitative date to determine the how, what and why of decisions.

We not only position ourselves to limit liability, cost, turnover and missed opportunities; we also facilitate an inclusive, innovative culture that becomes the standard by which others are measured.

Educating: We want to establish Intercultural expertise as a core competency for leaders so that all employees have the opportunity to achieve their full potential on the job. Challenged to bring D&I education to our plants and to remote employees, we will launch a Diversity E-Learning Course. This training will provide learning insights around inclusive behaviors that promote individual and team productivity. As part of Managing the Campbell Way, our goal is to provide behavioral reflections to managers regarding work climates that improve manager quality.

Connecting: We want to create networks within and outside our company to generate insights, to build affinity and to foster innovation among our team members. Currently, BRANs operate relatively independently. Cross-network interaction and cooperation have not been maximized. Our goal is to increasingly leverage the insights of BRAN members internally to spur innovation and to share their value with an increasingly diverse external marketplace.

Which brings me to measurement: How will we measure the success of the journey from diversity to inclusion to impact?

By measuring the level of diversity (the mix, representation, and varied skills and perspectives of people), the breadth and depth of inclusion (people being respected, engaged, and challenged), and improved business results that we generate for our organization.

That is the Campbell way. That is creating shared value.

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Previously:

Nourishing our Planet: 50 Interviews, 5 [Sustainability] Priorities

Nourishing our Consumers: Measuring Success Against a Constantly Moving Target

Nourishing Our Neighbors: Audacious CSR Goals Demand Revolutionary Ideas

About Kevin Carter:

Kevin A. Carter is the Director, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) for the Campbell Soup Co., founder of Inclusion Innovates and a blogger for Inclusion to Innovation and Building the Expo. With Campbell‘s, his current focus is D&I strategy development; managing the company’s Business Resource Affinity Networks; designing and facilitating D&I leading and learning sessions for organizational units on IDI (intercultural developmental inventory) and LIFO (Life Orientations); D&I HR integration and D&I reputation management. With Inclusion Innovates, his “disruptive inclusion” theory and “inclusion innovation” process reflects his belief that the integration of diversity, Intercultural competence and social media technologies leads to breakthrough innovation and business value.

Kevin is also the co-chair of the Conference Board Diversity Leadership Council and the chair of the Diversity Metrics Workgroup of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) Diversity Standards Taskforce. These committees are developing standards and the "new normal" in the diversity and inclusion field.

The term solar thermal has been used to describe two different types of systems. One is where solar panels are used to collect heat, which is used directly as domestic or process hot water, space heating, or in some cases, air conditioning. This most basic form of solar energy utilization, called solar heating and cooling (SHC), was covered in a previous post.

The other, very different type of solar thermal system involves concentrating solar collectors that focus the sunlight, amplifying its intensity, to achieve very high temperatures that can be converted to steam to drive an otherwise conventional thermal power plant or heat engine. This is generally called concentrating solar power (CSP), which is what we are going to discuss today.

According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), there are three basic types of CSP systems: linear concentrator, dish/engine, and power tower systems.

Linear concentrators are curved panels that reflect and focus the sun’s rays onto a tube that runs the length of the panel. The tube contains a fluid that heats up creating steam which is used to drive a turbine. The two main configurations are the parabolic trough type, where the tube runs along the focal line, and the linear fresnel type, which uses Fresnel lenses to collimate the reflected beam such that one receiver tube can be positioned over several mirrors. This type provides greater mobility in tracking the sun and is also less expensive.

Dish/engine systems

Dish engine systems are generally smaller in scale than linear concentrators, ranging from 3-25 kW. They consist of a circular parabolic disk mirror that track the position of the sun and focus its rays onto a power conversion unit which is located along an axis extending outward from the center of the disk at the appropriate focusing distance, which is based on the curvature of the disk. The power conversion unit consists of a thermal receiver and a heat engine. The thermal receivers absorb the heat reflected from the mirror and transfer it to the heat engine. The heat engine used most commonly is the Stirling engine. Stirling engines, unlike internal combustion engines, are heated externally, and do not require the internal explosions that characterize the engines under the hoods of most cars today. Because they can be heated by any of a number of energy sources, including concentrated solar, they are far cleaner and potentially far cheaper to operate than fossil fuel powered engines. Their biggest drawback is that they are slow to respond to changes, making them unsuitable for vehicular use (except perhaps in a hybrid system where they might be used to recharge a battery).

Finally, there are the perhaps the most impressive and most scalable systems, the power towers. Power towers, also known as point-focus central receiver systems, are similar to dish/engine systems, except there is one central engine surrounded by many dishes that all focus onto it. The heated receiver produces steam, which is then used to power a conventional turbine-generator. Two 10 megawatt projects were successfully demonstrated in the U.S., back in the 90s. Spain has also deployed several units up to 20MW (pictured), the most recent using molten salt for energy storage and transfer. In 2009, eSolar launched a 5MW power tower plant, utilizing 24,000 mirrors. The DOE is currently developing a 200-megawatt molten-salt solar receiver panel for power tower technology. Two very large scale plants are also scheduled for completion next year, in the U.S.: BrightSource energy’s 392MW Ivanpah facility on the California-Nevada border, and SolarReserve’s 110MW Crescent Dunes facility, northwest of Las Vegas.

More are on the way. Saudi Arabia recently announced plans to invest $109 billion in solar power, with an eye towards generating some 41 GW, up to a third of their projected demand for the year 2030. Details are not yet known, but it will almost surely involve power tower facilities.

Unlike solar PV and solar heating and cooling, which both take advantage of the fact that the sun shines everywhere and rely on an inherently distributed model, CSP, clearly adheres to the more traditional centralized utility model, where power is transmitted over long distances from a capital-intensive central utility, where it will be sold to ratepayers.

Concentrating solar power

Pros

• Renewable. No fuels required.


• Non-polluting. Carbon-free except for production and transportation.


• Can serve as a drop-in replacement for conventional fuels to make steam


• Operating costs are low


• Can utilize thermal storage to better match supply with demand


• High efficiency


• Scalable to the 100MW+ level

Cons

• Intermittent


• Low energy density


• Slightly more expensive than solar PV


• Construction/installation costs can be high


• Relatively new technology involved


• Hard to compete against very cheap natural gas


• They require a considerable amount of space


• Some people find them unattractive


• Manufacturing processes often create pollution


• Heavily location dependent


• Will involve significant transmission distances/losses

While expensive, and far from simple, CSP holds the promise of  clean energy source that can be produced at scales comparable to coal or nuclear, under the appropriate conditions. While still subject to intermittency, it has been suggested that improved thermal energy storage solutions may hold the key to the long term success of CSP.

 

***

What about other energy sources?

• Pros and Cons of Wind Power


• Pros and Cons of Fusion Power


• Pros and Cons of Tar sands oil


• Pros and Cons of Solar Heating and Cooling


• Pros and Cons of Concentrating Solar Power


• Pros and Cons of Solar photovoltaics


• Pros and Cons of Natural Gas


• Pros and Cons of Fuel Cell Energy


• Pros and Cons of Biomass Energy


• Pros and Cons of Combined Heat and Power


• Pros and Cons of Clean Coal


• Pros and Cons of Algae Based Biofuel


• Pros and Cons of Liquid Flouride Thorium Power


• Pros and Cons of Tidal Power


• Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy

[Image credit: Tom Raftery: Flickr Creative Commons]

 

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

In our latest piece in the run-up to Sustainable Brands 2012, Kevin Whilden answers our questions around the implications of climate change on the world’s oceans and how the business community can help nurture a sustainability social framework to garner widespread change towards a more sustainable culture.

Whilden president & co-founder of Sustainable Surf, a company that works with key players within the surfing industry to dramatically improve the environmental performance of their products and services. 

What do you think is the most pressing environmental threat facing our planet today? (And what do you foresee the implications being if these threats are not addressed?)

Kevin Whilden: As a surfer, CO2 emissions directly threaten surfing itself. Ocean acidification and ocean warming will make coral reef ecosystems become extinct by 2050, and so much good surf depends on coral reefs. Also, sea level rise will create a “Permanent High Tide” condition at surf breaks, and any surfers knows that high tide generally swamps out the waves at most breaks.

As a scientist, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the biggest environmental threat by far, and not just because of climate change affecting society. The biggest impact from human CO2 emissions occurs in the oceans, where ocean acidification is happening at a rate unprecedented in geologic history.  

This will harm the base of the food web, because half of the plankton in the ocean form their shells from calcium carbonate that is sensitive to an acidified ocean.  Ocean stratification is another impact of rapid global warming and this is one of the likely triggers of most major mass extinctions in geologic history.

What kind of revolutionary action needs to be taken to avoid global climate change devastation?

KW: As a global society, we need to reduce human CO2 emissions and learn how to enhance the biogeochemical systems of the Earth to naturally remove CO2 at a much faster rate. That’s the big picture, and we are quite far from it, although there were many ancient and native cultures that had this skill and the wisdom to use it wisely.

The immediate need for action is to develop a social framework that makes reducing CO2 emissions actually fun. Think about it. Very few people think solving this problem can be enjoyable, and it’s easy to ignore something that isn’t fun or immediately beneficial. Until that changes, it’s going to be hard to fight the special interests that want to prevent action on CO2 emissions.

We started Sustainable Surf to create a social group of surfers that can tackle CO2 emissions head-on while living a fun and healthy lifestyle. The solutions are well known, such as reduced consumption, conservation of natural resources, green business innovation, energy efficiency, and permaculture. Most surfers and surf companies are quite receptive to these solutions because it fits with the lifestyle, and many do them already. Ultimately, we believe that the surfing culture can become a global role model for sustainability. We are working with surf companies, pro surfers, surfing NGOs, academics, students, and surfers themselves to create sustainable solutions throughout surf culture.

How is sustainability key to business success? (What do you see as the cost/benefit of choosing to be a sustainability leader?)

KW: The surf brands that we work with view sustainability as highly desirable, but producing a sustainable product does generally cost more. This is a barrier when margins are tight, but also sales of sustainable products are strong because surf brands are quite good at marketing the story of sustainability. The surf culture naturally accepts it and wants it.

The challenges that we see are helping surf brands understand the full value of sustainability. Most brands could use help with evaluating the business benefits of the sustainability actions they take. For example, we were thrilled to see how much excitement employees of Reef had regarding our Waste to Waves program, which has significant value for employee retention, morale, and inspiration. We are currently working with some brands to develop comprehensive evaluation programs of their sustainability actions.

How can businesses take steps to be more innovative for sustainability?

​​​​​​​KW: The big leap that needs to happen is for businesses to become more connected with other stakeholders in sustainability, such as consumers, NGOs, academics, and even government. The communication and feedback between brands and these stakeholders needs to strengthen, since everyone has a role to play in protecting the resources that we love.

Innovative companies can gain a competitive advantage from this if they are good at evaluating how the sustainability market and stakeholders evolve. This will help them create more competitive products and stories that sell them.

What is sustainable consumerism? (And what role do you see brands playing in sustainable consumption, leader or follower?)

​​​​​​​KW: This is a great question. The simple answer is “give back more than you take.” History shows this is possible on a societal level. For example, Native Americans would clear small sections of the forest with fire in order to grow food and other useful plants. However this would also greatly enhance the biologic productivity of the forest ecosystem itself.  

Both humans and non-humans received an increased benefit. In this modern world, an informed “sustainable consumer” should look for products that create significant societal benefits. Fair trade products are a good example. However consumers have limited power to influence which products create societal benefits. Ultimately, brands themselves need to take the lead in creating an integrated strategy to develop societal benefits as part of normal business. They also need to develop relationships with their consumers that tell this story and engage the consumers in the solutions.  Surfing brands have an advantage in this regard because they are so good at lifestyle marketing.

Some good examples of this in the surf community are: 

• Hurley’s support of the Ecology Center which trains local citizens on sustainable living
• Reef’s support of Waste to Waves which engages people to recycle styrofoam into new products like surfboards and to reduce the amount of plastic that enters the ocean
• Quiksilver’s support of the QuikScience Challenge which educates students on marine science and community service.
• Volcom’s Give Jeans A Chance which encourages kids to donate their used jeans to then be refurbished and given to people in need.

All of the above programs are great, and they are the first steps toward an integrated strategy for brands to develop benefits for society while also developing private benefits for shareholders.

How can the business community come together to make real, positive change? (And what are the risks or advantages for those who decide to collaborate with competitors to help drive change, rather than try to go it alone?)

​​​​​​​KW: Simply put, the brands need to realize the true nature of the threat to what they love, and they need to realize that they are in the leadership role.  The employees of surfing brands have a deep connection to the sport, and the people are truly working in a field that they love. This will make it easier for them to work together to solve global problems and create benefits for the common good.

Surfing is threatened by global environmental change more than any other action sport. In my lifetime, coral reef ecosystems could become extinct and sea level rise could swamp out most surf breaks at high tide. If we act, we can help future generations experience the same beautiful, clean waves and healthy ecosystems of our time. Surf brands need to engage on CO2 emissions, since this is the primary threat to surfing. If all of the major companies collaborated on solutions, we could make some real progress on meeting this threat.

What role do brands play in the shift to a sustainable economy? 

​​​​​​​KW: The economy is a byproduct of the lifestyles with which we all live. Surf brands are powerful lifestyle brands with an inherent connection to sustainability. They have the power to help define and promote sustainable lifestyles, particularly for the youth. That can reshape the economy to some extent if it inspires our future leaders to live a sustainable lifestyle.

Whilden will participate in a panel that will explore the relationships between brands and NGOs and the translation of sustainable business value metrics through the lens of surfing at the Sustainable Brand 2012 Conference June 4-7 in San Diego, CA.

Image credit: Pexels

When a company is “starring” on TriplePundit every couple of weeks it’s usually an indication that either a lot of CSR activity is going on there or that the company has a chronic CSR problem. In the case of Apple it seems unfortunately to be the latter. Last week in a very interesting article on HBR Blog, Prof. Gregory Unruh of Harvard offered the explanation that Apple has a reactive CSR strategy, which he described as the "Little Dutch Boy" Strategy. In other words, Apple bothers to act only when there’s a complaint or protest against the company, hoping like the little Dutch boy that poking its fingers in the holes in a dyke will stem the flow and let the company go back to concentrate on designing and selling great products.

While Prof. Unruh is certainly right about Apple’s reactive strategy, I believe the CSR problems of Apple go beyond its reactive strategy. Looking at the main issues Apple has been struggling with in the last couple of years, I identified 5 main problems that cause Apple to fail time and again when it comes to CSR:

1. Lack of stakeholder engagement strategy – Apple simply doesn’t believe it needs to engage stakeholders, not to mention having an engagement strategy. We can see it every time, from not sharing information with Greenpeace about why Greenpeace got it wrong about the power consumption of Apple’s North Carolina data center to not responding at first to Chinese environmental groups investigating pollution issues in Apple’s supply chain in China. Another example is Apple’s tendency to reply to questions from the media about working conditions issues in its supply chain with a generic reply, such as: “Apple is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base.“

These examples show that Apple is very reluctant to engage with any stakeholder that has a critical point of view of the company. The thing is that in all of these cases Apple had to change course eventually, revealing to everyone the information it didn’t want to share with Greenpeace in the first place, talking with the Chinese organizations and even providing more meaningful information to the media. If Apple will establish a strategic way to engage with stakeholders, just like Gap did successfully couple of years ago, it can save itself a lot of trouble.

2. Lack of triple bottom line thinking – Apple hasn’t really adopted the triple bottom line. For Apple it has usually been about maximizing its profits and addressing environmental and social issues as long as they didn’t make a significant impact on Apple’s income. Now, even when Apple claims to promote one of the other elements of the triple bottom line, like people for example, its practices show that it’s still really about the profits.

Take its supply chain – while Apple has a very progressive code of conduct, it also, as the New York Times reported, allows suppliers only the slimmest of profits, which often results in suppliers trying to cut corners, replacing expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or pushing their employees to work faster and longer. As Apple could see in the case of Foxconn, this approach can work for some time, but not for the long run. If Apple will start thinking about people and the planet as seriously as it thinks about profits, it might even find out that in the long run there’s no contradiction between these elements.

3. No CSR leadership or team – Unless you’re a company with a CEO devoted to CSR or an established CSR culture, you can’t really do CSR right without a dedicated CSR team. As Andrew Winston put it: “You need people to ride herd and drive the agenda — to do the cross-cutting analyses such as lifecycle assessments, to track and get a handle on the many diverse and complex issues, to present a unified front to employees and external stakeholders, to question business models and find new, heretical ways to operate and serve customers...the list goes on.”

4. Low level of transparency – While it is providing more information than many of its competitors (Amazon for example), Apple’s transparency is still far from being satisfactory. The company does not release a sustainability report, does not reply to the CDP surveys and, until recently, it also didn’t disclose the name of its suppliers or allow a third party to audit the working conditions in its supply chain. It’s time for Apple to stop being so hush-hush and start being more open about the way it does business.

5. Dated approach - Apple still doesn’t have a holistic approach when it comes to sustainability. You can easily see it on its website where there’s a separate page for environment, dedicated mainly to its footprint and a separate page for supplier responsibility, which is focusing on Apple’s supply chain. The division between social and environmental impacts is really out of date and even oil companies like Chevron now have a CSR page. All Apple has to do is to address its CSR approach just like an iPhone or iPad and remember to update it on regular basis.

Image credit: Unsplash

The term solar thermal has been used to describe two different types of systems. One is where solar panels are used to collect heat, which is used directly, as domestic or process hot water, space heating, or in some cases, air conditioning. This is really the most basic form of solar energy utilization, which is commonly known as solar heating and cooling (SHC). Technically, one could consider drying ones clothes on a clothesline at one end of the solar thermal energy spectrum, along with the passive solar energy that comes in through the window to warm your house on a cool spring day.

The other, very different type of system involves concentrating solar collectors focusing an intense beam on a vessel or pipe containing fluid, which is then converted to steam to drive an otherwise conventional thermal power plant. This is generally called concentrated solar power or CSP. We will cover this latter type in a separate post under the heading Concentrated Solar Power.

As for solar heating and cooling, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), this sector grew by 14 percent in 2010. A total of 162 billion kWh of heat was collected, making this second only to wind, of the new, clean tech renewables.

The vast majority of installed systems were in China and Europe which combined to account for 78.5 percent of the total capacity.

Most of these systems, 95 percent, were for domestic hot water only, primarily utilizing gravity flow, or thermo-siphoning. Only 11 percent required active pumping, making this technology ideally suited for installations both with and without electricity. All together, some 10.2 million square feet of thermal collectors were installed in 2009. There are a wide variety of systems available, ranging from sophisticated systems with vacuum tubes that interface with radiant floor heating, to simple home-brew systems that can be little more than pipes mounted on a black painted board.

For some reason these types of systems have not really caught on in the US. EIA shows sales more than doubling from 2000-2006, but declining since that time.

The EIA divides solar thermal into three categories, low temperature (primarily for swimming pool heaters), medium temperature (for domestic hot water), and high temperature (systems used by utilities to generate electricity. Most of the systems shipped in the US, some 73 percent, were for swimming pool heaters. In this article we are only considering low and medium temperature systems. These are sometimes referred to as 1x sun systems, meaning that the sunlight is not significantly amplified or concentrated.

I’m not sure why more people here don’t heat their hot water with solar. These systems can be quite inexpensive and simple and can pay for themselves fairly quickly, but somehow they seem to lack the luster of the far more expensive photovoltaic systems which are only one-third as efficient in delivering electricity than these systems are in delivering heat. Activity might be picking up though. One 138 unit apartment complex in Tucson just opted for solar hot water instead of PV. They worked with the manufacturer Free Hot Water in San Jose.  The system is expected to save $1200 per month and roughly 80,000 pounds of CO2 per year.

Solar cooling, though it sounds like an oxymoron, is actually quite real and can be very practical. It is based on the absorption cycle, the same principle that drove some of the earliest refrigerators and is still used in the propane refrigerators that are found in many RVs and trailers. Essentially, they use heat to compress the refrigerant in a fixed volume instead of a mechanical compressor. The rest of the cycle is basically the same; the cooling is produced as the compressed liquid as is expanded in the evaporator. (Think of how cold spray deodorant feels coming out of an aerosol can.) The great thing about solar cooling is that the energy is always available when you need it the most, when the sun is out. Most of these systems today are still complex and expensive so that they only make sense at a commercial scale.

For the most part, it’s easy to separate solar thermal systems and solar photovoltaic systems into two categories. But, there are new hybrid systems that combine both for cogeneration and even tri-generation, which produce electricity, heating and cooling. These systems are inherently more efficient than either system alone, since more useful energy is being extracted from the incoming sunlight. We covered one example of a company doing this, Naked Energy, last month.

Solar thermal: Heating and Cooling

Pros

• Renewable. No fuels required.


• Non-polluting. Carbon free except for production and transportation


• Inherently distributed with onsite production


• Simple, low maintenance


• Solar cooling is available when you need it most


• Hot water provide some limited storage capacity


• Operating costs are near-zero


• Quiet. Few or no moving parts.


• Mature technology


• Good ROI


• High efficiency


• Modular systems


• Can be combined with photovoltaics in highly efficient cogeneration schemes.

Cons

• Intermittent


• Low energy density


• Does not produce electricity


• Supplemental energy source or storage required for long sunless stretches


• Expensive compared to conventional water heaters


• Construction/installation costs can be high


• Harder to compete against very cheap natural gas


• Some people find them visually unattractive


• Manufacturing processes can create pollution


• Installers not available everywhere


• Generally not practical to store or sell excess heat


• Produce low grade energy (heat vs. electricity)


• Limited scalability


• Dependent on home location and orientation

These systems tend to be small scale and are certainly not the silver bullet to solve our energy challenge. After all, domestic water heating, comprises only 22 percent of residential energy consumption. On the other hand, these systems are available and affordable and if many more people started using them, it would make a huge difference, as one aspect of a multifaceted solution.

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***

What about other energy sources?

• Pros and Cons of Wind Power


• Pros and Cons of Fusion Power


• Pros and Cons of Tar sands oil


• Pros and Cons of Solar Heating and Cooling


• Pros and Cons of Concentrating Solar Power


• Pros and Cons of Solar photovoltaics


• Pros and Cons of Natural Gas


• Pros and Cons of Fuel Cell Energy


• Pros and Cons of Biomass Energy


• Pros and Cons of Combined Heat and Power


• Pros and Cons of Clean Coal


• Pros and Cons of Algae Based Biofuel


• Pros and Cons of Liquid Flouride Thorium Power


• Pros and Cons of Tidal Power


• Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy

[Image credit: Seattle.roamer: Flickr Creative Commons]

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

By Gerad Hoyt, docSTAR 

The paperless office – at this point it’s becoming a little cliché. We’ve all heard for years about how in the near future our society and business will become totally paperless. The truth is, we’ll probably never be paperless due to the many areas where digital simply can’t match the tried and true paper and pen. However, many parts of our society are still consuming far too much paper. Most paper consumption comes from an inability or unwillingness to change our ways, as well as a lack of clear incentives to entice a reduction in the usage of paper. The reality is, your paper is actually costing you dearly. Here’s some food for thought:

• The average worker in an office uses 10,000 sheets of paper annually.
• It can cost up to 31 times the original cost to send information on paper (printing, copying, postage, storage, filing, recycling, etc.).
• 7.5 billion documents are created and 15 trillion copies are made each year.
• The average four drawer cabinet costs about $25,000 to fill and $2,000 per year to maintain.

These stats are staggering but knowing that most offices simply cannot go 100 percent paperless, there are a few key techniques for incentivizing reduced paper consumption and technology that when applied over time and in conjunction have a dramatic impact.

1. Identify documents that can be maintained without paper The largest step you’ll need to take is to identify what documents and files need to have physical copies and which don’t. You can separate your files into those that are long term and those which are more transient in nature. The nature of your business will go a long way toward determining how much goes into either category. For example, anyone in a field with large amounts of regulations, like legal or insurance, will require that many of their files exist in physical forms which will limit the amount that can potentially be reduced.

2. Develop a strong records management policy and strategy While this is easier said than done, it’s a vital part of making sure that there is an organizational commitment that will drive your paper reduction. Once you’ve mapped out your document structures to how they should be maintained make it policy so that organizational change occurs. Without having a policy to enforce how to manage each type of document, your paperless strategy is bound to fail. Depending on how comprehensive you want to get and the amount of documents you need to work with you may want to consult with a records management expert.

3. Encourage the use of online resources Instead of keeping track of several calendars for work, school, home, etc., make use of programs such as Google’s online calendar, or Microsoft’s Office tools to share information, stay organized and be on time.  Google has a wide variety of services that can help you minimize paper consumption, and the best part: a lot of them are free! GoogleDocs, GoogleCalendar, Gmail, etc. allows you to communicate easily, create and store files online, and has a behemoth amount of space available.  There is a plethora of online tools that can help you stay organized and paper-free. To name a few: Dropbox allows you to store and share data files with multiple people, and can edit from any computer; Prezi is an online presentation program (similar to, but a little more interactive than PowerPoint) that you can easily share with a quick copy and paste of a link.

4. Get an electronic document storage system Depending on the size of your organization, the options above may not work for you or really be able to handle the mass you produce. The system doesn’t need to be overly complex or advanced, it just needs to be able to serve the requirements of your organization. The key to choosing a correct system for document management is to know your organizational needs well, ensure the system is user friendly and that it has a commitment to usage.

5. Make Recycling a Must Not only does this mean throwing yesterday’s newspaper in the bin, or breaking down cardboard boxes; use scrap paper! Find little ways to recycle what paper you do actually use. Write down your daily list of things to do on the back of this week’s grocery receipt; print on the free side of a single sided sheet.  Bring it up in an office meeting, share ideas, give rewards!

6. Spread the word! Whether it’s in the office, or casually with friends, or in a deliverance speech to one of your clients, spread the word about how you feel about going paperless. This will encourage others to research, and follow suite, as well as help keep you conscious of your progress. In striving to reduce the amount of paper we use daily, we make a stronger effort to keep our planet healthy, our bills low and our time well-spent. People are constantly looking to educate others about the positive effects going paper-less has, as well as finding new ways and techniques to do so.  

With the endless amounts of tools and help out there, a good way to do your part is to stay current on what’s new, and to share your knowledge with others to keep the!

Image credit: Unsplash

Patagonia has long been a sustainability leader, and pokes its competitors in the eye with programs, from asking consumers to buy less to working with fisheries to the preservation of salmon populations while rolling out new snacks. Now the outdoor clothing and gear company is pushing supply chain transparency to a new level.

Now Patagonia has released its Footprint Chronicles, one tool to help customers and stakeholders learn more about the the company’s global operations and suppliers. The interactive map allows visitors to click on locations of the company’s textile mills and factories all over the world.

Clicking on the map offers a quick snapshot of each cog in Patagonia’s extensive supply chain. Users learn how long the mill or factory has worked with Patagonia, the number of workers and gender ratio, languages spoken and what items are produced within the facility. The very curious who may just happen to be in the area can even glean the address of the factory in question. Over time more information will be available for perusal by visitors to the site.

Patagonia’s steps towards greater transparency pairs well with the company’s Reference Library, which not only educates customers about the various textiles the company sources, but anyone interested in more sustainable fashion can download information. An explanation on a bevy of alternatives from bamboo as a substitute for rayon to chlorine-free wool and hemp are on offer.

Life is going to be tougher and more uncomfortable for more clothing companies thanks to Patagonia’s increasing disclosure. Not long ago it was enough for a company to say they were “doing better” and were “exploring alternatives” to current business practices. Then came the demands for increased disclosures about its supply chain. Now lists of factories and percentages of successful ethical audits will be insufficient.

Patagonia will soon push the boundaries even more once the Footprint Chronicles’ pages are linked to the company’s online shopping site. Customers who want to make decisions based on environmental or social issues will have access to sustainability benchmarking data and the full traceability of Patagonia’s products.

The clothing industry is now becoming more exciting, and more responsible, for the right reasons. The days of competing just on pricing and branding are slowly becoming eclipsed by who can be more responsible and disclose even more, and that can only be a positive change, especially for factory workers’ human rights abroad.

Image credit: Ajay Suresh/Flickr

Although the idea of using fuel cells to power cars or provide electricity for buildings has popped up fairly recently, the fuel cell itself has been around for a long time. The principle was discovered by Sir William Grove in 1839, though practical devices did not appear until more than a century later. In the late 1950’s Harry Karl Ihrig demonstrated a 20hp fuel cell powered tractor. Around the same time NASA began using fuel cells as a source of electricity for the space program, which led to significant improvements.

What exactly is a fuel cell? You can think of it as a battery that you add fuel to, in order to keep it going. The fuel, which is always combined with oxygen (or air) to produce electricity, can be as simple as hydrogen. This is the cleanest energy source we know of, since the only byproduct is distilled water. However, since neither of these two gases is found in nature in a pure state, they must be produced from some other source, such as air, water (through electrolysis), or hydrocarbon fuels (through reforming). Some fuel cells can run directly on hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen is not considered an energy source, but is instead called an energy carrier.

There are a variety of types of fuel cells, including: alkaline fuel cells (AFC), molten carbonate (MCFC), Proton exchange membrane (PEM) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), phosphoric acid (PAFC), and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC).

AFCs were originally used in the space program, Performance is high, but so is cost.

PAFCs were first generation fuel cells. Quite mature, they have been used to power buses as well as stationary applications. Cost is high and efficiency is relatively low.

PEM fuel cells are often used in vehicle applications because of their fast response time. Cost is a factor as they use platinum catalysts.

SOFCs used ceramics in their electrodes. They run at very high temperatures and do not require a catalyst.  Efficiency is good but startup time is slow, making them unsuitable for vehicle applications. They are used in stationary power applications like the Bloom Box.

DMFCs use liquid methanol as a fuel and is being developed for small applications like laptop and cell phone batteries.

MCFCs are high efficiency, resistant to contamination and can run on hydrocarbon fuels. They run at high temperatures and are being developed for utility applications. Because of high temperatures, durability is often an issue.

 

Fuel cells that operate at high temperatures are well-suited for combined heat and power (CHP) applications, which increase their overall efficiency. This could be done at a large industrial scale, or at the residential level. Imagine having a fuel cell in your basement that would take in gas and use it to produce both electricity and heat, as well as hot water in a highly efficient manner.

Pros

• High efficiency


• Clean. Carbon free when using H₂ and O₂.


• Can use renewable fuels


• Do not need recharging.


• Can run continuously (as long as fuel is available)


• Provides base load power (good complement to renewables)


• No moving parts


• No noise


• Certain types are well suited to CHP applications


• Fuel can be made from water which is abundant or many other things


• Highly scalable--cell phones to power plants.


• Well suited for distributed generation, eliminating distribution losses.


• Can be run in reverse for energy storage, producing hydrogen from electricity and water

Cons

• High cost due to expensive materials like platinum


• Requires fuel


• Reliability still evolving.


• Durability, particularly at high temperatures.


• Robustness. Many are sensitive to temperature and contamination.


• Hydrogen fuel not readily available


• Little (but growing) infrastructure for hydrogen delivery


• Safety concerns with hydrogen (though it is less dangerous than gasoline)


• Low density of fuel, compared to gasoline


• Could become irrelevant if batteries got good enough

A great deal of research is still being done on fuel cells, so we can expect to see them continuing to improve, and quite possibly become a serious player in our overall energy mix. Just today, the DOE allocated $2.5 million to develop a fleet of fuel cell-powered cargo vehicles for airports.

***

What about other energy sources?

• Pros and Cons of Wind Power


• Pros and Cons of Fusion Power


• Pros and Cons of Tar sands oil


• Pros and Cons of Solar Heating and Cooling


• Pros and Cons of Concentrating Solar Power


• Pros and Cons of Solar photovoltaics


• Pros and Cons of Natural Gas


• Pros and Cons of Fuel Cell Energy


• Pros and Cons of Biomass Energy


• Pros and Cons of Combined Heat and Power


• Pros and Cons of Clean Coal


• Pros and Cons of Algae Based Biofuel


• Pros and Cons of Liquid Flouride Thorium Power


• Pros and Cons of Tidal Power


• Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy

[Image credit: DECCgovk: Flickr Creative Commons]

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Biomass energy has been around since long before anyone spoke of renewables or alternative energy sources. There was a time when wood was the primary fuel for heating and cooking around the world. It is still used that way today, though in many fewer locations in countries like ours.

When we speak of biomass today, we are basically talking about several different applications:

1. Direct burning for domestic heat: This is the traditional method of burning wood, peat, dung, etc., for cooking and heat. It is still widely used, especially in developing countries where it is responsible for many respiratory illnesses and deaths.

2.  Electric generation: Biomass is used to feed a boiler which then provides steam to a turbine which is connected to a generator. Feedstocks are mainly forest wood residues, and urban/industrial waste wood. EIA predicts that by 2020, biomass will produce 0.3 percent of the projected 5,476 billion kilowatt hours of total generation. Roughly 19,786,000 Mw hrs of electricity were created from biomass last year.

3. Co-generation: Essentially the same as item #2 above, with the addition that useful heat is withdrawn from the process, improving its efficiency in a combined heat and power (CHP) arrangement.

4. Gasification: The biomass is heated in an environment where it breaks down into a flammable gas. After the gas is cleaned and filtered, it can then be used as natural gas, usually in a combined cycle turbine. Feedstocks used primarily include forest and agricultural residues.

5. Anaerobic Digestion: The biomaterials go through a fermentation process that converts the organic materials into biogas, which is mostly methane (60%) and carbon dioxide (40%) biogas. Converting methane into CO2 and water by burning it is a net positive from a greenhouse gas (GHG) perspective, since methane is a much more potent GHG than CO2. Enzymatic digestion and other catalysts are used to enhance conversion. Suitable fuels are organic materials with high moisture content such as animal manure or food processing waste. Landfill gas which is siphoned off of active landfills can also be considered part of this category, though, in this case, there are concerns about toxins released, though some technologies claim to eliminate many of them.

6. Biofuels: This category includes any kind of biomass that is converted into liquid fuel, primarily for transportation. Most common are ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be produced from food crops such as corn in this country, sugar cane in Brazil and sugar beets in Europe. “Cellulosic” ethanol can also be made from wood or paper waste as well as specially grown grasses such as switchgrass or from agriculture residues. Biodiesel is generally made from animal fats or vegetable oils. Much “homegrown” biodiesel is made from recycled restaurant grease. Commercially, soybean oil is used in the US, rapeseed and sunflower oil in Europe, and palm oil in Malaysia. Algae-based biofuel is a special case, which we covered in a separate posting. While convenient for transportation, biofuels require considerably more energy to produce than biomass.

Biomass is often advertised as carbon neutral or nearly carbon neutral, but this can be misleading. It is true that the carbon released upon burning it was only recently (in relative terms) pulled out of the atmosphere, so it can be viewed as returning what was already there before the plant came up. But any additional carbon emitted in cultivating, harvesting and transporting the fuel, which can be considerable, is incremental to that. The less carbon emitted in these stages of production, the closer the resulting fuel is to carbon neutrality. There is also the question of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, if used, and the energy and resources used and carbon emitted in producing them.

Biomass Energy Pros and Cons:

Pros

• Truly a renewable fuel


• Widely available and naturally distributed


• Generally low cost inputs


• Abundant supply


• Can be domestically produced for energy independence


• Low carbon, cleaner than fossil fuels


• Can convert waste into energy, helping to deal with waste

Cons

• Energy intensive to produce. In some cases, with little or no net gain.


• Land utilization can be considerable. Can lead to deforestation.


• Requires water to grow


• Not totally clean when burned (NOx, soot, ash, CO, CO2)


• May compete directly with food production (e.g. corn, soy)


• Some fuels are seasonal


• Heavy feedstocks require energy to transport.


• Overall process can be expensive


• Some methane and CO2 are emitted during production


• Not easily scalable

While biomass seems compelling at first blush, given that it is renewable and can be domestically produced, there are a number of drawbacks that make it far from a perfect solution. Primarily, as our population continues to grow, the competition for arable land and water needed for food production is going to make a number of these options unsuitable. That doesn’t mean that biomass cannot and should not play a role in our overall energy picture for some time to come. The most attractive and efficient options are those that utilize existing waste materials as inputs, which is, after all, the way nature operates. There are a number of these options that utilize forestry, agricultural, and even industrial waste (e.g. paper) as well, as trash found in landfills and recycled nutrients from waste water treatment facilities. Not only are these more efficient input sources, but in many cases using them will also help to address waste disposal issue. It could be argued, though, that in the future, many of these same materials might be needed for compost, particularly as the production of phosphorus, a key ingredient in fertilizer, begins to decline.

***

Learn about the future of biofuels here.

What about other energy sources?

• Pros and Cons of Wind Power


• Pros and Cons of Fusion Power


• Pros and Cons of Tar sands oil


• Pros and Cons of Solar Heating and Cooling


• Pros and Cons of Concentrating Solar Power


• Pros and Cons of Solar photovoltaics


• Pros and Cons of Natural Gas


• Pros and Cons of Fuel Cell Energy


• Pros and Cons of Biomass Energy


• Pros and Cons of Combined Heat and Power


• Pros and Cons of Clean Coal


• Pros and Cons of Algae Based Biofuel


• Pros and Cons of Liquid Flouride Thorium Power


• Pros and Cons of Tidal Power


• Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy

[Image credit: OakRidgeLabNews:Flickr Creative Commons]

 

RP Siegel, PE, is the President of Rain Mountain LLC. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

For consumers worldwide, values are the new currency and purpose is the new paradigm. You might think this sentence was taken from the Occupied Wall Street Journal, but actually this is a quote from the latest goodpurpose study, Edelman’s annual global research study that explores consumer attitudes around social purpose. This research is an impressive effort (8,000 participants) to figure out how important purpose and values really are to consumers. The study found that purpose has a growing importance among consumers – “the power of Purpose is driving consumer preference and loyalty in a world where trust in corporations is low and differentiation between brands is negligible.”

For example, 53 percent of the responders said that when quality and price are the same, social purpose is the most important factor for them, up from 41 percent in 2010. Also, 47 percent reported that they make purchases of cause-supporting brands ‘at least monthly’ compared to only 32 percent in 2010. The study has some valuable lessons both for consumers and companies. Here are five of them:

1. Don’t take people’s word when it comes to paying premium on green products

According to the report 43 percent of the consumers are willing to pay a premium for purpose. The numbers are higher in developing countries like China (80%), India (71%) and Brazil (55%) and lower in more developed countries like Japan (29%) or UK (29%). My advice to companies would be to read these figures with a grain of salt. Usually the assumption is that about 10 percent of the consumers will pay premium for green products (see BBMG’s New Consumers research for example). Given the global economic environment and especially when 85 percent of the respondents report being affected by the global recession, there’s a better chance the average number now is lower than 10 percent, certainly not higher.

2. The bull and the bear

The report presents an interesting differentiation between Rapid Growth Economies (RGEs), including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, UAE and Brazil, which are bullish on purpose, and “Bear” Markets, like the US and Western Europe. RGE consumers have much higher expectations of and engagement with brands and corporations on societal issues, whereas levels commitment to purpose and values seem to be lower in developed countries. This is not the first study showing this trend, although it seems to be more reflective of respondent attitudes than in actual behavior. We’ll have to wait for further research before we can really establish who is a bull and who is a bear when it comes to intention.

3. Companies need to do more, but also need to communicate more effectively

According to the report, while 87 percent of global consumers believe that business needs to place at least equal weight on society’s interests as on business’ interests, less than a third believe business is performing well at addressing societal issues. “This performance gap is likely to drive disillusionment, disengagement and outright distrust from consumers,” the report explains.

This finding presents three challenges to companies: First, companies need to act more sustainably or as Paul Polman puts it, “to recognize that the needs of citizens and communities carry the same weight as the demands of shareholders.” Second, when a company already acts, it needs to make sure that consumers know about it – how many buyers of Dove soaps know about Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan? How many customers of M&S know about its Plan A? Third and this might be the trickiest one, companies should learn to communicate effectively – the problem is that while consumers have higher expectations from companies, they don’t trust them too much. So companies that act and want to spread the word about their good work should find how to communicate smartly to make sure consumers not only get exposed to the news, but also find it reliable.

4. What should companies be doing anyway?

For companies that wonder what consumers are expecting them to be doing, exactly, the report provides answers. Approximately half of respondents believe organizations should donate a portion of profits (51%) and products or services (50%), while 49% believe companies should be creating a product or service that helps address a societal issue. They also think companies should be providing educational information (47%), partnering with NGOs (43%), and somewhat surprising – working with the government (45%).

5. The power of the sticks

According to the report, consumers are willing to praise those brands and corporations that support a good cause, and they will also punish those that do not. I have a feeling that companies are paying more attention to the sticks so they might want to pay attention to the favorite ways customers use to punish those companies that don’t actively support a good cause: refuse to buy products (44%), criticize it to others (44%), share negative opinions and experiences (44%), not want to work for it (48%) and not invest in it (53%).

As we can learn from the case Apple, where its sales set a new record last quarter alongside a waterfall of accusations about the working conditions at Foxconn, boycotts doesn’t seem to be too popular, no matter what people say. Still, the example of Apple shows that the power of online protests is no less and might be even greater than the power of boycotting.

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